Slashdot Mirror
Command Line for the Web
flood6 writes "SearchEngineWatch offers a look at a new method of interacting with the Internet, YubNub. This 'social command line for the web' lets users create commands that interact with websites. Currently, most of the commands apply to search, but new commands could work with any site that accepts variables passed with HTML's GET command. For example, iap moon would search the Internet Archive for all media related to 'moon'."
I haven't RTFA, but the example in the summary sounds pretty much like quick searches anyway.
Oh no... it's the future.
The solution to this should be obvious: namespaces.
i.e. Have a basic set of commands. These are available to all users. Then allow users to register accounts on the system. Each account comes with its own namespace. New commands can be created and shared with the world under your namespace, then can be promoted to the basic set when they become popular enough.
For example, if I created a command that searched the web for the best pepperjack cheese, I could share it as:When it gets promoted to the basic set, then I can type:See? Easy.
Now I just have to figure out what someone would do with this tool.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Now that that's been taken care of, I'd like to say that this is an interesting idea. As a sysadmin I spend a lot of time in a terminal and though this has not been integrated into the terminal yet, the idea of being able to run a web search through a command line interface makes me happy.
I can just imagine:
Now what would be even cooler: You know the console from all the first person shooter games like Quake and Half-Life. Really simple, just hit Tilda and it slides down the top third of the screen. The quake 3 one even has some nifty open GL moving background. Anyway, my point is, how come to get a console in Windows I have to hit WIN+R, "CMD", [Enter]. Not fair. I've searched near and far and havent found any such console for Windows or Linux.
If a fellow slashdotter could point me in the right direction I would greatly apreciate it. I know this is a good idea, and I know I'm not the only one who would love such a program. It would be so nice to simply hit ~, run your ipconfig command, then ~ again and go back to what you were doing.
Aardwolf
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
if you do an ls of available commands, a lot of the commands are advertisements for blogs.
Just bookmark any page that is from a GET query. E.g. an IMDB search for "Batman Begins" gives you this:
b egins
http://www.imdb.com/Find?select=All&for=batman%20
Modify the properties of the bookmark, replacing "batman%20begins" with %s. This is a placeholder.
Give the bookmark a keyword, such as "imdb."
Now you can type "imdb X" in the url bar in firefox, hit enter, and it will do a search for whatever you enter for "X." Much easier than using yubnub.org.
I have bookmark searches setup for all kinds of stuff. Whois, nslookup, tracert, imdb, dictionary, gg (google groups), gi (google image), gm (google maps), yyp (Yahoo Yellow Pages), the list goes on and on. Any URL that accepts query words will work for you.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
The solution to this should be obvious: namespaces.
There's no need for a formal "promotion" step. Commands could propogate the same was as del.icio.us bookmarks. Popular ones can collect in the "popular" namespace. If you know someone who creates good commands, you can list or subcribe to what's available in their namespace. If you really like somethiing, you can copy to your own which would bump up its popularity rating.
Here's the documentation for their system if you aren't familiar already.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest