3 ms·

> I don't have to actually type commands into a command prompt like some bearded guy from the '70s Really? I mean, really?

• jasonkester 15y ago
  Absolutely. I am aware that lots of developers seem to like the command line, but I can't for the life of me understand why. I think visually, so looking at a visual interface such as Windows Explorer is several orders of magnitude more productive than fiddling around with cd/ls to give me a picture of what's going on. Once I find what I'm looking for, I'd much prefer to right click on it and get on with my day than open up a terminal, type out a path, then try to remember some archaic command syntax. As I say, lots of programmers claim to be more productive from the command line than they are in a visual interface. It doesn't make much sense to try to dispute that, but I still find it quite baffling.
  • VMG 15y ago
    Well, as a bearded guy from the 2010's, I prefer the command line to visual interfaces for the same reason I prefer C to LabVIEW.
  • romaniv 15y ago
    I don't think it's a matter of programmers being productive per se. The greatest benefits of command line are the ability to easily store, share and reproduce actions. It's just text. You don't need screenshots to explain something, and everything is scriptable.
  • mquander 15y ago
    Note that source control in particular is particularly amenable to the command line, since the output of source control commands is blobs of text that refers to text files on disk; grepping around in it and wanting to access, process, or modify those files by name is a common operation.
    • adrianmsmith 15y ago
      I'm not sure I agree with that; I mean I use TortoiseSVN and before that TortoiseCVS as my main interface to version control, and have done for the last 10 years. It works perfectly and I don't feel I'm missing the command-line at all. (A goal of Subversion was that its command-line commands produce output which is both easily parsable by humans and machines. But still, I never use it.)
  • vectorpush 15y ago
    >am aware that lots of developers seem to like the command line, but I can't for the life of me understand why. I used to think exactly like this. It takes a while to get used to the CLI workflow, you only start to reap its benefits once you've gained a solid understanding of unix and also developed the autonomy to select the right CLI tools (e.g. tmux, zsh, vim, git) which creates synergy at every tier of your development stack. I have written software on Windows and Linux, and when it comes to most tasks related to software development, GUIs tend to get in the way. GUIs are useful at first because all your options are laid out before you, but the complexity increases since the functionality of the entire system must be abstracted through a visual interface.
  • dustingetz 15y ago
    do you write your programs in sharepoint designer, too? ;)
• nessus42 15y ago
  >I don't have to actually type commands into a command prompt like some bearded guy from the '70s Really? I mean, really? Kids today!