OSNews

I really enjoyed this article, but I wonder if the success of the course was due, in part, to the fact that you were teaching these participants the details of the CLI, starting from the basics. Would you have had similar sucess if you had taught them the basics of using a GUI?

The fact is, most people have no real formal training in the use of the PC. Just as your participants had no clear understanding of directory structures at first, so it is with people who use GUIs and get equally confused by the plethora of files and folders and how to manage them.

I once worked on a software helpdesk. Many people would phone simply asking how to use an application or perform a particular task (rather than report problems). People would often exclaim in surprise when you explained basic operations like how to move files or copy and paste! I can still remember how one caller gushed with excitement when she discovered she could paste a picture from one application to another!

I think the activity of issuing a command to the computer by typing it in ("commanding the computer to do your bidding") does give people a sense of control they may not feel when using a GUI. GUI's are more complicated than they need be in many cases, but once a user gets over their fear of the PC (and knows the basics), a GUI at least gives them the opportunity to explore the application environment (by clicking through menus, viewing options and using the undo command should they make a mistake). A CLI doesn't really have this advantage in my opinion.