Show Off Your Tricked-Out Terminal Setup
▼ Summary
– The author spends more time using terminal windows today than they expected in the early ’90s, when graphical interfaces seemed poised to replace text interfaces.
– The command line remains the best tool for many jobs, as it allows users to precisely tell the computer what to do using words.
– A point-and-click GUI reduces the user to grunting commands at the computer, with limited vocabulary beyond basic actions and context menus.
– Using a GUI for precise tasks is possible but requires changing one’s approach compared to the command line.
– The command line drove the author to switch from Windows to Linux in 2007, after they were forced into regular bash usage for administering EMC Celerra NAS appliances.
I interact with terminal windows more now than ever before, and my younger self in the early ’90s would have found that hard to believe. Back then, MS-DOS was the industry’s dull workhorse, and on the consumer front, graphical environments like Windows,along with more unusual systems such as AmigaOS,seemed destined to bury the command line for good. Text interfaces, it appeared, were heading toward extinction as we charged headlong into a future dominated by gooey GUIs.
Yet here we are. The command line remains the superior tool for many tasks, perhaps even most. Years ago, I came across a sharp observation on Slashdot that argued a mouse-driven, point-and-click interface essentially reduces the user to pointing at the screen and grunting, “DO! DO THAT!” at the computer. The addition of right-click context menus only expands the user’s vocabulary to a grunt of “MORE THINGS!”,hardly a leap in precision.
The command line, in contrast, empowers users to articulate exactly what they want the computer to do, using words rather than one or two ambiguous gestures the machine must interpret based on context. This isn’t to say you can’t achieve similar precision with a GUI, but it demands a shift in how you approach the task.
It may sound trivial, but the command line is what finally pried me away from Windows as my daily driver back in 2007. At the time, my job required regular bash usage. I had taken over the day-to-day management of Boeing Houston’s fleet of then-new EMC Celerra NSX enterprise NAS appliances. Although GUI management options existed,mentioning “EMC Control Center” might trigger trauma in some older readers,the environment I inherited was held together by bash scripts, pure and simple.
(Source: Ars Technica)
