Talk:Command prompt

Suggested MERGE with 'Computer terminal'

'Command prompt' article to be merged with 'Computer terminal'

Vote AGAINST merge

Definitely not. A command prompt is a very different thing from a computer terminal. A computer terminal might, or might not, have a command prompt. N2e 21:01, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

No way, for the same reasons as N2e. The best you can do is to mention in Computer terminal is that a command prompt is often used in a command line interface. +mwtoews 22:37, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

No as per above. The merge tags were not directional (directional tags will direct people to a single talk page and tell people which article you want to remain at the end) and I did not find any justification on the talk page of computer terminal or in the edit summary adding the tags and forgot to check this talk page, so I have already removed the tag. I think it can remain removed given the comments. -- Kjkolb 13:17, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Suggested MERGE with 'Command line interface'

'Command prompt' article to be merged with 'Command line interface'

Vote FOR merge

• I mostly support this. The context of this article explains a command prompt exclusively in the context for a [[, in particular when using abstract computer devices, such as a CR10KD, which is a (mostly) numeric keypad and numeric LCD screen which you type numeric commands at a command prompt to control a data logger. These things are bizarre, and have nothing in common with a typical command line interface, but it still has a command prompt in a way. Unless there are other command prompts out there that could validate a non-CLI command prompt article, much of this section can be manually moved over to Command line interface, and explained there.+mwtoews 22:37, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

• I definitely support this. It's a stub article, and it fits pretty well with Command line interface. --Edlin2 23:08, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

• I think so too. The article seems vague and would look a lot better in a context of a larger article. ---AM088 23:26, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

• I agree. The contents of "command prompt" could be part of "command line interface", and the page "command prompt" a redirect to "command line interface". Isilanes 09:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, let's merge 'Command Prompt' with 'Command Line Interface'! My ambivalence of August (see below) has been replaced by the certitude of October, thanks to the input of other WP users. N2e 18:57, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Other comments

I'm somewhat ambivalent about whether WP needs an an article on both a CLI, and also a command prompt, which is a very typical characteristic of a CLI. What say you? N2e 21:01, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Disambig or redirect?

I reverted an attempt to make this page a redirect[1]. WP:PRECISION explicitly encourages article's and disambiguation page's titles to differ only in capitalisation, therefore some strong arguments for the redirect are needed to replace this disambiguation page. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:33, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

For the record, back when I did the redirect, there were only 2 entries here, so a using a single hatnote at Command Prompt was more appropriate. -- intgr [talk] 22:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Does it matter at all that there is only one article that actually uses the words "command" and "prompt" in the title? Or that Command Prompt links to Command-line interpreter in the very first sentence? AlistairMcMillan (talk) 00:51, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

It does matter that cmd.exe on Windows probably is not the primary topic for "command prompt" (note that lowercase indicates that it is a common noun); links like [2] demonstrate it. Microsoft decided to derive official name of their command line interpreter by capitalization of a common term? OK, this is their right, but in Wikipedia we may not redirect general terms to articles about some products. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 07:32, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, all I'm getting from your comment is that you have a problem with Microsoft. The findsources template that you just added, overwhelmingly returns results that talk about the Command Prompt that is part of Windows. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 16:58, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Don't divert the discussion out of the topic to somebody's personal problems. Please, look Google results better, most pages on "command prompt" (recall that the word "prompt" in the title of this page is not capitalized) give the definition different (or at least more general) than cmd.exe. Google output is case insensitive (I don't know could one search case sensitively with Google), so filter results yourself. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 18:34, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

That wasn't a personal attack. All you really talked about is how you feel Microsoft has co-opted the phrase "command prompt", you didn't answer my questions about the actual content we are trying to disambiguate here at all.

And sorry but a Google search is just as bad for your point of view. http://www.google.com/search?q=%22command+prompt%22 Of the first ten results, eight are directly about the Microsoft application, one is about a portable clone of the Microsoft application and one is that Indiana University KB article you linked to previously. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 19:02, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

First ten links, you said? At the very top resides English Wikipedia, which we obviously do not count. Next three (dosprompt.info, PortableApps.com and video at YouTube) also use "Command Prompt" capitalization and should be dismissed in the context of this page. After these we see a page at www.pcstats.com, which states that in the heyday of text-based operating systems like Unix and DOS, the command prompt was the operating system, enough said. Next is a commercial Web site, commandprompt.com, that obviously does not support redirecting to cmd.exe. Then, the http://ss64.com/nt/ page using the words "command prompt" in the sense of command line prompt (first entry at our disambig page) but not the shell itself, another two pages with capitalization, a page at Indiana University mentioned above, and, at last, the only page (at codinghorror.com blog) which implies that "command prompt" == cmd.exe. So, where do we see an overwhelming majority? And even if we eventually concluded that there is some (relative) majority in favor of cmd.exe, should we then move a disambiguation page to some another location? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:37, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

So, your point is that this page shouldn't redirect to "Command Prompt" because if we do a search on Google for the phrase "command prompt" and ignore all the results that reference "Command Prompt" then the most common result is not "Command Prompt"? That is stunning logic. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 01:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Outside view

The real question here is whether there is a primary topic. It seems clear to me that the primary topic for Command prompt is Command Prompt, that being the only topic of the group containing the actual words purported to be disambiguated. The solution, then, is to have Command prompt redirect to Command Prompt, and have a hatnote at Command Prompt pointing either to the other possible meanings, or to Command prompt (disambiguation) (which currently redirects here). bd2412 T 19:45, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Please, give some arguments in favor of your feeling of primary topic. I knew the word PROMPT far before invention of CMD.EXE on Win32, and corrected today several links where intended meaning is a command line interpreter or a prompt properly. In the case of redirecting this page to a Microsoft product, will you insure that:

• most of current such links will be directed correctly, and
• links to "command prompt" made in the future by unaware non-Windows users will be promptly fixed

? Note that there are several user scripts which raise an alert about a link to a dab page (see also WP:Disambiguation pages with links), but no gadget will alert one about link to an improper article through a corrupt redirect. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 21:13, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

No one disputes that the phrase command prompt was in use before Microsoft's Command Prompt. The issue is (1) there are NO other articles with titles that consist solely of the words "command" and "prompt" and (2) that the most common use of the words "command" and "prompt" is to refer to the Microsoft product. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 21:37, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

If this terms was truly ambiguous and lacking a primary topic, then we could expect that there are any number of incorrect links directed to the existing Command Prompt, which are instead intended for another meaning (given that editors may not be picky about capitalization). There are, by contrast, currently fewer than twenty links to Command prompt. This is a small enough number to keep under control without the use of special tools, and glancing through them, most seem intended to point to Command Prompt anyway. bd2412 T 21:44, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Your reasoning is wrong. The reason that there are few links pointing to Command prompt, is because people go through and disambiguate the links pointing there from time to time, and point them to the correct topic. --71.141.97.250 (talk) 05:06, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

You missed my point, which is not that the small number of links means people are not linking to the article, but rather that the small number of links shows that links to this title are manageable. bd2412 T 16:04, 22 August 2010 (UTC)