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> it takes time to learn all of the shirtcuts in any GUI application I'd say in most cases it takes more time to learn a console application. GUI's these days

> it takes time to learn all of the shirtcuts in any GUI application I'd say in most cases it takes more time to learn a console application. GUI's these days are, mostly, pretty intuitive. CLI applications are not intuitive at all. The difference is, for me, that GUI use quickly levels out in efficiency. _If_ I have learned the CLI commands and know them well, I generally can do tasks a whole lot quicker than a GUI I know well. It just has a higher up-front cost, which may be very worth it, to not worth it at all, depending on how much you use the application.

mbrock 9y ago
CLI programs that have decent --help feel very intuitive to me, especially if they're designed by someone with experience using command line tools. GUI programs can be intuitive too, but they also have their own special anti-intuitive things: meaningless icons, weird drag and drop paradigms, etc.
heavenlyblue 9y ago
What I am speaking for here is not the CLI per se, but the fact that a CLI interface is generally a flat interface. That is: there's one place where you will be able access all of the commands, and as much the help for them. A multi-tabbed configuration would be the worst counter-example of the former. On the other hand mentioning IDEA again - their config window (Cmd+,) directly allows one to search for the elements of the configuration in a flat manner. That's damn efficient. Have you ever tried to scroll through a list of 100s of items? What if all of these items are in pop-over menu that closes if you accidentally click outside it? How much easier that is in a console though. I would always vouch for software that is both easy to use right from the start, but neither does not hide it's functionality anymore: just the way we have moved from yellow pages on the internet arranged in a tree-like fashion for a purely flat Google interface, I would like to be able to use software in the same non-hierarchical way.

mbrock 9y ago

CLI programs that have decent --help feel very intuitive to me, especially if they're designed by someone with experience using command line tools. GUI programs can be intuitive too, but they also have their own special anti-intuitive things: meaningless icons, weird drag and drop paradigms, etc.

heavenlyblue 9y ago

What I am speaking for here is not the CLI per se, but the fact that a CLI interface is generally a flat interface. That is: there's one place where you will be able access all of the commands, and as much the help for them. A multi-tabbed configuration would be the worst counter-example of the former. On the other hand mentioning IDEA again - their config window (Cmd+,) directly allows one to search for the elements of the configuration in a flat manner. That's damn efficient. Have you ever tried to scroll through a list of 100s of items? What if all of these items are in pop-over menu that closes if you accidentally click outside it? How much easier that is in a console though. I would always vouch for software that is both easy to use right from the start, but neither does not hide it's functionality anymore: just the way we have moved from yellow pages on the internet arranged in a tree-like fashion for a purely flat Google interface, I would like to be able to use software in the same non-hierarchical way.