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Search - "opensource is better"
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curl cheat.sh — get an instant answer to any question on (almost) any programming language from the command line
tldr
do curl cht.sh/go/execute+external+program to see how to execute external program in go
And this question: why I actually should I start the browser, and the browser has to downloads tons of JS, CSS and HTML, render them thereafter, only to show me some small output,
some small text, number or even some plot. Why can't I do a trivial query from the command line
and instantly get what I want?
I decided to create some service that will work as I think such a service should work.
And that is how wttr.in was created.
Nowadays you probably know, how to check the weather from the command line, but if not:
curl wttr.in
or
curl wttr.in/Paris
(curl wetter in Paris if you want to know the weather in Paris)
After that several other services were created (the point was to check how good the console
can solve the task, so I tried to create services providing information
of various nature: text, numbers, plots, pseudo graphic etc.):
curl rate.sx/btc # to check exchange rate of any (crypto)currency
curl qrenco.de/google.com # to QRenco.de any text
And now last but not least, the gem in this collection: cheat.sh.
The original idea behind the service was just to deliver a various UNIX/Linux command line cheat sheets via curl. There are several beautiful community driven cheat sheet repositories such as tldr, but the problem is that to use them you have to install them first, and it is quite often that you have no time for it, you just want to quickly check some cheat sheet.
With cheat.sh you don't need to install anything, just do:
curl cheat.sh/tar (or whatever)
you will get a cheat sheet for this command (if such cheat sheet exists inf one of the most popular community-driven cheat sheet repositories; but it surely does).
But then I thought: why actually show only existing cheat sheets? Why not generate cheat sheets or better to say on the fly? And that is how the next major update of cheat.sh was created.
Now you can simply do:
curl cht.sh/python/copy+files
curl cht.sh/go/execute+external+program
curl cht.sh/js/async+file+read
or even
curl cht.sh/python/копировать+файл
curl cht.sh/ruby/Datei+löschen
curl cht.sh/lua/复制文件
and get your question answered
(cht.sh is an alias for cheat.sh).
And it does not matter what language have you used to ask the question. To be short, all pairs (human language => programming language) are supported.
One very important major advantage of console oriented interfaces is that they are easily
programmable and can be easily integrated with various systems.
For example, Vim and Emacs plugins were created by means of that you can
query the service directly from the editor so that you can just write your
questions in the buffer and convert them in code with a keystroke.
The service is of course far from the perfection,
there are plenty of things to be fixed and to be implemented,
but now you can see its contours and see the contours of this approach,
console oriented services.
The service (as well as the other mentioned above services) is opensource, its code is available here:
https://github.com/chubin/cheat.sh
What do you think about this service?
What do you think about this approach?
Have you already heard about these services before?
Have you used them?
If yes, what do you like about them and what are you missing?26 -
Since I was little I was fascinated by club light shows I saw on TV shows. I just couldn't find out how they made light react to sound, which were two completely unrelated things to me back then. But I wasn't dumb and somehow figured out that if I hooked some low energy fairy lights to my amp and turned the bass up, they would lightup to the beat.
3 fried fairy lights and angry parents for to loud music later I swore to myself that I would someday build something that could light up my whole room and react to the music I was playing.
I started coding about the age 13 (turned 20 a month ago) with some old school bat scripts. But I wanted something that would generate a .exe so I googled and ended up installing Visual Studio Express (again angry parents for installing without asking) and started copying my first VB.Net program together. From there no one could stop me. I wanted to archive something with an application and googled until I found what I needed and learned to code this way.
I learned writing decent vb.net code and itvwas about this time I came into contact with IRC. I lurked arround there and this is were I came into contact with Linix servers, because I wanted to code IRC (eggdrop) bots, so I learned TCL and got used to Linux. Time passed and I ended uo being a Global OP on some network back then.
I did go further, coded Minecraft Mods, thus Java, changed back to C#, learned PHP and started setting things up on my VPS, Mails server, web server, etc.
Nowadays I work as a Systemadmin / Developer Hybrid, earning my first real money doing what I love to do and guess what? In the meantime I proved myself I can accomplish what I wanted as kid. I bought some Club LED DMX capital lights and programmed a controller for them which can control them in C#, but in a way I can run it on my raspi using mono. I also coded a client which runs on windows which uses some native libraries to calculate the dominant color of the shown picture in realtime (Handels 24fps 1080p) and uses the lights as ambient light, like you see them behind TVs sometimes.
The same app uses Bass.NET and an algorithm to dedect a beat in realtime and switches the light colors. Exactly what I wanted as akid, but better.
I can even control the lights via the new Google Assistant and/or Tasker.
Feels fcking good.
Some of my work lies on github among other, mostly trash: https://github.com/Kimmax - didn't updated there in a while tho.
I plan on writing a new free opensource plugin based modular home automatication server and pretty sure could use some helping hands..
I don't know why I wrote all this, just felt like it.
Also: first Rant
Please don't kill me for errors in the text, I'm to lazy to read through it again right now :P8 -
I've never used Windows in my day-to-day life. No kidding.
