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This is not even wrong. I don't know where to start. Sure, training people in Latex will eventually make them churn out better looking documents than Word, but

This is not even wrong. I don't know where to start. Sure, training people in Latex will eventually make them churn out better looking documents than Word, but the initial training costs and learning curve are going to be really high for the average office worker for who Word with the ribbon is overkill. I am all for being against conventional wisdom, but surely someone would have done some experiments on these lines to unlock the creative expression of their employees? There are even a bunch of companies who allow and provide facilities for napping since they believe it helps be more productive. What's stopping them from switching to CLIs exclusively? Also, he ignores the power of macros(VBScript is very powerful) and keyboard shortcuts in GUIs. Watch an occasional user of Office vs. a pro user and you can see the difference clearly. How many here can profess to know about every feature or shortcut in Word or Excel? Just see http://www.shortcutmania.com/Microsoft-Word-2007-Keyboard-Shortcuts.pdf http://www.shortcutmania.com/Microsoft-Word-2007-Keyboard-Sh... or http://www.asap-utilities.com/excel-tips-shortcuts.php http://www.asap-utilities.com/excel-tips-shortcuts.php Same with IDEs, you can automate a lot of tasks if so choose to spend your time on it and rarely even use the mouse. You only hit a wall in the most simplest of applications(same as CLI), for complicated applications, there's a ton of room to explore. It makes more sense to rant against programs/devices(browsers, pdf readers, watching movies) that encourage consumption versus the programs/devices that encourage creation(photoshop, IDEs, writing HTML in notepad). That's the only way the analogy of driving a car vs. playing a guitar makes any sense. I can't fathom why the author is trying to turn that argument into a CLI vs. GUI argument that superficially sounds plausible but just falls apart with a little scrutiny. Since the author has mastered the car UI, I am looking forward for him to execute this move http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CK94zCXsKI&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CK94zCXsKI&feature=relat...

jerf 15y ago
When you start scripting with macros or automation tools, you've just left the limits the GUI imposes for a CLI environment, with all that entails. That's not a disagreement, that conceding the point. Nothing stops a "GUI app" from having a CLI or vice versa, though I observe that generally an app can be fairly cleanly identified as considering one or the other the "primary" interface, with the other a clear afterthought/second priority.
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  In other words, GUI apps can and do incorporate CLI elements. But CLI apps cannot incorporate GUI elements like click-to-select. So would it be accurate to say CLI apps are more limited than GUI apps? Or is the point in the article about forcing people to use CLIs so that they have to know about the more powerful features(or give up trying to use the program)? Or does he mean it's a good thing to replace the car's interface with a bunch of strings like a guitar that allow you to steer, brake and accelerate and change gears and this will allow for more creative driving? As I said, the article is not even wrong.
  - jerf 15y ago
    Too strong. You've defined "GUI" as something that can include CLI elements, but then turned around and defined CLI as being unable to include GUI elements, so you end up in a tautological circle. A "CLI app with a GUI" is something like emacs in X11 or gvim, where the GUI is clearly a second-class citizen/afterthought, but it is there. Alternatively, you can look at something like the various Linux apps for ripping DVDs, which are mostly nothing but GUI shells around various transcode and mplayer commands, and it shows. To the point that I once bashed one of them into doing what I wanted it to do, rather than what it wanted to do, by exploiting a command-line injection in the so-called "GUI" to inject a command-line parameter that superseded one of the earlier ones the program jammed in without asking me. (Subsequently I scripted up a simple rip that meets my usual use case, but the GUIs are nice when I want to save subtitles or something and it's harder than just one mencoder call.) Considered as a system, these are GUIs around underlying CLI apps that do the real work.
    - recoiledsnake 15y ago
      A GUI interface can include CLI elements because it is technically capable of showing a CLI interface. If a CLI interface can include a GUI, can you use it over in a SSH terminal? Or on a Linux box without X(or the equivalent) and all it's bloat being installed? Or on Windows 2008 Server Core? You're pretty much redefining CLI at this point and cutting away some of it's advantages too, like being able to run on very low power devices like routers etc.
cooldeal 15y ago
CLI is for noobs, Lisp macros and PERL programs are way more powerful than CLI.and can be exactly customized to your particular task that you're trying to accomplish rather than artificially limit you to a list of non-extensible options like CLIs tend to do.
saulrh 15y ago
People that need training simply to do their job are operators, not creators. They don't need a CLI, nor should they use one. As the article states: There is a time for operation, and a time for expression. Most interface debates are misinformed because they are about creators complaining about operation interfaces, or operators complaining about creation interfaces. We need both. But we also need to understand when.
- ugh 15y ago
  People create in their jobs. They write texts, edit images, layout and so on. Do they need a CLI?
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  That is oversimplifying the issue. Are Photoshop users creators? Are Visual Studio users just operators of an IDE? "Creators" don't use machine opcodes or punch cards anymore. We already have Latex to substitute for Word and Lynx to substitute for Firefox.
  - bad_user 15y ago
    Are Photoshop users creators? It depends on the use-case. A majority of Photoshop users probably only use it for occasional and singular tasks, like resizing an image for sending it via email, or retouching a good photo with bad exposure. On the other hand some users have a need to do batch processing and in that regard Photoshop is surely limited. Also, Photoshop is so god-damn effective in 80% of the tasks that most users never learn the mechanics of useful effects like smart-sharpening (just an example), which is really bad because the same techniques for doing a manual smart-sharpening can be used for lots other effects. Do note that Photoshop does have scripting support, but I don't know if it is an afterthought or not (and this does matter). Are Visual Studio users just operators of an IDE? Many of them are operators and it's freaking painful to watch. We already have Latex to substitute for Word Well, actually Microsoft has yet to create a replacement for Latex. The layout of a Word document gets broken a lot depending on the fonts installed, on the Word version you have or even because of the printer drivers you're using. I even saw the same document rendered differently on the same machine, changed from one application instance to another. Granted it was a badly formated document, but that's just sad. Latex is still the only general-purpose solution for producing high-quality documentation that is consistently rendered well across devices and that can be properly translated into PDF or whatever format you want without splitting hairs. It's also much more productive for expressing mathematical formulas. Lynx to substitute for Firefox This comparison is not fair because HTML itself was meant to be rendered, not read directly. However, I still don't see professional designers / developers using WYSIWYG tools for writing HTML, like say, Dreamweaver. They may draw the layout in Photoshop, but writing HTML? That's done by hand, unless you're speaking about incompetents. That may change but after more than 20 years after the web was invented, the fact that no WYSIWYG editor is capable of being good enough for the task truly speaks volumes.

