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CLI tools also have the advantage that their developers don't have to waste their time building and maintaining a useless GUI, but can instead use the time to i

• jeremymcanally 8y ago
  Well, it's also non-sensical. A CLI "interface" needs a lot of thought and work behind it, too, unless you want to end up loathed by your users as something like git is.
  • mikeyjk 8y ago
    I don't think it is fair to say that git users loathe it overall. I enjoy using git, is this not a common experience?
    • staticautomatic 8y ago
      I think it would be fair to say that a lot of people have a love/hate relationship with git.
    • p1necone 8y ago
      Nope, I enjoy using it too. It might have a learning curve but afaic for a tool I use every day in my full time job productivity == good ux.
    • madhadron 8y ago
      I regard the command line as a last resort if I can't do something in SourceTree. After spending time with a quality source control client, any command line interface feels like wading through quicksand.
      • grimgrin 8y ago
        This is likely an insult to git but it’s really similar to vim in that regard. After using ST2 or TextMate for so long, many people aren’t interested in learning (remembering?) how to use vim’s modals/commands. A lot of people probably did start with SourceTree or a git plug-in in Visual Studio etc My git workflow is very much tied to aliases. Customization is a hot thing for many people (but really you should probably read the fugitive.vim docs in their entirety)
        • madhadron 8y ago
          I go the other way. After twenty years of unix, the first few without X11, I have become very clear on what is cruft and history and what is actually making my life better. SourceTree didn't exist when I started using git, but it makes the day to day operations of source control much easier and more precise than the command line. I spent enough years in a command line debugger that I am thrilled to have good debugger integration in my IDE. It's easy to get into a machismo thing where you regard the shell and a teletype emulator as the "natural" interface to the computer, but it's really an incredibly abstracted interface already, and if you spend some time thinking about what you're actually doing, there's usually a GUI or library for an actual language that is what you really want. It just may not exist.
          • xorcist 8y ago
            > It's easy to get into a machismo thing where you regard the shell Unspoken presumptions about how the CLI is harder to use and GUIs somehow more natural (because graphics) is usually a sign of not understanding neither. I spend most of my time in my editor and at the command line because it's easier to use. I don't have to learn thousands of little clickable widgets just to get the job done (which tend to change with every version of the tool). That said, there are good and bad user interfaces with CLI tools, just like with GUI tools. What's more interesting however, is how tools shape the way you think. CLI tools tend to feel like processing data, whereas with GUI tools you feel like maneouvering a large machine. The former tends to lead to fewer mistakes at scale.
      • 8y ago
    • chris_wot 8y ago
      Yup, it's much easier in many ways to use the git CLI than it is to use a UI.
      • seanc 8y ago
        emacs magit is the exception that proves your rule.
    • mjrbrennan 8y ago
      I've found a lot of people seem to hate it. I like using it in the command line personally, I find that 99% of the time I am using the same commands day in day out so I don't have to do anything particularly hard using the git CLI.
      • rjzzleep 8y ago
        my absolute favorite command is: git add -p {insert some path here}. personally, I don't know why people claim that mercurial is so much more intuitive, but I also don't think that something that is clearly a personal preference based on previous experience warrants an ideologic war.
        • tome 8y ago
          If you like that just wait until you've tried git -c interactive.singleKey=true commit --verbose --patch
  • openfuture 8y ago
    I think pijul is a counterexample to this claim. Category theory was used to find the mathematically optimal semantic (i.e. interface) for the category of files and patches (i.e. version control) and so the need to plan the command line interface has been minimized. A GUI would still require a substantial amount of work. I wouldn't go so far as to defend the somewhat exaggerated claim in the original article but I still think CLIs are easier than GUIs.
    • andrewflnr 8y ago
      That doesn't really change the equation. You've just front-loaded the work into the categorical analysis of version control (and the implied "learn category theory" phase). PS: I'm cheering for Pijul from the sidelines. :)
• upofadown 8y ago
  It is hardly a controversial statement, particularly in the context of something entirely text oriented like accounting. It would be different if they were expressing the same sentiment for something like a 3D graphics editor...
• callumlocke 8y ago
  Stopped here also. Bad sign. Different tools for different jobs, no need to get emotional.