Does the commend line scare you?

[Hyperblaze]

I've heard from several people that the command line scares them. They informed me that it is a waste of time to use it.

One went as far as saying "i can't believe i had to type all that ****** on the command line"

Personally, I find it's the most flexible way to get stuff done.

 

[drag]

Tell them they can copy and paste if they don't like typing it all.

That's what I do when I see directions. Highlight, right click on xterm, middle click, double check it, hit enter. Pretty simple.

Otherwise tell them the GUI is the 'caveman' interface. It's all just 'point and grunt'. No class, no thought.

If that doesn't work then point out that one of the major selling points for Mac OS X is that they finally had a proper Unix shell. Also all that time Microsoft has been trying to move away from the command line they are going to use their 'powershell' as a big selling point for 'vista/longhorn server'.

Personally for my own desktop I just point and click everything. It's not usual that I use the command line for doing anything but playing movies with Mplayer. But for administrative stuff I use the command line almost exclusively. I never leave my home folder with the GUI file manager. It's just not what it's good at.

 

[imported_LoKe]

I used to be a little hesitant around it, but once you get used to it, you realize that the commands are quite far apart, meaning, a small typo will probably not hose your system. As for major configuration files, you only have to backup, so it's not a big deal. I find the command line is a lot easier to get things done, and more time efficient. I mean, you don't have to navigate to multuple directories to move some files around, backup, etc. Plus, if you want to write to a folder where you don't have the permissions (/var, /etc, etc...), you can just use sudo mv /etc/ /etc/apt, or whatever, instead of loading up nautilus as rot (sudo nautilus) and doing it the long way. In addition to all of that, when you completely hose your system, you may end up with only a text-based terminal, no GUI to speak of, and you'll actually know how to get around and fix your problem. Plus, you can learn to use the text browser (ex. lynx) and do some problem solving that way if you end up in a tight spot.

Overall, the terminal is better practice, and, despite popular belief, easier and safer.

 

[Noema]

Not really. It can be really daunting and it does take a lot of trial and error, specially in Linux which I'm not really that familiar with. But it gives you much more control over the machine than the GUI. Plus I learned to use PCs with DOS, so it gives me some nice nostalgia feeling to type stuff like 'mkdir' or 'CD' and the like

 

[drag]

Ok there is another way to look at GUI vs Command line that I like sometimes.

With the GUI the system is always offering you posibilities. It's like one of those 'choose your own adventure' books were you are given a choice of turn to page 56 or turn to page 76 for instance. So your restricted to realy only being able to do what the original creator of that application thought you would want to do. So it's inherently limiting. If the guy that wrote the app didn't invision what you would want you simply can not do it.

Very good application designers will be able to create pretty flexible interfaces that will probably do most of what you'd ever want. But still it's limiting. GUI systems limit what you can do, limit your thinking and all sorts of stuff like that.

But if well designed they are easy to do and can be very powerfull in what they can accomplish easily. If your doing routine tasks that don't lend themselves to automation such as surfing the web, listening to music, or looking at pictures or whatnot then they are very good.

Also there are tasks that inherently lend themselves to being done through GUIs.. Such as image editing. Although for automating things like image sizes, resolution changes and such command line is still usefull.

And for things that usually would otherwise require a good understanding of the system your working in they can be used to make relatively common administrative tasks easy.. Such as setting up a printer.

However the command line is very good in other ways.

In a command line you have tools and you use these tools to instruct the computer on what you want to accomplish. So instead of being presented by a list of opertunities with a GUI your actually now going in and writing your own book. A good command line environment can be user friendly and is actually a rudementary way to do programming with powerfull, but simple tools.

In this way your able to move beyond the limitations of another programmer's imagination and use your own creativity to solve problems and accomplish tasks without having to setup a whole proper program to do it for you.

Command line also lends itself to scripting and automation. Automating things like checking for updates or clearing out log files. Scripts are good for doing system scripts and backing up files.

If you think about it in terms of lines of code each tool is probably several thousand lines of code. Your shell is several thousand lines of code with it's built-in functions. So when you craft a bash script that can do things like download files and unzip them and give them proper file names and move them to your file server archive and compress them again your actually making a program with up to millions of lines of code with just 20-30 or so lines of bash commands.

So command line is a much more elegant, flexible, and powerfull operating environment then what even the most complex GUI can provide. And a modern Unix shell is as every bit advanced as any modern GUI. I mean they didn't stop developing it back in MS-DOS days... It's more powerfull and more user friendly then anything that every existed before.


