On 01/17/2014 09:31 PM, David Wilcox wrote: > For me, it's not about if you can do any one thing with a linux shell > vs a gui. For the most part, guis have all the individual > functionality of a shell. As I see it, shells buy you two things: > > 1) Scriptability. Writing a bash script to repeat a particular process > is *way* easier than anything similar I've seen for a UI. It's also > very easy to write a bash script to do certain operating system > operations one after the other. For example, I have a bash script that > will start up a daemon (one command) and then run a bunch of commands > against that daemon. > 2) Pipeability. I can pipe results of one program to another (for > example, sort file.txt | uniq -c). Piping gives you endless > possibilities on one line and ends up making things a bit easier if > you know what you're doing. > > In layman's terms, GUI's were made to make using a computer something a caveman can do. It therefore mimics the interface a caveman is most comfortable with; point-and-grunt:
"MM...Banana...there...give....mmmmmm." "MM...Bittorrent Files...there...give....mmmmmm." It's a simple interface, but not without risks. When a flagrant error prevents a caveman from getting exactly what he wants, he jumps up and down, bashes on the nearest office equipment, then grunts and shouts in vigorous fashion. Command-line interfaces were designed by renaissance thinkers, for renaissance thinkers. It is a far more efficient interface for those who know what they want, know how to ask for it directly and succinctly, and generally refrain from bashing anything but the shell and maybe someone else's choice of editor. There have been a few researchers brave enough to try helping the computing caveman into the era of expressive computing. I happen to have a transcript of such research right here: caveman: "MM....root.....there....give......arraaaagraarahhhh!" researcher: "Come on now, use your words...." caveman: "su" researcher: "Good boy, have a banana!" caveman: "mmmmmmm." There is a third, less interesting group of individuals that insist on top-posting; these are generally understood to be disestablishmentarians. But that's another story for another day. Grazie, ;-Daniel
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