“Experience with the CLAIT class above showed two things about the CLI method. One was that it mapped very naturally onto existing models for interaction. Users very quickly picked up on the ‘ ‘ syntax for commands and found it very useful. The second, most important, thing was that users reported that they felt more ‘in control’ with the CLI.”

“All users, after an initial bootstrapping phase, preferred the CLI “discussion” method for interacting. All reported that they felt more in control and better able to find things out. This probably was due to the higher amount of interface consistency and more task-based interface that the CLI tends to encourage.”

The CLI doesn’t suck, it has as much relevance as GUIs, even today. Especially when administering multiple machines (like render farms or clusters).

Btw, your blog (what I saw of it) reminds me of either a big troll, or of someone ignorant and/or biased. Basically, pretty stupid, if you don’t mind my opinion. The only positive thing I saw here is the bashing of linux zealots.

CLI stands for “command line interface”.

Notice the lack of the word “user”. Command lines are an interface for programmers, not users. They’re a way to enter programming language commands one line at a time (like, for instance, the interactive Python interpreter). They’re fine for what they are, but they’re not a fucking user interface.

A good interface would be intuitive, discoverable, memorable, and forgiving. The Linux CLI is the opposite of these.

I’ve seen people argue that the CLI is more powerful because it’s like language, while the GUI is just pointing at things like a troglodyte. Of course, this is absurd.

Is language a good paradigm for user interfaces? YES! But the CLI is not even close to language. “grep awk -d sed /path ls sudo” is not a human language. Language is flexible and forgiving, and maybe most importantly, is full duplex. When you talk to someone, if they don’t understand what you’re saying, they can give you instant feedback to clarify it. A good interface provides feedback as quickly as possible so that you know what you’re saying is being interpreted the way you intend.

The interface developed by Mozilla for Ubiquity is much closer to what we want, but even the search bar in Windows 7 is more useful than bash.

https://mozillalabs.com/ubiquity/

No, I haven’t.

Flip-flop much? You have made posts in the past espousing the wonders O’ the CLI, now you sing a different tune. Aren’t you worried about losing your “geek cred” at your LUG?