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Well, yes and no. If you want to look at something very small, you have to learn how to use a microscope. It's not that hard to learn how to use a simple micros

Well, yes and no. If you want to look at something very small, you have to learn how to use a microscope. It's not that hard to learn how to use a simple microscope, and you can make adjustments by thinking about the physical principles, which are universal. And if a certain type of microscope isn't suitable, you can always change or someone can design a better one. The *nix command line is not based on physical law. There is no mathematical or physical reason that human-computer action has to be through an underpowered, user hostile design that requires lots of unnecessary memorization. People use it because everyone does. You can come up with a better design, but you'll still have to use the old design if you want to interact with anyone else. Edit: By "underpowered", I mean that passing byte streams and parsing them is less powerful than passing objects. And this is made worse by the fact that different commands have different output syntaxes.

sergiosgc 12y ago
> (...) underpowered, user hostile design that requires lots of unnecessary memorization. User hostile I can understand. Underpowered is just plain false. Parsing log files, relating data between them and aggregating results is a common task for any decent sysadmin. I know no interface as powerful (measured as the ratio of information quality over time spent) as the Unix command line. Many powerful interfaces have ultra steep learning curves. The Unix shell is one of them. Steep learning curves are a flaw, of course, but they do not invalidate the other qualities of the interface.
jnbiche 12y ago
>an underpowered, user hostile design In your opinion, of course. Many of us find the * nix command line not only elegant and highly-productive, but actually enjoyable. In fact, the only Linux command line tools that I did not immediately start using in a highly productive manner are `tar` and `find`, arguably two of tools that least abide by the ideals of * nix command line tools (I've since gotten used to `find`, but `tar` may always send me searching for my personal wiki's corresponding entry[1]). If you want to argue that there are better ways to program on the console, I grant that it's possible -- although as mentioned, I find the composability of * nix tools to be an almost magically productive approach. But to condemn anyone to a life of GUI tools is not only going to drastically increase their chance of developing carpal tunnel syndrome, but also inevitably will slow down their work flow -- often drastically. It's simply not possible for even an experienced user to point and click with a mouse as fast as an fluent typist can issue commands on the terminal. 1. http://xkcd.com/1168/ http://xkcd.com/1168/
- matt_kantor 12y ago
  I too love the CLI, but I wish someone would go through and standardize flags, naming, ordering concerns, long-form arguments, etc across all of the POSIX tools. GNU put in some effort here, but in my opinion they didn't go far enough and non-GNU operating systems (BSD, OSX, etc) are missing out. Actually, as much as I dislike Apple, they're probably one of the few entities that could pull off something like this.
  - hderms 12y ago
    I so agree with you. The only thing I hate about the *nix userland is that all tools follow their own set of arbitrary concerns regarding the things you mentioned. Really limits the intuitiveness and discoverability of the system.
  - danielweber 12y ago
    Honestly I feel like most Unix command-line tools are pretty good. I can make a good guess what "-n" and "-i" will mean on a new Unix tool based on context. The git commands are a big exception; it's like each individual git command was written by its own committee, each deep with NIH syndrome. The one example I remember is two different git tools having a different way of colorizing their output.
  - Kalium 12y ago
    I don't think Apple could. Their influence on serverland is virtually nil.
jerf 12y ago
If the command line were underpowered, it would have been abandoned decades ago. It's still around precisely because it's incredibly powerful, and nobody has come up with a suitable replacement that doesn't involve sacrificing a lot of power. Further, all of the "No, obviously this would work much better!"s have been tried already. Dozens of times, if not hundreds. Some of them you can even download right now. Nevertheless, the command line persists. It may not be perfect in every detail, but it's far harder to exceed than it seems at an initial, frustrated glance. If you hope to someday so replace it, it would be wise to understand exactly why that is, lest your effort completely fail in exactly the same way as so many prior attempts.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  I use command lines maybe once a month. For almost everything, it has been replaced. For those places it hasn't, I blame the tool for not automating some process that could have easily been automated.
  - mcguire 12y ago
    Some days I wish someone would have already created a tool to do all of the stuff I needed to do.
    - pjene 12y ago
      That day, no one will pay you to do what you do.
    - rthomas6 12y ago
      They did, you just have to do a bunch of command-line bullshittery to get it to work.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    I absolutely live at the command line, and when I'm forced into a walled garden I blame the tool for not properly exposing its functionality to the rest of the system so I can easily automate it the way I want it automated. Edited to add: Note that this isn't a claim that anyone else (in particular) is Doing It Wrong - it's what works for me, I'm sure there are other points in the space that work as well or better for others. That, itself, should not be taken as a claim that every point in the space is equivalent - that's not true either. What I do strongly refute is any notion that the command line is "under powered" in general.
ska 12y ago
Part of the reason that people still use the *nix style interface is that the large number of people who thought they'd come up with a better design were actually wrong about that. It's harder than it looks.

