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> CLIs predate GUIs I'd consider the front panel of physical buttons, switches, knobs and dials of early, pre-teletype computers to be much more like a GUI tha

• adrianratnapala 9y ago
  But if we play this game you I could counter with "consider slaves, they pre-date control panels but took textual (or at least verbal) commands". It's a silly game isn't it? But we can gain some knowledge from the game nonethless. Control panels do have some great benefits, because the human vision system is so powerful, and because there is the possibility of direct manipulation. But the CLI has the great advantage that you are just telling the machine what to do, instead of having to point and grunt. But it's not good for ordinary users because the language is baroque while also requiring you to talk very precisely. We missed a lot by being slow to develop "fuzzy CLIs" where people can talk more lazily. The "press the windows key to search" feature from Win7 onwards is a good start in this direction.
• eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  CLIs are powerful because, like programming languages, are close to human language. Not surprisingly the following transitions happened in many industrial applications, complex vehicles, not to mention weapons (e.g. submarines): "few knobs and dials" -> "airplane cockpit" -> airplane cockpit + keyboard and a simple CLI -> full scripting