互联网与文化cristal.inria.fr编辑精选
起初是命令行（1999）
In the Beginning was the Command Line (1999)
2016 — 2020，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这是 Neal Stephenson 1999 年的经典长文《In the Beginning was the Command Line》，以作家视角生动比较了命令行与图形界面、Unix 与 MacOS/Windows 等操作系统的文化与设计哲学，用大量比喻（如 Apple 是密封引擎盖的汽车经销商）解释抽象与界面的取舍。文章多次再版并附有作者后续评论，被视为理解计算抽象层次的必读之作。
为什么经久不衰：它把技术圈争论多年的 GUI vs 命令行问题写成了一般读者也能读懂的散文，二十多年后仍是理解抽象、界面设计与操作系统文化的最佳入门文本。
HN 评论精选
指出原文关于 Apple 黑客重建 Unix 的说法不符合史实，早期 Mac 开发依赖的是 Lisa 而非 Unix
这是对 Unix 的修正主义解读。Macintosh 早期开发在 folklore.org 上有详细记录，他们显然没有在 Mac 上重建 Unix——Mac 是用 Lisa 开发环境引导开发的，而 Lisa 又是用 Apple ][ 引导的。当时的微型计算机硬件根本跑不动庞大笨重的 Unix，Apple 也没有授权。不少早期 Mac 买家发现自己花 2000 美元买的电脑没有任何开发工具，打电话给 Apple 却被告知要做真正的应用开发得再买 10000 美元的 Lisa。MPW 两年后才发布。
kmeisthax查看英文原文
"In other words, the first thing that Apple's hackers had done when they'd got the MacOS up and running--probably even before they'd gotten it up and running--was to re-create the Unix interface, so that they would be able to get some useful work done. At the time, I simply couldn't get my mind around this, but: as far as Apple's hackers were concerned, the Mac's vaunted Graphical User Interface was an impediment, something to be circumvented before the little toaster even came out onto the market. " This is Unix revisionism. Most of the early development of the Macintosh is documented on folklore.org and they certainly didn't rebuild Unix to fit on a Mac. They bootstrapped the Macintosh using the Lisa development environment, which itself was bootstrapped with Apple ][s. Unix was far too large and unwieldy for microcomputer hardware of the time, and Apple didn't have a license for it anyway. There's plenty of stories of early/hobbyist Mac buyers realizing their $2k computer had no development tools, calling up Apple, and being told that they'd need to buy $10k Lisa machines if they wanted to do real app development. MPW didn't come out until 2 years later. (If you just wanted an easy-to-use development environment, Apple HAD worked on a GUI-capable BASIC for the Macintosh. But Bill Gates got wind of this and refused to renew their Apple ][ BASIC license unless they canned the project. Since no BASIC license meant no more Apple ][s, Apple caved, and the version of BASIC that Microsoft did ship on the Mac had no GUI support whatsoever. They would eventually ship Hypercard three years later, of course.)
认为这篇文章的独特价值在于出自一个以写作为主的真实用户之手，视角比业内人更清晰
我爱这篇文章。一直希望 Stephenson 能加上二十年的更新重写它。它比我见过的任何其他描述都更好地勾勒了这片图景，因为 Stephenson 是一个用户兼伟大作家，而大多数其他叙述出自以新闻、硬件或软件为生的人。他也是那种真正热爱计算机和编程、但首要目标是写作的人——我喜欢非程序员写程序。
prepend查看英文原文
I love this essay. I’ve been hoping that Stephenson would rewrite it with 20 years of updates. It describes the landscape better than anything else I’ve found as Stephenson is a user and a great writer, I think. Most other accounts are by people who make their living in journalism, or hardware, or software. Stephenson is also an example of someone who is really into computers, and programming I suspect, but has a primary goal of writing. I like when non-programmers program (eg Jake VanderPlas [0] wrote chunks of scypi even though he’s an astronomer, even though he works as a programmer now). [0] http://vanderplas.com/media/pdfs/CV.pdf
认为 Apple 产品'密封不透明'的比喻至今依然成立
回想起来，Neal 写'密封'时指的可能是 Apple 产品的某个特定方面，但我把几乎任何 Apple 产品整体都看作密封的——Apple 不想让你自己维修，也不想知道软件如何运作。即使过了 20 年，有些事从未改变。
theandrewbailey查看英文原文
> There was a competing bicycle dealership next door (Apple) that one day began selling motorized vehicles--expensive but attractively styled cars with their innards hermetically sealed, so that how they worked was something of a mystery. In retrospect, I think Neal was referring to a specific aspect of Apple's products when writing 'hermetically sealed', but I view almost any Apple product, as a whole, that way. (Apple doesn't want you to service them yourself, or know how the software works.) Even after 20 years, some things never change.
认为文章虽旧但仍是理解抽象与取舍的必读经典
这篇文章确实过时了，但仍是极好的文章，我认为是任何学习编程、计算或 UX/UI 的人的必读之作。至少它让人极好地理解了什么是抽象、使用抽象要付出什么代价，同时对门外汉来说也基本可读。这些知识很重要，因为计算的本质就是抽象——我们构建、操纵、争论抽象，需要明白'无尽的海龟塔'为何存在。
qwertyuiop924查看英文原文
IBWCL is dated, true, but it's still an excellent essay, and I would argue required reading for anyone learning about programming, computing, and/or UX/UI. If nothing else, it provides an excellent understanding of what abstractions are, and what sort of tradeoffs you make by using one, while still being more or less comprenhensible to the layman, unlike Steve Yegge, who covers more programming-specific topics, although often of the same nature. Knowing this stuff is important, because in computing, abstractions are pretty much what we do. We build them, manipulate them, argue about them, consider them harmful, and continue to travel up and down the endless stack of turtles. Knowing why the endless stack of turtles exists is important and useful, and that's part of what this essay provides.
推荐 2004 年带作者批注的版本，可对比两个时间点对未来的预测
我发现这个 2004 年加了评论的版本其实比原版更有意思。2004 年的评论现在也 12 年了，但有趣的是有 1999 和 2004 两个数据点，可以画出一条线，看看那段时间人们以为未来走向何方， versus 实际落在了哪里。
Kadin查看英文原文
I actually find this version, with commentary added in 2004, somewhat more interesting than the original: http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/commandline/index.html The 2004 comments are now of course 12 years old, so they're not much newer than the original text, but it's interesting to have two datapoints to draw a line between (1999 and 2004) and see where the trajectory of the future seemed to be headed over that period, versus where it actually landed.
历次讨论
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