Comment by moring
10 hours ago
> a CLI app does exactly what you ask for, and has a manual documenting exactly what command do what, and the output is consistent, the same command does the same thing period
This is a very software-engineery point of view and totally false for the ordinary user. Heck, it is even false for me as a software engineer.
> since you know people like moving a mouse and clicking on buttons
No, they like well-designed user interfaces, and the UI design of a typical CLI is abysmal.
> Heck, it is even false for me as a software engineer.
Amen
Honestly, the gap from knowing which command line tool you probably need, to the command that does what you need... Prior to AI I have replicated probably a thousand command line capabilities in Ruby because I just couldn't be bothered.
> the UI design of a typical CLI is abysmal
The nice thing about a CLI is that even if you don't like the interface you're given, it's trivial to put an interface you do like in front of it. Much harder to do that with a point and click interface.
Are you referring to writing a wrapper cli? Or adding a GUI?
Mostly just a little 1 to 3 line bash script that calls the relevant CLI with the relevant arguments/options for what I want to do. Stuff doesn't have to be complicated.