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I am a productive programmer and I am absolute uncomfortable with the command line. I can't count the times I have written svn commit -m "Finally fixed bug

I am a productive programmer and I am absolute uncomfortable with the command line. I can't count the times I have written svn commit -m "Finally fixed bug #123!" ...only to get some weird bizarro error because I should have used '' or escaped the !. This is usually when I am deeply focused on some programming language or bug #123. Tower.app is the only reason I've ever touched git, and the line-by-line staging and committing is nothing I would ever bother to do with a CLI.

kamaal 14y ago
I think this is a general problem with people with extreme addiction to IDEs and Windows based UIs. I've known people in my team who can't do any work on the command line comfortably. I see this problem especially among people who work on Frontend and especially Java developers. If a certain set of tools are making you dumber by the day, know it for sure that it will be automated or you will be replaced by lesser skilled cheap labor inevitably.
- crono5788 14y ago
  > If a certain set of tools are making you dumber by the day How does "not comfortable with the command line" translate to "dumber by the day?" If people get their training using IDEs and go on to be productive using primarily IDEs, how does being uncomfortable with the command line reflect on their intelligence in any way? > know it for sure that it will be automated or you will be replaced by lesser skilled cheap labor inevitably. Yes, the mundane, confusing use of the git command line is here to stay and the dumb "actually design and engineer an application" world of IDEs is going to be replaced by robots. You are a fucking genius. Only on the internet can such backwards and completely worthless logic be said because if you tried to say this shit to anyone in real life you'd be laughed out of the room.
  - damncabbage 14y ago
    How does "not comfortable with the command line" translate to "dumber by the day?" If people get their training using IDEs and go on to be productive using primarily IDEs, how does being uncomfortable with the command line reflect on their intelligence in any way? I agree with you completely. Being familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the console does not make you smarter than people who aren't; you've just learnt different things. You are a fucking genius. Only on the internet can such backwards and completely worthless logic be said because if you tried to say this shit to anyone in real life you'd be laughed out of the room. You went off the rails here. You can disagree without being abusive. Downvoted, sorry.
  - kamaal 14y ago
    You are taking it personally. >>How does "not comfortable with the command line" translate to "dumber by the day?" If people get their training using IDEs and go on to be productive using primarily IDEs, how does being uncomfortable with the command line reflect on their intelligence in any way? Because the common characteristics of such people is to heavily depend on intellisense and auto complete to do almost any task. Tool generated code is so common in those communities most code is generally taken care by the IDE. Import statements, exception handling, try/catch blocks, loop generation in context of previous statements. The list endless... When you are tuned to thinking this way you basically lose any touch on proactive coding. You stop thinking, the IDE starts thinking for you. You stop reading API because you know everything is about to be auto completed, anyway. Now the issue is you are offloading the job of thinking to the IDE. This is dangerous. If a rookie can do what an expert can, just by using an IDE. I guess its time for the expert to fear for his job. Lack of knowledge of command line utils is just one such case. You can either learn how to use awk/sed/Perl + Text processing utils. Or you can open up eclipse and endlessly re implement what the command line has to already offer. When you start looking this from the larger perspective, refusing to learn tools designed to solve a problem in the proper way and taking short cuts, actually makes your life difficult on the longer run. >>Yes, the mundane, confusing use of the git command line is here to stay and the dumb "actually design and engineer an application" world of IDEs is going to be replaced by robots. You are a fucking genius. Only on the internet can such backwards and completely worthless logic be said because if you tried to say this shit to anyone in real life you'd be laughed out of the room. Definition of dumb varies. Definition of 'usability' varies. By your definition a programming language could be called dumb, a microprocessor and its interfaces can be called dumb, A pilots cabin and controls can be called dumb(As they are both not easy to laymen, and have never even made progress in that direction). A tool like git is not designed to be a toy or recreation software. Its supposed to manage text/binary versions in situations faced by individuals, small and large teams managing software projects. Therefore it is designed to cover features in that direction, for programmers. Not for your ordinary user who needs to use the ATM to withdraw money. Complaining about command line's usability being difficult is same as complaining about an Airplane's cockpit.
    - gurkendoktor 14y ago
philwelch 14y ago
Well, suit yourself. It's just a tremendously useful skill to have. Makes it a bit less of a hassle to ssh into the odd server to check the logs, or dump a database, or use tools that don't have a GUI. I mean, fundamentally, you're typing things to a computer and then the computer does what you typed. Why should that notion be uncomfortable to a programmer of all people?
- gurkendoktor 14y ago
  Oh, I can use the terminal, I can also theoretically write PHP, and every vim user can theoretically use Eclipse. But that doesn't mean that any of us would be comfortable with it - we'd all be anxious and focused on the tool (instead of the problem at hand) not to break stuff left and right.
  - hkolek 14y ago
    What kind of argument is that? How can you ever learn anything new with this attitude? If you never leave your comfort zone you will never make any progress. Just do it.
    - gurkendoktor 14y ago
      I have listed things that I have tried out for months. I happen to really hate these particular three. Now I study other things that I find more worthy of human lifetime, some of them just as useful to a programmer. Why can you not accept that someone could possibly hate working with a shell or git's CLI even after trying them out? I don't get it.