When I got my father's first computer, I used an old distribution called BBC Linux. I didn't have any computer knowledge, it was my first contact with a computer, so I went to a friend's house and asked for a CD to install on my computer. I don't know if this friend ended up making a "gotcha" and thought I'd give up, but I just read the manuals and fell in love. That was year 2000.
Then I used Conectiva Linux, then I went to Red Hat 9, then Slackware, then in 2007 I started using Solaris. And I stayed on Solaris (Solaris 10, Solaris Nevada and OpenSolaris) until 2011.
In 2011 I bought a Mac. I stayed at Apple until 2020, when I couldn't stand Apple forcing me to buy new computers (I still don't understand how a 2011 iMac, i5 (4 Hyper Thread cores) with 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD only runs up to High Sierra).
Then I bought a Dell. It came with Windows 10, the first thing I did was install WSL2. I could not stand it, the system is bad, sorry. I installed OpenSuse and have been using it for two years.
It's just that every day someone tells me "how can you use this"? "There is no alternative to Windows, do you want to be different?"
I know that my story was the reverse of the "mainstream", so I'm going to talk about my vision of Windows, that in my brain it is actually the "alternative".
- Having a file explorer without "tabs" in 2022 is unthinkable for me.
- I love terminal. And the Windows terminal is very limited. "ps ... | awk ... | xargs ..." is a must for me. "find ./ -name '...' -exec ..."... these things on Windows are totally "different" and have the "powershell way" while all other operating systems keep the same form. And cygwin is not an option. As Wine for serious work is also not.
- Dragging a file into the terminal, and having it write its path, is so natural, that when Windows didn't do it, I was dismayed.
- I've always used StarOffice, OpenOffice and now LibreOffice. All the people in my story received my documents and reports as a PDF and no one complained. Until a coworker saw me editing in LibreOffice and said "oh I want it in word format". As long as he didn't know, everything was fine, right?
- Windows is paid. And is there advertising? I don't understand. And I refuse. If you want to display advertising, then excuse me. I have no problem paying, I'm not an opensource shiite. It's just that paying and not working bothers me much more than an opensource that I can fix or expect a fix knowing the good will of the people involved.
- Hyper-V is a joke. QEMU/KVM is better, and Bhyve on FreeBSD which is a very young project, is already a million times better than Hyper-V.
- Developing in C/C++ for Windows is only possible in two ways: Either you've always lived in Windows and your brain is conditioned, or you compile with MSYS2 (CLang or GCC).
- There is no significant evolution of the windows desktop since 95.
- Multiple workspace support with multiple monitors, not ready. It's another joke.
- REGEDIT does not need any comment.
- The system loses performance over time. I still don't know how Windows achieves this.
- I've seen people complain about desktop fragmentation on Unix and Linux. Many DEs end up leaving applications with different themes (like running a Qt application in Gnome and GTK in KDE), but to be quite honest, the lack of Windows standard bothered me much more. Even Microsoft's own software is completely different: Control Panel, Calculator, Paint and Office, To-Do, and Settings, have horrible style differences and look-and-feel fragmentation.
- Dark mode has not been implemented. It's another joke. Many applications are white while everything else is dark. Sorry, even on Linux which is a mess, this has been resolved. And well resolved.
- NTFS? Serious?
- C:, D:.. It doesn't convince me since DOS.
- Bloatware.
- News "biased" in the search bar is a lack of respect for those who use the computer to work.
And that. For me, Windows is the alternative operating system. I can't take Windows seriously, for me it's an experimental one like Haiku or ReactOS. It's good to play.
About market share, it doesn't convince me to use it. But convinces me to sell. I've always developed applications to run on Windows. And when I need it, I turn on a VM to compile the project. But in everyday life? Impractical.15 -
I get so irritated when i see people pirate things, i get it, they want it yeah but the fact that someone gets pissed off because i use opensource software, try collaborate and better the software and support by donating some projects. Then they try and convert me to their "copy and paste" mantra. Fuck no.
If only they knew the hours and time given up from their lives, taken away from famillies and social lives developers spend trying to make apps that alfeady makes everyones lives simpler but they dont see that, they are so use to having things given to them they wont realise hoe important it is until it was taken away.
Support the developers because if it was the other way around. Regardless if you wanted it or not, you would like support. We do do this because we love it and with everyones help, we can progress forward together.
I really dont care that i look like as ass to the guy now, i really dont care what takes from it but just venting i guess..1 -
When the opensource alternative is even better than the closedsource one
(Context: Slide for reddit is the best client of the bunch)2 -
!rant
we all know how much we love opensource. I've finally made one of my projects public on Github. Basically, it was easy to answer questions on SO by making my project public as it became easy to refer. I just wanted suggestions from you guys regarding how to make my project reach interested people? I thought this is a goof platform but obviously, it is meant to rant. Anyways, here's the link to my project : https://github.com/caffeinator13/...
Please give suggestions to make it better and get some contributions. I just want to feel comfortable in the opensource enviroment. Thanks guys! :)
PS: I'd like to share a pic of my stressball but i'm afraid, it is in a real bad shape as my folks used it to play cricket in the room. :/9 -
soooh I am a big dumb dumb and broke a nix install by being over zealous with dd
soooooo
Ima have to fix that buuuut
one question should I use dmenu ore is there an alternative that is better and opensource?1