[oceanplexian]

> One of its modules attempts to translate natural language requests into the correct shell commands and syntax. For example, if you typed “compress Documents folder,” CLAI will recommend the corresponding Tar command.

This is such a bad idea I don’t know where to start. Shell commands are a dangerous, but precise tool, somewhat like using a scalpel or a surgical tool. Dumbing it down so it can “guess what you want it to do” is going to result in more people (Specifically people who don’t bother to read the docs) breaking things.

[mormegil]

Exactly.

> Warren Teitelman originally wrote DWIM to fix his typos and spelling errors, so it was somewhat idiosyncratic to his style, and would often make hash of anyone else's typos if they were stylistically different. Some victims of DWIM thus claimed that the acronym stood for ‘Damn Warren’s Infernal Machine!'.

> In one notorious incident, Warren added a DWIM feature to the command interpreter used at Xerox PARC. One day another hacker there typed delete *$ to free up some disk space. (The editor there named backup files by appending $ to the original file name, so he was trying to delete any backup files left over from old editing sessions.) It happened that there weren't any editor backup files, so DWIM helpfully reported *$ not found, assuming you meant 'delete *'. It then started to delete all the files on the disk! The hacker managed to stop it with a Vulcan nerve pinch after only a half dozen or so files were lost.

The Jargon File http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/D/DWIM.html

[none_to_remain]

What if it tells you to type `man tar`

[mburee]

Then 99% will give up. I mean just try to read the man page of any modern GNU utility, it's so long and filled with options that nobody will ever read that through.

[bregma]

What we need to do is dumb down surgical tools. Anyone should be able to do a coronary artery bypass with just a quick google and some AI assistance. That way your analogy will match the goal of these new shells.

[nmz]

If only there existed some thing, some sort of UI, that basically showed you all you could do with the tool, and there was some sort of checkbox thing where you wanted it to do this and that... gosh, we would be living in the future. not a CUI where you have to memorize --options, but one that has all the options and you pick what you want, and then maybe it prints out the full command you want... we would be living in the future.

(I'm talking about a TUI, this was solved 60? years ago)

[bhedgeoser]

I guess that's why shell programs use regexes and globs.