Comment by ndsipa_pomu
22 days ago
GUIs are great for when you're new to a bit of software as you can see the various options and get a feel for the possibilities. CLIs are nearly always more flexible once you've read the man page, but is a steeper learning path.
Automation/scripting is when CLIs really come into their own as otherwise you end up becoming a GUI click monkey. The best is when there's both a GUI and CLI (as long as they work the same way).
I wonder how good CLIs could have been if a fraction of the resources that have gone into GUIs had gone into making CLIs more user friendly. A sequence of words is a pretty natural way of conveying what you want done.
The problem with CLI isn't typing, its discoverability. Keep in mind conveying what you want done requires knowing what can be done first.
I often get my way through unknown CLI commands by just typing TAB and selecting the option that sounds like what I want. Works, most of the time, I don't think that is really an issue. For most CLI programs you also have a reference/cheat sheet, examples and an interactive hypertext systems of tutorials available.
Many GUI designers these days don't like discoverability and don't think it's important. They prefer to hide everything behind "gestures" that you just have to know somehow.
That is exactly the sort of thing I think could have been improved. We have very little at the moment - autocomplete and some help.
11 replies →