

The Linguistic Interface - lubutu
http://lubutu.com/soso/the-linguistic-interface

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rntz
This has strong similarity to the thesis of the classic article "The Anti-Mac
Interface": <http://www.useit.com/papers/anti-mac.html>

The connection to the ideas in the Kingdom of Nouns, though, is new and
intriguing. It's obvious only in hindsight that job-specific apps can be
thought of as nouns, while unix-style tools can be thought of as verbs.

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tikhonj
Another way to think about it is that a shell has some of the same advantages
as functional programming. In particular, everything is easily composable.
Taking small primitives and combining them systematically leads to significant
expressivity. This is an important advantage over GUI apps which are not
really composable in any consistent way.

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mgunes
> _GUI apps which are not really composable in any consistent way._

Production-biased GUI apps not being composable and linkable is a consequence
of the political economy of software production dictated by their makers; not
an inherent trait of the GUI as a form.

Some related reading:

<http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?NoApplication>

[http://openendedgroup.com/index.php/2007/10/17/using-
photosh...](http://openendedgroup.com/index.php/2007/10/17/using-photoshop-is-
writing-code/)

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mgunes
Previously by the author: "Ivo – a reimagined Unix terminal system" -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3300264>

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smcnally
The piece reads like an extended explanation of the saw "Unix is user-
friendly, just very particular about its friends." And well-done -

A real-world analog is being in a foreign place where you don't speak the
native tongue. You're thirsty and need to use the bathroom. You'll likely be
able to make your point through pantomime or by mimicking "language with an
arrangement of pictographs," but knowing the correct vocabulary and syntax
would get you there much more quickly. Needs more complex than water or water
closet would be difficult or impossible to express without the verbal
language.

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lhnz
Fascinating article. I hadn't thought of the noun-verb analogy you made.

