AI Coding Tools: The Next Generation of Terminal Emulators?

During my two-week stay in San Francisco, I visited the Computer History Museum, where I experienced operating a PDP-1, fulfilling a personal bucket list item. While there, a friend encountered an incident with their Kubernetes cluster. Instead of the traditional manual troubleshooting, they used a remote command-line coding agent operated via phone, which quickly diagnosed a corrupted ETCD database and generated a post-incident review document with proposed action steps. This demonstrated the evolving role of site reliability engineers (SREs), akin to how AutoCAD revolutionized architecture by automating tasks traditionally handled by architects. Conversations with junior colleagues revealed a shift in skills needed, as they rely on prompting rather than mastering command-line interfaces. I find myself using traditional terminal experiences less, favoring tools that automate processes. The future may involve terminal emulators transforming into agents that utilize libraries of standard prompts, blurring the lines of traditional scripting and command execution.

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