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In the end was the command line

Garrett Birkel has, with permission, updated Neal Stephenson’s 1999 essay “In the Beginning was the Command Line”. Stephenson always admitted that Command Line was out of date almost as soon as it was printed, but never actually got around to updating it himself. After reading just that in a Slashdot interview with Stephenson this past summer Birkel took the task upon himself.

In July 2004 I found myself sitting alone in the dark, on the enclosed deck of a ferry boat oozing between fog-shrouded islands of the Alaskan coast. The scenery was haunting, but after the first three hours, I decided to do occupy myself by finally reading Neal Stephenson’s essay about the command-line. Halfway through it I began crossing things out, and scribbling comments in the margin. The essay was five years old, and in dire need of a fresh perspective.

I always loved Command Line as a rant, the update is nice but there was something about the perspective of the original, dated or not, that meant something.

link via boingboing
and a link to an earlier Slashdot thread here