The best however is a marraige between the GUI and the Command line. By combining the two enviroments you can create a complex and more dynamic environment then is ever possible with either.

Some examples of what you can do with this in Linux:
- Drag and drop files and folders from Nautilus into gnome-terminal
- using wmctrl to control complaint window managers from the command line
http://sweb.cz/tripie/utils/wmctrl/
- using gnome-osd or xosd to display pop up notifications from command line
- Zenity (gnome) or kdialog (kde) to launch dialog boxes from command line
- various music cdrom ripping GUI front ends for cdparanioa and qdvdauthor for dvdauthor
- xbindkeys to bind commands/scripts whatever to mouse or keyboard buttons
- using application launching icons from your desktop or taskbar to run scripts
- running X over ssh from your terminal

And there are probably other things I can't think of right now. So you can see if you combine command line with gui stuff you can get some pretty powerfull things going.

 

[bersl2]

You haven't lived until your GUI is just the icing on your CLI cake.

 

[Hyperblaze]

Originally posted by: drag
Ok there is another way to look at GUI vs Command line that I like sometimes.

With the GUI the system is always offering you posibilities. It's like one of those 'choose your own adventure' books were you are given a choice of turn to page 56 or turn to page 76 for instance. So your restricted to realy only being able to do what the original creator of that application thought you would want to do. So it's inherently limiting. If the guy that wrote the app didn't invision what you would want you simply can not do it.

Very good application designers will be able to create pretty flexible interfaces that will probably do most of what you'd ever want. But still it's limiting. GUI systems limit what you can do, limit your thinking and all sorts of stuff like that.

But if well designed they are easy to do and can be very powerfull in what they can accomplish easily. If your doing routine tasks that don't lend themselves to automation such as surfing the web, listening to music, or looking at pictures or whatnot then they are very good.

Also there are tasks that inherently lend themselves to being done through GUIs.. Such as image editing. Although for automating things like image sizes, resolution changes and such command line is still usefull.

And for things that usually would otherwise require a good understanding of the system your working in they can be used to make relatively common administrative tasks easy.. Such as setting up a printer.

However the command line is very good in other ways.

In a command line you have tools and you use these tools to instruct the computer on what you want to accomplish. So instead of being presented by a list of opertunities with a GUI your actually now going in and writing your own book. A good command line environment can be user friendly and is actually a rudementary way to do programming with powerfull, but simple tools.

In this way your able to move beyond the limitations of another programmer's imagination and use your own creativity to solve problems and accomplish tasks without having to setup a whole proper program to do it for you.

Command line also lends itself to scripting and automation. Automating things like checking for updates or clearing out log files. Scripts are good for doing system scripts and backing up files.

If you think about it in terms of lines of code each tool is probably several thousand lines of code. Your shell is several thousand lines of code with it's built-in functions. So when you craft a bash script that can do things like download files and unzip them and give them proper file names and move them to your file server archive and compress them again your actually making a program with up to millions of lines of code with just 20-30 or so lines of bash commands.

So command line is a much more elegant, flexible, and powerfull operating environment then what even the most complex GUI can provide. And a modern Unix shell is as every bit advanced as any modern GUI. I mean they didn't stop developing it back in MS-DOS days... It's more powerfull and more user friendly then anything that every existed before.


The best however is a marraige between the GUI and the Command line. By combining the two enviroments you can create a complex and more dynamic environment then is ever possible with either.

Some examples of what you can do with this in Linux:
- Drag and drop files and folders from Nautilus into gnome-terminal
- using wmctrl to control complaint window managers from the command line
http://sweb.cz/tripie/utils/wmctrl/
- using gnome-osd or xosd to display pop up notifications from command line
- Zenity (gnome) or kdialog (kde) to launch dialog boxes from command line
- various music cdrom ripping GUI front ends for cdparanioa and qdvdauthor for dvdauthor
- xbindkeys to bind commands/scripts whatever to mouse or keyboard buttons
- using application launching icons from your desktop or taskbar to run scripts
- running X over ssh from your terminal

And there are probably other things I can't think of right now. So you can see if you combine command line with gui stuff you can get some pretty powerfull things going.

i'm constantly amazed and impressed by your responses. thanks!

 

[nweaver]

Yes, the MS command line scares me...how can a modern OS have that crappy of a shell!!1!

actually, they have gotten better and better. Netsh is a godsend for any administration I do, because I can finally script changes easily. Now if only their GUI was better (LET ME IMPORT CSV'S INTO DNS/DHCP!) at some stuff.

