Correct me if I am wrong but I think someone ported bash and most of the popular utilities over to the Windows platform. I used a bash clone way back on DOS and it had most of the more interesting utilities of its day as well. I wouldn't know where to look but you might/could find this with google. If you don't know, bash is the GNU Born Again Shell and it is by far and away the most popular and powerful on GNU/Linux out there. cdh On Aug 28, 2010, at 8:25 PM, Jamal Mazrui wrote: > On Linux, command-line power tends to ve valued at least as much as GUI > power, while on Windows, the reverse is true. Thus, Windows command-line > programs tend to be less advanced than their GUI counterparts. Still, much > is available from the Windows command line, including the DOS-like batch > language, VBScript or JScript files run with the Windows Script Host, or the > .NET-based PowerShell, which is very powerful. > > Jamal > > On 8/27/2010 5:44 PM, arachna@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: >> I ran across the following post in the list archives by accident when >> searching for something with Google and it piqued my curiosity: >> "DaShiell, Jude T. CIV NAVAIR 1490, 1, 26" wrote on 16 March 2010: >>> As I see it, Microsoft made two mistakes with Windows which until they're >>> corrected the best software for those >> of us with no memory of vision to program for will be Linux in its varied >> forms. >>> First, the command line interface was made into a very poorly equipped >>> environment for software development. >>> Second, if someone does console-based development of software within >>> Windows to my knowledge to date no xenity equivalents yet exist for any >>> supported software development package now running on Windows; I would love >>> to be >> corrected on this point if at all possible even if packages under active >> development are all that can be offered as suggestions. >> >> >> Would dialog be a decent replacement for zenity on Windows? I have a how-to >> on building dialog for OpenWatcom here: >> http://www.openwatcom.org/index.php/Dialog_howto >> It's very similar to build it on mingw and msys. There are just a few less >> places to patches. I can put together the mingw patch if someone needs it. >> >> By the way, did a quick search of zenity and win32 to check if someone had >> ported it yet and ran across this: >> http://www.placella.com/software/zenity/ >> >> I've been experimenting with the idea of using dialog with bash or v8cgi to >> create menus that will work in or out of X Windows on FreeBSD and Linux. >> Since I like to program cross-platform, the menus would work on Windows just >> as well. >> >> There are at least 3 versions of bash I know of for Windows. Cygwin, djgpp >> and msys all have one. >> Here's a stand-alone package based on Cygwin: >> http://www.steve.org.uk/Software/bash/ >> >> The other tool I've been looking at for cross-platform scripting that I'm >> really starting to like is v8cgi: >> http://code.google.com/p/v8cgi/ >> Syntax will be more familiar to C/C++ programmers than bash is. >> >> Since I'm not a blind user, I've been wondering just how the visually >> impaired use console based tools. Does the terminal emulator or some such >> software read the information out loud, because the programs themselves >> usually don't add speech capability? Read an example on the INX list where >> someone used tee and sent the information to espeak as well as the menu. I >> was wondering how hard it would be to add an option to dialog that sent the >> information it drew out to another program like espeak. However, if a >> screen reader program already exists and works fine with dialog and other >> software, that would be a more general purpose solution. >> >> The other option I've been checking into is using the browser and Javascript >> for the programming environment, but the one thing still lacking is being >> able to shell out to other local programs and use the results. There are >> some work-arounds for this specific to browsers, but I'm waiting to find out >> if a more portable solution becomes available. What I'd really like is a >> merge of a Javascript server side language like v8cgi with the ability to >> create an interface like a browser can. Of course, since it could do local >> file access, the Internet access part should probably be shut off for >> security reasons. The other drawback to the browser approach is that >> relatively few console based or light weight browsers fully support >> Javascript and css standards. >> >> Would be curious to know what's lacking in the Windows console environment >> for software development that's available in other environments like Linux. >> I use mingw and msys all the time for quick console development. I use the >> DOS command prompt and have customized it to a way I'm comfortable with, but >> other options like Console 2 are available and I believe Cygwin has a >> limited port of rxvt. There are a number of good compilers that work from >> console mode, including mingw, djgpp and OpenWatcom. There are also some >> decent shell script languages such as bash if batch files aren't enough. I >> haven't found any information on ncurses working on Windows, but you do have >> pdcurses. I also I read about a Windows port of vifm to Windows, so I would >> guess that means s-lang is available as well. >> >> Couldn't resist discussing this topic even though the original post was from >> some time ago. I've been very interested in some of the subjects and would >> enjoy hearing other programmers viewpoints on them as well. >> >> Sincerely, >> Laura >> http://www.distasis.com/cpp >> __________ >> View the list's information and change your settings at >> //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind >> > __________ > View the list's information and change your settings at > //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind > __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind