Post by f6k[snip]
yes i got it right. the GUIDE says it's good to look at begin and
bstart to see the differences; which i did!
Post by Joe RosevearHave fun, and know that you are truly a trail blazer for trying SAM. I
have used it for years, and it has perhaps been downloaded from
SourceForge hundreds of times (if you trust the figures), but you are
the first person to tell me that you have tried it.
well it is fun, yes. and what i really find interesting is how it is
different from my everyday workflow on my computer.
i'll take an analogy to explain. i recently found myself browsing the
N-Wheeled Vehicules Museum on douglas-self.com[1]. i'm not much into
cars myself but, like everyone else, i know what is a car because, you
know, i see them everyday since i'm born. and a car *is* a car, and
look like one, because... well, you know, it's a car! a "box", four
wheels, the best way to make them, my friend! but with that page i
came to realize cars could have been very different. i'm amazed for
instance by the 3-wheels and 5-wheels cars. but we all have 4-wheels
now because, somehow, someone, some industry, made some choices. and
because of that i take now for granted that a car is a box with
4-wheels to be a "car".
[1]: http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/TRANSPORT/nwheelcar/nwheelcar.htm
yeah, what a dumb epiphany right? i know i look like an idiot but my
point is that, because i'm not much into cars, i never even tried to
imagine how they could be different.
conversely, i'm a computer guy and i like to interact with them. i
tried many many windows managers, many desktop managers, to see how
other OS/culture/etc. do things. inspired by 9plan, NEXTSTEP, Apple,
some that came out of the blue; tiled, windowed, in 3D; you name it, i
probably tried it.
and when it comes to CLI, it's more difficult to find something
"different" since i'm always using UNIX/DOS related systems. for
instance, i never used (and probably never will) DOMAIN/OS but i know i
could find my way in it. recently i made some slackware archeology,
booting in qemu slackware-1.01 with linux 0.99pl12. it's fun, things
smells old enough, thank you, but the interaction with the system
doesn't differ much from what i'm used to on my slackware 14.2.
obviously, it's still UNIX-ish.
again my point is, i know that somehow, someone, some industry made
some choices which result in a specific way of using my machine. and i
find it interesting that SAM is some kind of a layer, on top of that,
that allow me to see how we could do (or could have done) things
differently. i mean you use coreutils, scripts, menus, mailcap, etc.,
but the interaction with the system is quite different.
On close examination you will see that all I have done (in summary) is:
1. Implemented a stack of environments.
2. Made tools which push and pop environments to and from the stack
in such a way that the concept of a "synthetic shell" emerges.
3. Made tools which change the prompt and PATH in such a way that
the concept of a "dir as a menu" emgerges. That menu includes
executables in the dir as well as functions defined by files
"<name>.sam".
Post by f6kand for me,
that's where the fun is, and that's why i tried it :)
Post by Joe RosevearYou made my day! I wish you success!
love; success-to-you-too; regards; bye; bye
-f6k
Thank you for your interesting reply, and forgive me for me lapse.
At first I didn't know what to say. I was surprised at first that you
put SAM in the category of "a different way to use the CLI." So I
thought about it for a few days, and decided that you are absolutely
right.
To me SAM is just Bash. Bash in all its glory. To me the only thing
that makes SAM different is its recursive nature--I have made command
line tools that help one to make, use and document command line tools.
It is perhaps radical in that sense. And the syntax that results from
this is, yes, very different.
I don't think about it much, because it has become familiar to me, but
some examples will reveal SAM's nature:
1. To backup a flashdrive to a loop device file using ddrescue
initially, and rsync for subsequent backups:
/mnt/200810aa2/begin
backup
mount /dev/<target device> /mnt/zip
cd /mnt/zip
dd_back /dev/<flash drive device>
2. To print my (starter) grocery list in preparation for deciding
what I need to get from the store:
/mnt/200810aa2/begin
pdata; shop_lst; either; prn_lst
3. To listen to WFMU on Internet radio using Audacious in the Fvwm
X-Windows manager:
startx
<Left-click on the Fvwm desktop and choose from the menu "My
Buttons", and then choose from the sub-menu "/mnt/200810aa2/begin">
<At the SAM prompt of the resulting xterm...>
bound /mnt/joresorc/radio
wfmu
4. To record my time when at work:
<start Fvwm and SAM as shown in (3)>
<At the SAM prompt of the resulting xterm...>
bound /mnt/joresorc/fmenu
iftask hours
<openoffice4 -calc runs and opens a spreadsheet. It displays data
which includes the current state of the hours I have already entered
tallied by task (columns) and time task was begun (rows). To add or
change data, press "ctrl+q" to leave openoffice4, then enter...>
y
<Enter data as needed in the JOE editor session that opens in each
of three xterms (they have different uses) that open in
succession--exiting from one opens the next. After the last one the
spreadsheet opens again. When done respond with a "n" instead of a
"y".>
Perhaps what this shows about SAM is that it is flexible, powerful, and
useful, if not somewhat tedious to implement. (If you like to write
Bash, then the tedium is a plus!) Also revealed here is the great range
of possible applications for SAM.
So, yes, SAM does perhaps belong in a museum, but not placed there and
then forgotten.
-Joe