I often write perl scripts to parse csv's or other files and dump out batch files, written in the native cmd or (usually) netsh to do tasks. I know that you can get cmd to read lines from a text file, but it does not lend itself to manipulation and parsing like Perl does.


also, nothing proves geekiness like using command line/net cat to talk raw SMTP to an smtp server and sending an email

 

[n0cmonkey]

Only in Linux.

 

[doornail]

A GUI and the CLI are like hand signals versus verbal or written instruction. We can convey something simple very easily with just gestures -- Your spouse asks where the mail is and you point to the kitchen table. For more complex messages, it's way easier to speak than try and hand signal that the electric bill is due Friday and you're out of checks.

The command line may be old, but it's the richest, most versatile form of input we have. But I hear that Dear Aunt, let's so double the killer is the next big thing.

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: Hyperblaze


i'm constantly amazed and impressed by your responses. thanks!

Same here.

drag's posts are always very enlightening.

 

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: Hyperblaze
I've heard from several people that the command line scares them. They informed me that it is a waste of time to use it.

One went as far as saying "i can't believe i had to type all that ****** on the command line"

Personally, I find it's the most flexible way to get stuff done.

I find it funny how people will say to someone who doesn't have the same preferences that they do, that there must be fear involved.

The command line is a very effective way to get things done... for a minute percentage of knowledgeable individuals. For 99.997% of the computing public it's silly.

 

[InlineFive]

After learning basic BASH on Linux it's almost all I use, even if I have a GUI. To me it just seems faster and makes sense.

Where as on Windows I usually go with GUI the whole way, no CMD except to run with administrator priveleges.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I :heart: wmii-3

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: Markbnj

Originally posted by: Hyperblaze
I've heard from several people that the command line scares them. They informed me that it is a waste of time to use it.

One went as far as saying "i can't believe i had to type all that ****** on the command line"

Personally, I find it's the most flexible way to get stuff done.

I find it funny how people will say to someone who doesn't have the same preferences that they do, that there must be fear involved.

The command line is a very effective way to get things done... for a minute percentage of knowledgeable individuals. For 99.997% of the computing public it's silly.

the same can be said of almost anything....do we need a crappy car analogy in this thread?

 

[legacyNW]

command line is absolutely crucial sometimes. If you have to parse huge quantitiesof data, and you can do PERL or awk & grep (yeah you can do that on windows) you can do amazing things in no time at all.

If you're Joe Sixpack, you maybe need it once a year, like to unlock a directory on XP....

 

[networkman]

The "commend line" does scare me a bit. :Q The "command line" on the other hand is quite welcome and a very useful way of getting certain functions performed.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Markbnj

Originally posted by: Hyperblaze
I've heard from several people that the command line scares them. They informed me that it is a waste of time to use it.

One went as far as saying "i can't believe i had to type all that ****** on the command line"

Personally, I find it's the most flexible way to get stuff done.

I find it funny how people will say to someone who doesn't have the same preferences that they do, that there must be fear involved.

Well it's funny that you come to that conclusion because I've heard people say exactly that.. that the stuff scares them. Not like monster in the closet or anything, but that it's intimidating and they aren't used to it and so they want to avoid it.

It's more of a thing about familarity then anything else.

If you think that a GUI only system is realy easy try checking out night classes full of people at any community college struggling to learn how to use basic features in Microsoft word and stuff like that. Any system of reasonable complexity is going to be difficult to use unless you familar with it beforehand.

The command line is a very effective way to get things done... for a minute percentage of knowledgeable individuals. For 99.997% of the computing public it's silly.

Most people aren't most people. For a lot of things command line is still easiest and fastest way to get certain tasks done. (for example: unzipping many files in multiple directories and sending them to a paticular place. Not realy unusual thing for some people)

Before a few years ago 99.997% of people had absolutely no use for email either and it was intidating to many and they had no use for it. Same thing with WWW and computers in general. Doesn't mean they didn't benifit from it non-the-less.

 

[Markbnj]

Before a few years ago 99.997% of people had absolutely no use for email either and it was intidating to many and they had no use for it. Same thing with WWW and computers in general. Doesn't mean they didn't benifit from it non-the-less.

I think you've got it backwards. In terms of the percentage of computer users who used the command line, it was much more popular in the past because it was the only way to get things done. You rather constrained example is one that the vast majority of people never encounter, and for them using WinZip is still far easier.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Markbnj

Before a few years ago 99.997% of people had absolutely no use for email either and it was intidating to many and they had no use for it. Same thing with WWW and computers in general. Doesn't mean they didn't benifit from it non-the-less.

