I think the argument with GUIs is you have to remember less to do something. However, the flip side of this is that GUIs tend let people get away with knowing less about the subject or making dangerous assumptions about what they are doing in my opinion. Without fully understanding what is going on leads to mistakes, misconfiguration and frustration. The common reaction is "this is broken" or "it doesn't do what is advertised" phrases.
I'm all for nice GUIs in certain situations, but in certain circumstances -- GUIs just don't cut it because there are too many options / flexibility to make a coherent GUI. Config files are nice for this. Actually, I've found out that using command line makes you learn more about what you are doing. It's a nice byproduct of using a command line. Plus, the majority of the inter-web servers are administered via command line and this is a great experience to have when looking for a job. I equate command line with using SQL -- could you imagine building some of the crazy queries using a drag-n-drop interface and not knowing ANY SQL? I'm not talking about a GUI that lets you just input SQL here. Sometimes it's just best to drop down to the thing that is most distilled and succinct -- text interface with commands. However, I'm all for using a package manager to look for packages to install and things like that (although I do a fair bit of sudo apt-get). I've submitted an Introduction to Linux presentation to CFUnited and cf.Objective in the past years. I've always thought it would be a good way to introduce people to the principles of *nix OSes and the basics of getting around. Too bad the topics always gets rejected as not on topic. And I'm getting off topic on *this* list. The real question is why are people so scarred of command line? I certainly was in the past, but I couldn't come up with a real reason why other than I just didn't know what I was doing with it. Best, .Peter Matthew Woodward said the following on 07/27/2009 07:18 PM: > Gary F wrote: >> Nice simple syntax, I'll give you that, but I left command lines >> behind with AmigaDOS Linotron typsetters. ;-) Apart from the odd >> telnet and tracert these days. > > Not to derail the conversation, but I do get mildly irked when people > imply that GUIs are somehow a notch above the terminal on the > evolutionary scale. In my experience once you know your way around the > command line you can accomplish things much more quickly than with a > GUI, not to mention the tremendous amount more you can do that simply > isn't available via a GUI. > > Anyway, just had to express my opinion on that--there's a really great > command line resource I'd encourage people to check out if they're > still thinking the terminal is somehow "behind" GUIs: > http://en.flossmanuals.net/CommandLineIntro/Introduction > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Open BlueDragon Public Mailing List http://groups.google.com/group/openbd?hl=en official site @ http://www.openbluedragon.org/ !! save a network - trim replies before posting !! -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
