Talk:Command (computing)

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69.40.17.163 (talk) 03:21, 9 October 2015 (UTC) Re the formatting - I think it doesn't look very nice to bold and italicise and whatever to all the different parts of a command, and it suffices to just explain below the example which is the command. Don't forget that the string with which the program was invoked itself is treated as an argument. Dysprosia 00:08, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.instagram.com/_heart_hacker_85_?igsh=MWUybHl2czU1Z3o1ZQ== 27.56.76.52 (talk) 14:25, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Possword 27.56.76.52 (talk) 14:25, 16 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm not going to immediately agree or disagree, but the convention does seem to be used in other parts of the wikipedia, like Adverb . Hmm, people should agree to 1 convention and stick to it. Sounds like the stuff holy wars are made of. ;-) I'll just wait it out and see what people agree on. 80.126.238.189 16:40, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think the formatting on Adverb is incorrect anyway - bolding should be reserved for the title of the article and italics should be used for emphasis. In any case, adverb isn't that comparable to command (computing)... Dysprosia 21:38, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

We need more on how to enter into command modes or command shells in various OS. I 'm (going to work right now but) looking to explain from pathping how to use this command to a computing newbie; I want to be able to reference a command window in an explanation of Start, Run, CMD <enter> ... umm... and might come back and do that. However. The article needs to explain how to get to a point at which you can use a CLI; that would be my main point. --Tagishsimon

That should probably be under command line interface, not here. Dysprosia 09:21, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

What is a command?

Current start/defn: "In computing, a command is a directive to a computer program to perform a specific task"

Begs the question: what's a directive?

And I disagree that it's a program. In *nix, a command is often implemented as a program, but the two concepts shouldn't be conflated. It's just that in *nix, you run a program by entering its file name at the shell prompt. So, it seems that command and program are the same. But, consider Windows. An executable _must_ have extension .exe to be runnable via the command line. So command "foo" is implemented as "foo.exe". It's easier to see the difference between command and program. The same distinction exists in *nix even though the two names are the same.

Further, the current article seems overly focused on shell commands. There are many commands in computing that have nothing to do with the shell. If the article was titled shell command then yeah, it's about the shell. But, it's named command (computing). That's a very broad term.

IMO: A command is a phrase, a bit of text, that, when executed, invokes a particular functionality. (needs word smithing)

Shell commands is just one category of commands. *nix commands is another/sub category.

WRT: Distinction between command and expression, statement and function ... To some extent this is nomenclature and low value. Some things have multiple names. Some words have basically the same meaning even though one of the words is more commonly used on some contexts. Consider that subroutine used to be commonly used, but today no one uses it. It has generally been supplanted by function. But, subroutine means basically the same thing as function.

Can I use command to refer to a Java statement or a function in Python? Maybe, IDK. I'd say the terms have overlap. Or if command does not apply, then why not? What is the fundamental difference between command, statement and function? Just saying they are different begs the question: why are they different? how are they different? Stevebroshar (talk) 14:16, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]