>Command Line Interfaces will just look sillier and sillier as alternate
>forms of input appear. Where's the lowest point of bandwidth in
>human-computer interaction? It's the input - from the human into the
>computer. We've come up with lots of snazzy ways of getting really wild
>output from these monstrous things, but slacked off working out new ways of
>increasing our 'input bandwidth'. One of the reasons why I hyped the use of
>a tablet to Rodos was because they increase the input bandwith (some would
>argue the troughput too, but not in the first week or so!)
>
>Remember what CLI stands for - Command Line Interface. Talking to your
>computer is not a command line interface. Introducing your computer to your
>great aunt is not a command line interface.

I think predictions of CLI's imminent death are exaggerated. Most
people will not be presented with it, but it will always be in power
interfaces. The reason is not input bandwidth economy, but expressivity.
I have yet to see a good *general purpose* GUI that allows me to specify
things like "move all files older than X days to this directory", or
"rename all files ending in .pas to end in .p". ("Let's see, where's my
"move old files widget" and my "rename files suffix widget"? Hah!)


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