A Guided Tour of the Microsoft Command Shell

jpkunst writes "Ryan Paul at Ars Technica provides an in-depth, 13 page review of the new Microsoft Command Shell (Monad). (The beta release can be downloaded for free from Microsoft.) From the conclusion: 'Despite my initial skepticism, I am deeply impressed with MSH technology, and I am legitimately excited about the future of the Windows command line.'"

Comments

The true meaning of "msh"

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows that "msh" really stands for "Microsoft Hell".

Re:The true meaning of "msh"

[canuck57]

Everyone knows that "msh" really stands for "Microsoft Hell".

And once people realize it is crippled there will be a gsh (Gate Shell) and a bsh (Ballmer Shell) as equally handycaped as the msh. A legal suit will follow from Google for gsh but the bsh will last.

Wouldn't it be easier just to get a copy of Linux and call it MS-Linux? I thought Microsoft thought all of UNIX/POSIX was crap and you didn't need a shell?

Re:The true meaning of "msh"

[Anonymous Coward]

And once people realize it is crippled there will be a gsh (Gate Shell) and a bsh (Ballmer Shell) as equally handycaped as the msh. A legal suit will follow from Google for gsh but the bsh will last.

In Ballmer Shell, you can interrupt a running process using the fucking-kill command, as in:

fucking-kill gsh

Chair-throwing is completely optional.

Re:The true meaning of "msh"

[borawjm]

so shouldn't the command prompt for msh be something like this?

$>

or maybe a few more...

$$$>

ah, what the heck...

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$>

Re:The true meaning of "msh"

[kurosawdust]

And once people realize it is crippled there will be a gsh (Gate Shell) and a bsh (Ballmer Shell) as equally handycaped as the msh. A legal suit will follow from Google for gsh but the bsh will last.

bsh> developers
developers

bsh> developers
developers

bsh> developers
YEAH!

Re:The true meaning of "msh"

[Tuxedo Jack]

You obviously don't remember XENIX, which MS developed, then sold to SCO. I happen to have a box of floppies containing that in front of me now.

It's like Satan took a dump, then a sewer mucker found it, packaged it up in a nice shiny box, and sold it to the unsuspecting masses.

Re:The true meaning of "msh"

[Anonymous Coward]

Snippet of Ballmer msh script:

if( (errcode = programmer.exits()) == GOOGLE){

        fsck Erik.Schmidt; // XXX old-fashioned code, must rewrite
        kill Erik.Schmidt;
        kill Erik.Schmidt;
        fsck Erik.Schmidt;
        fsck; fsck; fsck;

        jump.on( Erik.Schmidt.dead().body() );
        bury ( Erik.Schmidt.dead().body() );

        through( Chair );

        order( new Chair() ); // XXX unreachable :(
}

Re:The true meaning of "msh"

[fava]

What about mash (Microsoft Again SHell) for when windows is broken and needs major emergency repair.

Quick! Open Source Monkeys Fly

[Anonymous Coward]

We must have a working implimentation of this shell in Gnome immediately.

I propose we call it Gonad.
It will be the dogs bollocks.

Re:Quick! Open Source Monkeys Fly

[tomhudson]

Your example is wrong. If a filename had spaces, your script would surely fail. With Monad using objects, it would encapsulate the filename into a single string object and therefor be opened up correctly in excel.

So do this (handles filenames with embedded spaces just fine now)

ls -lQ | sort | head -0 > dir.txt; perl -e 'open(DIR, "<dir.txt"); while(<DIR>) { ($a,$b,$c,$d,$e,$f,$g,$h) = split(" ", $_, 8); print "$a,$b,$c,$d,$e,$f,$g,$h\n";}' > dir.csv; gnumeric dir.csv &

Again, a 1-liner, and you can even discard the fields you don't want by not "print"ing them.

And as a bonus, you already have the file in comma-separated format before opening the spreadsheet, so you're good to go for importing, exporting, etc.; if you were using the spreadsheet just to save the data in csv, you can even skip that step.

So, ancient *NIX shell foo beats not-yet-ready-for-prime-time MSH shell foo, especially when you consider that the *NIX one will run with a LOT fewer resources.

Oh, I am so excited!

[Almond Paste]

Nevermind. Really, does anyone care about this? I mean a powerful command shell under windows is like a...hmm...like a....well it's like something!!!

Google Shell

[zaguar]

The new google shell: Gonad

It's nuts

Almost as good as . . .

[Council]

Perhaps the Windows shell has finally reached the levels of goodness of that old shell, whatchyacallit. DOS, I think it was.

I forget what company it was that made that, but I'm sure if they were still around, they'd be doing amazing things. We can certainly agree that they'd without a doubt have a command line that would blow Microsoft's right out of the water.

New website.....

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

Backslashdot

Specializing in Unix bashing (somewhat of an ironic statement)

Jeez...

[gowen]

the text-based shell is the nexus of computational control and the point at which proper articulation of will can transform commands into consequences Which leads to two questions : who wrote this shit, and were they getting paid per syllable?

Re:Jeez...

[revery]

Which leads to two questions : who wrote this shit, and were they getting paid per syllable?

It was the same person that wrote the dialogue for research breakthroughs in Alpha Centauri.

the text-based shell is the nexus of computational control and the point at which proper articulation of will can transform commands into consequences
- Col. Corazon Santiago Spartan Programmer's Manual

Re:Jeez...

[ikkonoishi]

Ah come on those things were great.

My favorite.

We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled.
But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any
particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in
a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events
of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose
meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?
^
^ -- Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7
^ Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467
^ TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED

legitimately excited

[Threni]

I don't think that word means what you think it means...

Yes, but....

[mblase]

...does it run Windows?

And so did another

[suso]

Neither does one that is said by Voltaire.
-Suso

Re:And so did another

[mwvdlee]

Thus proving Voltaire's saying is correct?

Re:And so did another

[Anonymous Coward]

*head explodes*

Better name: Gonuts

[dscho]

Title says it all

Re:Better name: Gonuts

[Andrewkov]

I thought a Monad was when you lost one of your gonads. Or was that mononad.

If only linux had this

[bxbaser]

it would finally be ready for the desktop.
when will the linux devs get on the ball its 2005 the new wave of computing is the command line.
who says microsoft doesnt inovate.

DOS Window, still?!?

[bbzzdd]

Thank you Microsoft for updating the "DOS" shell. Us command-line jocks really do appreciate it. They were even nice to us switch-hitters in that "cd /windows/system32" (note the forward slashes) actually works now. I guess they concede they lost the slash wars after all these years :)

But seriously. After spending in any time in a Linux or OS X sexy, semi-transparent shell windows, with a nice courier font and syntax highlighting, Monand (as it is now) still runs in the gross 1982 DOS window?

I hope this changes come Long^M^M^M^M Vista

Re:A shell is nice but...

[timeOday]

If you had read the article you would have discovered that MSH includes a managed virtualfilesystem-like provider for the registry that allows you to navigate the registry and read/write settings.

HA!! It took over 10 years, but finally they're coming around. May I propose a name for that "managed virtualfilesystem-like provider":

/etc

Re:A shell is nice but...

[gnovos]

HARD? What's so hard about:

echo 0x0001429 | regfxr32 \g \l \b \"/virtual registry hive sftwre/000003/Local Users and Directories/software/Microsoft/user/holebert/alpha MIX4_2_07/0x8827832fa777e9182/settings/color\"

Re:An open source clone?

[AnodeCathode]

So are you saying he'd meet some Windows Admins only if he kept his head in his ass? Very subtle slam on Windows Admins.