Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Windows, Linux, and Mac desktop OS are so limited still. I'd like a little scripting language built-in to the OS that allows you to do stuff like draw to the screen. No, Python + turtle graphics doesn't count :)

There are simply far too many hurdles to do basic computing things. I think Microsoft could do some minor additions to powershell and maybe get something like this.

I wish some billionaire would put up some money and fund a modern lisp machine or something like that. I know it'll probably never work, but I can dream.




> a little scripting language built-in to the OS

MacOS has something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleScript#Basic_concepts You can send around events and macro/script GUI stuff.


Not bad. I'd like a little more, but that's the idea.


Do you mean something like Gnome's Javascript ? https://gjs.guide/


A little bit of that, but from a graphics perspective, this seems to be more about UI and nothing that can just draw to the screen. For example, how easy is it to throw together Tetris? Rebol can do that as well as a dozen other things with a page of code or less. Too bad it was basically last maintained like 20 years ago.


I too miss Display PostScript.


Elon needs to sponsor Jonathan Blow to build a Windows competitor


I'm not the biggest fan of Elon although SpaceX is pretty cool and successful.

It would be cool if he did something like that though. Just a clean and simple OS and not the corporate hellscape that is Windows or the alternatives of Mac and Linux. I'd buy a license or the hardware itself if he sold it and develop for something like that.


What kind of user-space programs would you run on this OS?


I honestly think the desktop and web need a redo. This will never happen, but this is my naive dream:

I want to open my laptop to an operating system with no advertisements or 1000 programs running in the background. It should be pretty simple with basic application support like a text editor, office suite,: database...etc. It would have a super powerful scripting language built-in with DSLs for graphics, UI, mathematics/science, OS, sound, hardware...etc. It would also have some good hardware peripherals you could control. Basically an ideal work and hobby computer that has some centralized/integrated way of accessing all the tools you need with minimal fuss. It just makes me wonder why in some respects there are still many things that the Xerox Alto or Commodore 64 can do that I can't easily do in Windows.

Need to write a simple videogame? That should just involve opening the shell and typing in some high level primitives instead of downloading some crazy big software and libraries

If(Foo){ Draw-Circle -Vertex [100,25] -Radius [2] }

Want to do some linear algebra work?

Invert-Matrix -FileInput 'example.csv' -Sparse 'True'

Maybe you want to read some data from some kind of hardware device that has a sensor (e.g. measuring air quality) and send it to a chart?

ForeverLoop(Get-Data -Port [0]) | LineChart

The commands above are obviously made up, but that is kind of what I'm thinking about. With modern OS, I have to download, install, and configure many tools to typically do these things and it is so messy and cumbersome. I often can't share with anyone else either without them installing all the same apps (e.g .maybe they have to download anaconda Python and postgres).

The Web is also just way too complex now. Ideally there would be a much simpler way to build beautiful and simple sites similarly to the hypothetical apps above.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: