CLI is better for when you know where you want to go, but it sucks for exploration. It takes much more effort to learn how a file tree is laid out using the CLI

CLI is better for when you know where you want to go, but it sucks for exploration. It takes much more effort to learn how a file tree is laid out using the CLI than it does using a GUI. It's much simpler to move your mouse and click once than to use cd + ls. (Never-mind the fact that half the time I go to use ll and oops, this is a super-user so none of my aliases work.) OTOH, if you're always moving files from /stage to /live or /db to /backup, CLI is more efficient, particularly once you write a script to capture what you need to do. GUI also comes out on top for anything where the CLI ends up just being a mock-GUI. For example, on OS X, there's no reason to use top instead of Activity Monitor, since they do the same thing, and AM lets you click the column headers to re-order things. Also, I know people love vim/emacs, but those are both better as GUIs than as pure-terminal programs.