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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There's no doubt in my mind that command line is still by and far the easiest and best way to troubleshoot, and to get a lot of things done that a GUI simply can't handle. And I'm sure it's as much a case for *nix systems as it is for Windows.
For example, I was unable to delete a bad file from a floppy because it crashed Windows Explorer every time I tried to access it. So I went into Command Prompt, typed in DEL a:filename and voila, the file's deleted without hassle. That's not to say there's anything wrong with my XP Professional machine (which, remarkably, has been extremely reliable in the time I've used it) but that the cumbersome nature and high overhead of many GUIs make it difficult to get some things done and command line is still extremely useful.