Text-driven interfaces can be amazing. I worked at an auto parts store right out of high school. Our terminals for looking up parts were entirely text-based, an

Text-driven interfaces can be amazing. I worked at an auto parts store right out of high school. Our terminals for looking up parts were entirely text-based, and once you knew the commands and make/model/category shortcuts you could easily issue commands at a faster than the terminal could render the results. It was so efficient and productive. I was in a parts store last month, and their catalog software was gui- and mouse-driven and just slow and un-ergonomic. Sure, you get images to accompany the parts list, but I'm not sure the tradeoff was worth it or even necessary. I want to believe fast, uncluttered CLIs can make a comeback.* *That being said, I just realized I sound like the professor in my AutoCAD class who insisted that the way he learned AutoCAD (all keyboard commands) was better as we all happily clicked around.