shell-like Emacs CLI, and my Usenet behaviour

[Emanuel Berg]

After getting into several firefights, not just here but all over
Usenet, I have decided to change my behaviour. So it happened,
that my laptop (an old warhorse Dell Inspiron 1300), fell out of
my backpack, and broke (but I salvaged the HDD), and I am a
non-religious, "rational" believer in karma, so I interpreted this
as a sign that I should change my behaviour, and not be so easily
provoked, or as confrontational/high-energy in style.

But, not dwelling on the past, I have been thinking if not Emacs
would benefit from a shell-like CLI, instead of hammering the RET
between each stage?

Is this a new idea or did anyone do work on it?

There are several advantages:

For a simple example, the advantage is speed, less typing, and no
visual "reorient" after the RET.

In a shell:

man emacs RET

In Emacs:

M-x man RET emacs RET

For a long, complicated command, apart from the advantages
mentioned, it is often the case you are benefited from seeing the
options, the previous arguments, and the tool name, when you type
the command - you don't get lost as in Emacs - wait... what am I
doing? what did I do one second ago?

The visual memory doesn't work with bits and pieces. To verify
this, take a look at (the shell command)

cp

and then the option

-r

compare this to:

cp -r

The difference is stunning!

What's more, for complicated commands with options and/or
arguments, it is easy to do a mistake. With C-p in zsh, you get
the last command (the entire command), and you can use the
lightning-fast Emacs-style cursor movement keystrokes to get to
the disfunctional part, and correct it.

Although I don't habitually do complicated commands in Emacs,
because I bind it to functions, aliases, and keystrokes,
*sometimes* I do, and then I am frustrated the Emacs CLI isn't as
flexible as the shell's.

Putting it the other way around, are there any advantages to the
Emacs way, or is it the way it is because of practical
considerations when it was implemented?

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573