I think you've got it backwards. In terms of the percentage of computer users who used the command line, it was much more popular in the past because it was the only way to get things done. You rather constrained example is one that the vast majority of people never encounter, and for them using WinZip is still far easier.

My point is that the vast majority of people don't encounter lots of problems. Doesn't mean that being able to attack problems creatively isn't usefull and that is what the command line provides over a GUI.

I just used that example because it was one that somebody I know faced with that exact situation. Because they were stuck with Windows XP the problem litterally took hours for her to complete were otherwise the she is a decent programmer. Winzip sucks. A bash one liner would of solved the problem with 10 minutes of work.

If you need proof you can goto OS X enthusiests websites were people now have command line snippits to solve problems were before they considured the lack of a command line a sign of Mac OS's superiority.
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/12/06/terminal_osx.html
Saying that the command line is obsolete or not usefull for a lot of people is like saying the keyboard is obsolete because we now have touch screens with decent handwriting recognition software.

It is usefull and it is easy enough that learning enough to grasp the basics isn't beyond the grasp of most people nowadays. Especially with people who have had computers aviable to them for the majority of their lives.

Sure it's beyond 'your grandma' or pointy haired boss or his secretary or a half of dozen other semi-mythical people, but I bet it's a LOT more then the 0.003% of computer users in estimation. I'd say it's closer to 10% of people. 1 in 10.

 

[gamefreakgcb]

Man, I learned DOS 8-9 years ago, most of the commands are gone from my head but some basics still remain. A little refreshment will bring it all back. I find it cool to use a command prompt though. (I'm 19 now, took computer classes when I was 10 and a word-processing proggy in dos and and imaging prog from my dad's friend who owned and still owns a computer training institute in India, I was gonna start Lotus(?) too but we moved to the US, When computer finally became a subject in our school(India), I was as advanced as the teacher, Ahh, good times.)

 

[Hyperblaze]

Originally posted by: gamefreakgcb
Man, I learned DOS 8-9 years ago, most of the commands are gone from my head but some basics still remain. A little refreshment will bring it all back. I find it cool to use a command prompt though. (I'm 19 now, took computer classes when I was 10 and a word-processing proggy in dos and and imaging prog from my dad's friend who owned and still owns a computer training institute in India, I was gonna start Lotus(?) too but we moved to the US, When computer finally became a subject in our school(India), I was as advanced as the teacher, Ahh, good times.)

Imagine getting woken up by your father at 11 pm at night (when I was about 15?) because he screwed up the computer and needed my help to get it back running properly

Now here's the sad part.....he had taught me a LOT of stuff in DOS. Then we got windows 3.1. He became lazy and started the path of forgetting everything he learned about DOS because Windows could do it easier for him. What I did to fix the computer, he COULD of done himself, before he forgot how to do it.

I personally refused to use Windows 3.1 for a long time. Just because I didn't want to get lazy. Unfortunately, the DOS shelll came to the point it was practically impossible to use it anymore because Microsoft got rid of so much functionality in it. I wasn't the happiest camper about that :|

Then I was introduced to the UNIX environment. My DOS mentally came back and been having a blast with UNIX ever since!

 

[Smilin]

The FASTEST computer users are those that not only know command line but use it WITH the GUI.

some things are faster in gui or command line. some things can only be done in gui or command line. Using both and flipping back and forth as appropriate is the key to speed.

(windows) examples:
navigating somewhere in gui and pulling the address to the clipboard then pasting it into a pushd command.
The "Start ." (start space period) command.

 

[Markbnj]

My point is that the vast majority of people don't encounter lots of problems. Doesn't mean that being able to attack problems creatively isn't usefull and that is what the command line provides over a GUI.

I think "you guys" always miss the point. Computers are now appliances, well on their way to disappearing into the woodwork alltogether. In a decade or two you won't even see them on the desktop. A decade or two after that you won't even know where the computer is anymore. Yes, for engineers and operating system designers, and who knows what other groups of people command line interfaces may still be useful. Nobody else will use them, ever again. The only people who think that CLIs will remain relevant are a small portion of tech-savvy 'puter geeks (i.e., the "Linux community") who, deep down inside, love the idea of a cryptic interface that few people understand. Every now and then one of them likes to hold it up and say "Look, this isn't that scary, is it?" They do this not to promote the use of the CLI among the non tech-savvy, which would ultimately not be to their liking, but rather to enjoy the horrified looks on the faces of ordinary users. It is a subtle form of mockery .

 

[DaiShan]

Tab completion is your friend : ) Plus, I think people make fewer mistakes when they are forced to actually think about what they are doing rather than just clicking on pictures.