GUI is a generic swiss army knife. It's easy to introduce to someone, and it has a whole array of tools ready for use. However, each of those tools is only half-decent at its job at best, and all of the tools are unwieldy. The manual is included, but it mostly tells you how to do things that are pretty obvious.

CLI is a toolbox full of quality tools and gadgets. Most people who open the box for the first time don't even know which tools they're looking for. In addition, each tool has a set of instructions that must be followed to a T. Those who know how to use the tools can get things done super quickly, but those who don't know will inevitably cause some problems. Oh, but the high-detail manuals for all the tools are in the side compartment of the toolbox too.

" i shouldn't have to memorize commands"

the up arrow:

My guy, it's because you're the vegans of tech.

Nobody cares. It doesn't need to be your personality.

Tbh the terminal is super convenient. No random UI placement. Most things follow one of several conventions so less to get used to. It’s easy to output the results of one command into another making automation obvious, no possibility for ads. It’s pretty sweet

I use Linux and I prefer GUIs. I'm the kind of person that would rather open a filemanager as superuser and drag and drop system files than type commands and addresses. I hope you hax0rs won't forget that we mere mortals exist too and you'll make GUIs for us 🙏🙏🙏

Are there people who are mad at other people for using the terminal? Is this really a thing that exists?

I do most of my work at the command line, my co-workers do think I'm nuts for doing it, but one of our recent projects required us all to log into a client's systems, and a significant portion of the tasks must be done via bash prompt. Suddenly, I'm no longer the team weirdo, I'm a subject matter expert.

i dont use the terminal to be productive, i use it to feel like a hacker

Did a process last week that took me 13 steps in the command line that took about an hour. If I'd have done it manually it would have taken days. After I worked out how to do it I trimed it down to 6 steps and sent it to my coworker that also needs that information. His eyes glazed over on step two of explaining it to him and he's just going to keep doing it his way....

The only thing worse than reading documentation/tutorials about how to do things in GUIs is writing documentation about how to do things in GUIs. It's just screenshot after screenshot. And following it is like playing a ScummVM game, only less fun and lots more alt+tabbing.

That’s it, I need to hook up a controller to my PC so I can open Htop with a button press

CLI is effective because every command serves a specific purpose. UIs are the opposite, you have to imagine all possible intentions the user could have at any given point and then indicate possible actions, intuitively block impossible actions, and recover from pretty much any error.

meanwhile Windows users: let me drop into this random strangers discord who claims he will make my PC faster by dropping this .bat file that will run thousands of commands to "debloat" my install. also let me edit the registry and add random values to keys that I don't know what they're used for. this process is basically irreversible because I will inevitably forget which keys I've edited over time, wow windows is so simple and easy and intuitive 🤡

CLI is being able to speak a language to tell your computer what to do; GUI is only being able to point and grunt.

It's all a matter of preference anyway (assuming you have both options anyway). CLI is less intuitive and takes longer to learn, but can be wicked fast if you know what you're doing. GUI is more intuitive and faster to pick up, but digging through the interface is usually slower than what a power user can accomplish in the CLI.

It depends on what your use case is and how you prefer your work flow. The only dumb move is judging how other people like their setup.

Perception: "the CLI is scary and hard to use" Reality: "computer, install gimp" "yessir, that'll be 141MB, is that okay?"

It’s wild that Linux stans are such masochists that they believe they can convert people to loving abuse, instead of just making the interface better to attract users.

CLI this, GUI that. Where are my TUI degens?

Didn't even know there were such a thing as evangelists for Windows

I feel like a lot more people be comfortable using the terminal if the text displayed when it was first opened gave you a list of commands to try. There is a very steep initial learning curve immediately which discourages experimentation, and I think that with a little bit of effort you could get a lot of people over that hump and then they could enjoy terminal Bliss.

I'm more impressed that they can use a gamepad for CLI input.

I've never met any windows evangelists to be honest. Lots of Apple evangelists though who will spend forever talking about windows. Every developer I've met who uses Windows always had a tongue in cheek sort of "well it kind of sucks in some ways but it's what I'm used to, one day maybe I'll get off my ass and change OS".

Reminds me of the "I use Arch Linux btw" meme which doesn't really happen as much anymore other than as a joke. Also, I use Arch Linux btw

I mean, the reverse is also true, people have memorized which buttons, menus, etc they need to click/drag with do be productive. Sometimes i m OK with all the clicking, but most times I just want to do the thing now.

Type 3 words or click through 9 context menus. 😅

Are the "Windows evangelists" in the room with us right now? Every Windows admin I know hates Microsoft with a burning rage. Literally the only people I've ever seen promote Windows are being paid to do it.

Counterintuitively, that's one reason I like dealing with Windows: the community knows what it is and doesn't pretend otherwise, like some other more "zealous" fan bases.

On CLI I figure out the command I need once.

Put it in a script.

Cron it if I want it to be daemonized.

Never think about it ever again.

Anti-CLI folks just have a bad workflow.

They see the script as the end, when in reality it's a foundation. I rarely look at my foundation. I build on it.

With this workflow I have dozens, hundreds, or thousand of automatic actions that "just work". Idk, works for me.

That said, if you prefer to click yourself to RSI to accomplish the same task, who am I to judge. I just watch and nod until I'm asked for a suggestion.

Memorize? Nah.
I search through my endless command history with fzf and look up commands I don’t remember with cheat.sh

I have literally never seen whatever this post is referring to

There are Windows evangelists?? 🤦🏽‍♀️

Just the other day, I was trying to run a CLI program, one I won't name.

I'm trying out a new immutable distro, and couldn't install it, so I said hey these new flatpaks are supposed to be all a guy could ever need.

So I downloaded an app that uses this unnamed CLI program as its core. It was a GUI app. And while it worked just fine, I also had very little control over what exactly was gonna happen and how it would happen. I wanted to do some specific things I knew the core program could do, but there was no way to do it.

Eventually I dug deeper and realized I'm an idiot and the CLI program can run without installing it or any dependencies, so it was fine to use natively. I was able to accomplish my task quickly and efficiently after that, happy as a clam.

CLI and GUI both have their place. I prefer GUI most the time, honestly. But having some CLI chops can be extremely useful at times.