Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!lavaca.uh.edu!menudo.uh.edu!sugar!peter From: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: Pipe syntax... I think I'd better think it out again... Message-ID: <7072@sugar.hackercorp.com> Date: 18 Nov 90 13:51:23 GMT References: <1990Nov18.090654.24747@agate.berkeley.edu> Reply-To: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston Lines: 36 In article <1990Nov18.090654.24747@agate.berkeley.edu> pete@violet.berkeley.edu (Pete Goodeve) writes: > We don't have to give up on un-named pipes, though -- just pull our > thinking out of the unix rut. The pipe/filter concept was a magnificent > stroke of genius when it was thought up, but that was 20 years ago now. > Let's see if we can do better. About 6 years ago I got a bug up my ass about pipes being strictly linear. I played with various "better" shells, and implemented a couple of syntaxes. Working with a *text* interface I could never get anything better, though I must admit ksh has made a bit of a breakthrough on the output side... But... The Mac had just come out and I was thinking about visual shells. What I came up with was something like this: Each program has an icon with a set of input and output ports: +--------+ +---------+ | | | + O I + grep + O I | tee | | | | + O +--------+ +---------+ To build a program, you move the icons into place and connect them up with lines. Files are represented by tanks: +--------+ +---------+ | | | +---(workfile) ( ifile ) ---+ grep +---+ tee | | | | +---... +--------+ +---------+ -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' .