jerf 15y ago

When you start scripting with macros or automation tools, you've just left the limits the GUI imposes for a CLI environment, with all that entails. That's not a disagreement, that conceding the point. Nothing stops a "GUI app" from having a CLI or vice versa, though I observe that generally an app can be fairly cleanly identified as considering one or the other the "primary" interface, with the other a clear afterthought/second priority.

recoiledsnake 15y ago
In other words, GUI apps can and do incorporate CLI elements. But CLI apps cannot incorporate GUI elements like click-to-select. So would it be accurate to say CLI apps are more limited than GUI apps? Or is the point in the article about forcing people to use CLIs so that they have to know about the more powerful features(or give up trying to use the program)? Or does he mean it's a good thing to replace the car's interface with a bunch of strings like a guitar that allow you to steer, brake and accelerate and change gears and this will allow for more creative driving? As I said, the article is not even wrong.
- jerf 15y ago
  Too strong. You've defined "GUI" as something that can include CLI elements, but then turned around and defined CLI as being unable to include GUI elements, so you end up in a tautological circle. A "CLI app with a GUI" is something like emacs in X11 or gvim, where the GUI is clearly a second-class citizen/afterthought, but it is there. Alternatively, you can look at something like the various Linux apps for ripping DVDs, which are mostly nothing but GUI shells around various transcode and mplayer commands, and it shows. To the point that I once bashed one of them into doing what I wanted it to do, rather than what it wanted to do, by exploiting a command-line injection in the so-called "GUI" to inject a command-line parameter that superseded one of the earlier ones the program jammed in without asking me. (Subsequently I scripted up a simple rip that meets my usual use case, but the GUIs are nice when I want to save subtitles or something and it's harder than just one mencoder call.) Considered as a system, these are GUIs around underlying CLI apps that do the real work.
  - recoiledsnake 15y ago
    A GUI interface can include CLI elements because it is technically capable of showing a CLI interface. If a CLI interface can include a GUI, can you use it over in a SSH terminal? Or on a Linux box without X(or the equivalent) and all it's bloat being installed? Or on Windows 2008 Server Core? You're pretty much redefining CLI at this point and cutting away some of it's advantages too, like being able to run on very low power devices like routers etc.

cooldeal 15y ago

CLI is for noobs, Lisp macros and PERL programs are way more powerful than CLI.and can be exactly customized to your particular task that you're trying to accomplish rather than artificially limit you to a list of non-extensible options like CLIs tend to do.

saulrh 15y ago

People that need training simply to do their job are operators, not creators. They don't need a CLI, nor should they use one. As the article states: There is a time for operation, and a time for expression. Most interface debates are misinformed because they are about creators complaining about operation interfaces, or operators complaining about creation interfaces. We need both. But we also need to understand when.

ugh 15y ago
People create in their jobs. They write texts, edit images, layout and so on. Do they need a CLI?
recoiledsnake 15y ago
That is oversimplifying the issue. Are Photoshop users creators? Are Visual Studio users just operators of an IDE? "Creators" don't use machine opcodes or punch cards anymore. We already have Latex to substitute for Word and Lynx to substitute for Firefox.
- bad_user 15y ago
  Are Photoshop users creators? It depends on the use-case. A majority of Photoshop users probably only use it for occasional and singular tasks, like resizing an image for sending it via email, or retouching a good photo with bad exposure. On the other hand some users have a need to do batch processing and in that regard Photoshop is surely limited. Also, Photoshop is so god-damn effective in 80% of the tasks that most users never learn the mechanics of useful effects like smart-sharpening (just an example), which is really bad because the same techniques for doing a manual smart-sharpening can be used for lots other effects. Do note that Photoshop does have scripting support, but I don't know if it is an afterthought or not (and this does matter). Are Visual Studio users just operators of an IDE? Many of them are operators and it's freaking painful to watch. We already have Latex to substitute for Word Well, actually Microsoft has yet to create a replacement for Latex. The layout of a Word document gets broken a lot depending on the fonts installed, on the Word version you have or even because of the printer drivers you're using. I even saw the same document rendered differently on the same machine, changed from one application instance to another. Granted it was a badly formated document, but that's just sad. Latex is still the only general-purpose solution for producing high-quality documentation that is consistently rendered well across devices and that can be properly translated into PDF or whatever format you want without splitting hairs. It's also much more productive for expressing mathematical formulas. Lynx to substitute for Firefox This comparison is not fair because HTML itself was meant to be rendered, not read directly. However, I still don't see professional designers / developers using WYSIWYG tools for writing HTML, like say, Dreamweaver. They may draw the layout in Photoshop, but writing HTML? That's done by hand, unless you're speaking about incompetents. That may change but after more than 20 years after the web was invented, the fact that no WYSIWYG editor is capable of being good enough for the task truly speaks volumes.