Re:GNU Parallel 2018
by dahart on Saturday August 17, 2019 @08:35PM
(#20727395)
> It’s a shame that this tool is so incredibly useful but simultaneously so unergonomic to use that it requires a 12 page manual.
It doesn’t require reading the whole manual, nor does the length of the manual have anything to do with parallel’s ergonomics.
Do you use bash or ssh? Have you looked at the length of those manuals? Most of parallel’s manual is advanced workflows the casual user doesn’t need, stuff like parallel commands run over a network of machines and collecting the results on the originating host.
Maybe you could show some examples of what you mean, because I think parallel is pretty easy to use. Personally I feel like it’s usually easier than Xargs, especially when dealing with tricky quoting. It does have some of it’s own syntax, like the triple-colon :::, and it’s really easy to use. Several pages of manual are about variable substitutions you can use if you want, they’re very similar to bash variable substitutions, and they’re all optional and super convenient. A bunch of parallel’s manual pages are devoted to simple examples, which is nice, and the kind of thing that’s missing from so many man pages.
> it’s begging to have a modern replacement
I’m not sure what “modern” means. You could certainly propose some changes though, or show some examples of the kind of syntax that isn’t working for you. Httpie and curl are built to do different things.
It doesn’t require reading the whole manual, nor does the length of the manual have anything to do with parallel’s ergonomics.
Do you use bash or ssh? Have you looked at the length of those manuals? Most of parallel’s manual is advanced workflows the casual user doesn’t need, stuff like parallel commands run over a network of machines and collecting the results on the originating host.
Maybe you could show some examples of what you mean, because I think parallel is pretty easy to use. Personally I feel like it’s usually easier than Xargs, especially when dealing with tricky quoting. It does have some of it’s own syntax, like the triple-colon :::, and it’s really easy to use. Several pages of manual are about variable substitutions you can use if you want, they’re very similar to bash variable substitutions, and they’re all optional and super convenient. A bunch of parallel’s manual pages are devoted to simple examples, which is nice, and the kind of thing that’s missing from so many man pages.
> it’s begging to have a modern replacement
I’m not sure what “modern” means. You could certainly propose some changes though, or show some examples of the kind of syntax that isn’t working for you. Httpie and curl are built to do different things.