[Cumbria] The guy has a point...

[Ken Hough]

Michael Saunders wrote:

> 
>Interesting little article.
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>>"problem with the idea of linux on the desktop are the die-hard CLI
>>users"
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>Slightly OT here and not really arguing that guy's point, but the
>shell prompt gets much flak when it's often far easier than doing
>things the graphical way. In my experience (through writing
>tutorials), telling someone to type in a single line is immensely
>simpler than faffing around with dialog boxes, switches and menus.
>
>Say there was a graphical front-end to GCC, and you're teaching
>someone how to compile a basic C program. It's much easier to say:
>
>gcc -o myapp myapp.c
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>Rather than having the user trawl through windows and boxes and
>buttons.  It's the same for a lot of stuff -- humans speak English and
>respond to commands; it's not always appropriate to walk someone
>through a 2D surface with pictorial representations of actions.
>  
>
Here! Here! --- especially with the Linux abilty to recall (many) 
previous command lines via the Up/Down keys.

I have a couple of icons on my desktop for burning data and audio CDs. 
These call one of two home brewed shell scripts which run command line 
intructions to do the job. I get details of progress in a terminal 
window --  Much easier than trying to navigate any of the GUI apps that 
I've seen.

Ken

>What some people tend to forget when they write these columns is that
>zealotry and bad community behaviour was just as rife in the
>Windows/DOS world going back many years -- just on a smaller scale.
>  
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It's a sad reflection on the Human race that we tend to fall into 
zealotry -- religious, political or whatever.
I remember seeing a poster on a London Tube station which read something 
like:

        "It's less dangerous to believe that one is sincere than to be 
convinced that one is right"

Wish I could remeber to whom this was attributed. Anyone know?

Ken

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