old-techblog/_posts/2018-01-16-thes.md

layout	title	slug	date	categories
post	2017 roundup part 1: Thes gem	thes-gem	2018-01-16 07:00:00 +0000	ruby gems foss

When writing, I often need to refer to a thesaurus. But I find visiting the best online option, www.thesaurus.com, to be an unpleasant and distracting experience.

So I decided to write a tool to improve matters. It's called thes and while it's a very simple utility, it's also one that I've found consistently useful and time-saving over the last few months.

The idea is simple: simply enter thes <some search term>, and the gem will search www.thesaurus.com and print the results straight back to the console in table format. Think of it as a command-line thesaurus client, with no bandwidth-wasting JavaScript, assets and adverts or annoyingly colourful design!

Here's an example of entering thes incredible:

Thes is available as a gem:

gem install thes

or, alternatively, on GitHub: https://github.com/rfwatson/thes