kamaal 14y ago

I think this is a general problem with people with extreme addiction to IDEs and Windows based UIs. I've known people in my team who can't do any work on the command line comfortably. I see this problem especially among people who work on Frontend and especially Java developers. If a certain set of tools are making you dumber by the day, know it for sure that it will be automated or you will be replaced by lesser skilled cheap labor inevitably.

crono5788 14y ago
> If a certain set of tools are making you dumber by the day How does "not comfortable with the command line" translate to "dumber by the day?" If people get their training using IDEs and go on to be productive using primarily IDEs, how does being uncomfortable with the command line reflect on their intelligence in any way? > know it for sure that it will be automated or you will be replaced by lesser skilled cheap labor inevitably. Yes, the mundane, confusing use of the git command line is here to stay and the dumb "actually design and engineer an application" world of IDEs is going to be replaced by robots. You are a fucking genius. Only on the internet can such backwards and completely worthless logic be said because if you tried to say this shit to anyone in real life you'd be laughed out of the room.
- damncabbage 14y ago
  How does "not comfortable with the command line" translate to "dumber by the day?" If people get their training using IDEs and go on to be productive using primarily IDEs, how does being uncomfortable with the command line reflect on their intelligence in any way? I agree with you completely. Being familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the console does not make you smarter than people who aren't; you've just learnt different things. You are a fucking genius. Only on the internet can such backwards and completely worthless logic be said because if you tried to say this shit to anyone in real life you'd be laughed out of the room. You went off the rails here. You can disagree without being abusive. Downvoted, sorry.
- kamaal 14y ago
  You are taking it personally. >>How does "not comfortable with the command line" translate to "dumber by the day?" If people get their training using IDEs and go on to be productive using primarily IDEs, how does being uncomfortable with the command line reflect on their intelligence in any way? Because the common characteristics of such people is to heavily depend on intellisense and auto complete to do almost any task. Tool generated code is so common in those communities most code is generally taken care by the IDE. Import statements, exception handling, try/catch blocks, loop generation in context of previous statements. The list endless... When you are tuned to thinking this way you basically lose any touch on proactive coding. You stop thinking, the IDE starts thinking for you. You stop reading API because you know everything is about to be auto completed, anyway. Now the issue is you are offloading the job of thinking to the IDE. This is dangerous. If a rookie can do what an expert can, just by using an IDE. I guess its time for the expert to fear for his job. Lack of knowledge of command line utils is just one such case. You can either learn how to use awk/sed/Perl + Text processing utils. Or you can open up eclipse and endlessly re implement what the command line has to already offer. When you start looking this from the larger perspective, refusing to learn tools designed to solve a problem in the proper way and taking short cuts, actually makes your life difficult on the longer run. >>Yes, the mundane, confusing use of the git command line is here to stay and the dumb "actually design and engineer an application" world of IDEs is going to be replaced by robots. You are a fucking genius. Only on the internet can such backwards and completely worthless logic be said because if you tried to say this shit to anyone in real life you'd be laughed out of the room. Definition of dumb varies. Definition of 'usability' varies. By your definition a programming language could be called dumb, a microprocessor and its interfaces can be called dumb, A pilots cabin and controls can be called dumb(As they are both not easy to laymen, and have never even made progress in that direction). A tool like git is not designed to be a toy or recreation software. Its supposed to manage text/binary versions in situations faced by individuals, small and large teams managing software projects. Therefore it is designed to cover features in that direction, for programmers. Not for your ordinary user who needs to use the ATM to withdraw money. Complaining about command line's usability being difficult is same as complaining about an Airplane's cockpit.
  - gurkendoktor 14y ago

philwelch 14y ago

Well, suit yourself. It's just a tremendously useful skill to have. Makes it a bit less of a hassle to ssh into the odd server to check the logs, or dump a database, or use tools that don't have a GUI. I mean, fundamentally, you're typing things to a computer and then the computer does what you typed. Why should that notion be uncomfortable to a programmer of all people?

gurkendoktor 14y ago
Oh, I can use the terminal, I can also theoretically write PHP, and every vim user can theoretically use Eclipse. But that doesn't mean that any of us would be comfortable with it - we'd all be anxious and focused on the tool (instead of the problem at hand) not to break stuff left and right.
- hkolek 14y ago
  What kind of argument is that? How can you ever learn anything new with this attitude? If you never leave your comfort zone you will never make any progress. Just do it.
  - gurkendoktor 14y ago
    I have listed things that I have tried out for months. I happen to really hate these particular three. Now I study other things that I find more worthy of human lifetime, some of them just as useful to a programmer. Why can you not accept that someone could possibly hate working with a shell or git's CLI even after trying them out? I don't get it.