One way to think about interface power is in terms of thresholds and ceilings. CLIs are powerful with a somewhat high threshold and high ceiling. In the attempt

One way to think about interface power is in terms of thresholds and ceilings. CLIs are powerful with a somewhat high threshold and high ceiling. In the attempt to lower the threshold, most UIs and OSes significantly lower the ceiling too. I don't recall who originally described it this way. One of Logo's motivations was to have an experimentation environment for kids with low threshold and no ceiling. Perhaps Seymour Papert.