Linked by Richard Wareham on Mon 8th Mar 2004 20:49 UTC
This essay describes the surprising results of a brief trial with a group of new computer users about the relative ease of the command line interface versus the GUIs now omnipresent in computer interfaces. It comes from practical experience I have of teaching computing to complete beginners or newbies as computer power-users often term them.
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Of course your not going to use the command line for playing games or editing videos! There is a place for a mouse driven user interface. However, basic commands to interact with a system often times is not it. The GUI we use today adds an overwhelming burden on the system that (plug your ears game nerds & video geeks)is often not necessary for basic functions such as accounting, word processing, spreadsheet, data entry applications, etc. Which, after all, is the core purpose for a business machine (computer). The GUI has driven us to have to purchase more computer than should be required. System admins have known this for years (plug your ears Microsoft admins) the command line is where the real work gets done. I would not want the overhead of a GUI to administer my system. I want to leave those resources to the system to perform its real work.