> But there are good points, too. For example, I simply love the command
> line. If you don't love the command line, you won't get alone with Unix.
> But the point is that you _should_, because the command line is a great
> tool, and amazingly powerful. What with grep, vi, perl, and all their
> friends, I spend 90% of my time in a shell. I've got friends who use
> screen, caim, pine, and lynx--they don't even have X on their machine.
> Why? Because the command line is powerful.
>
While I agree with you in general, I think it is an over-simplification to
believe that the command line is always more powerful. I generally prefer
sitting in a shell too, don't get me wrong here. But let me give a few
examples where I think the GUI is actually a more powerful tool:
1. You need to move 20 of the 50 files in a directory, and there is no way
to simply filter out which ones you want with *'s, etc.
2. I personally find it easier to multitask in a GUI. It's a lot easier to
switch between tasks, and keep track of what you're doing. I'll often have
two terminals open side by side. In one I'll be compiling something, and in
the other I'll be doing something completely different. It's nice to be
able to keep track of how the compilation is doing without actually
switching tasks.
3. The web is just made for a GUI. Even lynx is just a text-mode GUI, if
you think about it. Unless the definition of command-line is "no mouse
required".
I'm sure you can think of more. For instance, I can get a lot wider
terminal open in a GUI than I can on the command line, and I can resize it
at will. So for me, the combination of GUI and CLI is the most powerful --
I can more easily do multiple things at once, and I can use the GUI tools
when they are actually helpful. The only thing it costs me is some memory
and a little CPU power, but I'm willing to sacrifice that. I don't lose the
power of grep, sed, awk, find, or any other command-line tool, but I get a
few extra benefits.
So, does anybody else agree with me? I'm curious to see other opinions
about my comments.
Steve Meyers
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