
Show HN: NGS – programming language intro documentation feedback wanted - ilyash
I&#x27;m working on NGS for several years now. It&#x27;s a new shell (in future) and a programming language focused on systems engineering tasks. The next milestones are documentation and packaging. The documentation is almost ready. I would like to get some feedback on the language introduction documentation: comments here, github issues, and pull requests with fixes are all welcome.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ilyash&#x2F;ngs&#x2F;blob&#x2F;bf1aef195ace588e2d44a648a169300ac1fd4356&#x2F;doc&#x2F;ngslang.1.md" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ilyash&#x2F;ngs&#x2F;blob&#x2F;bf1aef195ace588e2d44a648a...</a>
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lesserknowndan
Here is a serious question I've been wondering about for a while:

Is there any real compelling need for shells to support both a CLI (Command
Line Interface) and a scripting language?

As (I assume) most shell scripting languages support #! as the first line of
their scripts, why not develop a pure CLI that has no native scripting
language?

Edit: to be clear I'm not suggesting the OP (Original Poster) do this, but
rather that they need not feel they also need to develop a CLI as well.

~~~
ilyash
Here are my thoughts:

You start with a simple CLI, then you figure out you can't do much without
variables, ifs and basic loops. At this point you have a language with ugly
syntax and problematic semantics because it was never intended to be a
language. Then you try add more features (because people a stretching the
limits of what is done with the CLI) without breaking anything. This is hard
and has even uglier syntax. Not mentioning names here :)

CLI support is needed in NGS because in practice many scripts begin as few
lines that you typed in and then copy+pasted to a file. I want to support this
mode of work.

