Linked by Greg Afinogenov on Wed 3rd Sep 2003 07:19 UTC
It is not fashionable nowadays to speak of the merits of the command line, in an age where things like streaming video and Aqua are an integral part of our daily life. However, I do not think that typed-in commands must necessarily be consigned to the dustbin of computer history. Of course, I am not suggesting that we all drop X and Windows and pretend like we are living in the early eighties. The command line interface still has much to offer us, and many of its benefits simply cannot physically be emulated or even replaced by graphical ones.
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>> I'm also of a mind that too much systems administration is CLI bound. Perhaps it's time to move beyond the CLI versus GUI debate and start building systems that don't need the CLI.
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Too much sys admin is cli-bound?? I hope you are kidding. You can see them copying more and more of Unix Cli in their windows servers.
If Unix ever gets to the point where a certain task can only be performed on a GUI, it would have lost a HUGEEEE part of its useability. As a system admin, the times when I want to be clicking are few and far-between. Every app should be built in such a way that it can be completely managed from a CLI. A GUI on top should be an extra. Of course, that doesn't invalidate the usefulness of a GUI for cetain desktop uses, like browsing. The point is that a GUI should as much as possible always be built on top of a CLI. Buidling an internally GUI-driven OS is greatly unuseful.
And for those complaining about the implementation of the CLI in Unix, well, you are looking at tons of years and experience. Use it. Or make it easy for yourself, by learning a simple scripting language. With justPerl and expect, for example, you don't need to know the difference between a cshell and bash.