sergiosgc 12y ago

> (...) underpowered, user hostile design that requires lots of unnecessary memorization. User hostile I can understand. Underpowered is just plain false. Parsing log files, relating data between them and aggregating results is a common task for any decent sysadmin. I know no interface as powerful (measured as the ratio of information quality over time spent) as the Unix command line. Many powerful interfaces have ultra steep learning curves. The Unix shell is one of them. Steep learning curves are a flaw, of course, but they do not invalidate the other qualities of the interface.

jnbiche 12y ago

>an underpowered, user hostile design In your opinion, of course. Many of us find the * nix command line not only elegant and highly-productive, but actually enjoyable. In fact, the only Linux command line tools that I did not immediately start using in a highly productive manner are `tar` and `find`, arguably two of tools that least abide by the ideals of * nix command line tools (I've since gotten used to `find`, but `tar` may always send me searching for my personal wiki's corresponding entry[1]). If you want to argue that there are better ways to program on the console, I grant that it's possible -- although as mentioned, I find the composability of * nix tools to be an almost magically productive approach. But to condemn anyone to a life of GUI tools is not only going to drastically increase their chance of developing carpal tunnel syndrome, but also inevitably will slow down their work flow -- often drastically. It's simply not possible for even an experienced user to point and click with a mouse as fast as an fluent typist can issue commands on the terminal. 1. http://xkcd.com/1168/ http://xkcd.com/1168/

matt_kantor 12y ago
I too love the CLI, but I wish someone would go through and standardize flags, naming, ordering concerns, long-form arguments, etc across all of the POSIX tools. GNU put in some effort here, but in my opinion they didn't go far enough and non-GNU operating systems (BSD, OSX, etc) are missing out. Actually, as much as I dislike Apple, they're probably one of the few entities that could pull off something like this.
- hderms 12y ago
  I so agree with you. The only thing I hate about the *nix userland is that all tools follow their own set of arbitrary concerns regarding the things you mentioned. Really limits the intuitiveness and discoverability of the system.
- danielweber 12y ago
  Honestly I feel like most Unix command-line tools are pretty good. I can make a good guess what "-n" and "-i" will mean on a new Unix tool based on context. The git commands are a big exception; it's like each individual git command was written by its own committee, each deep with NIH syndrome. The one example I remember is two different git tools having a different way of colorizing their output.
- Kalium 12y ago
  I don't think Apple could. Their influence on serverland is virtually nil.

jerf 12y ago

If the command line were underpowered, it would have been abandoned decades ago. It's still around precisely because it's incredibly powerful, and nobody has come up with a suitable replacement that doesn't involve sacrificing a lot of power. Further, all of the "No, obviously this would work much better!"s have been tried already. Dozens of times, if not hundreds. Some of them you can even download right now. Nevertheless, the command line persists. It may not be perfect in every detail, but it's far harder to exceed than it seems at an initial, frustrated glance. If you hope to someday so replace it, it would be wise to understand exactly why that is, lest your effort completely fail in exactly the same way as so many prior attempts.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
I use command lines maybe once a month. For almost everything, it has been replaced. For those places it hasn't, I blame the tool for not automating some process that could have easily been automated.
- mcguire 12y ago
  Some days I wish someone would have already created a tool to do all of the stuff I needed to do.
  - pjene 12y ago
    That day, no one will pay you to do what you do.
  - rthomas6 12y ago
    They did, you just have to do a bunch of command-line bullshittery to get it to work.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  I absolutely live at the command line, and when I'm forced into a walled garden I blame the tool for not properly exposing its functionality to the rest of the system so I can easily automate it the way I want it automated. Edited to add: Note that this isn't a claim that anyone else (in particular) is Doing It Wrong - it's what works for me, I'm sure there are other points in the space that work as well or better for others. That, itself, should not be taken as a claim that every point in the space is equivalent - that's not true either. What I do strongly refute is any notion that the command line is "under powered" in general.

ska 12y ago

Part of the reason that people still use the *nix style interface is that the large number of people who thought they'd come up with a better design were actually wrong about that. It's harder than it looks.