How many of you prefer to use command line applications over a GUI?

Ay

Depends what I'm using it for.
Sometimes cli, sometimes GUI.

@C0D4 @rutee07 @netikras are there things that you prefer one or the other for?

@Bubbles
Hmm for example

Git I prefer cli, a lot of guis seem to miss features and keep to the mainstream of pull/push.

Where as modifying config files I prefer using an editor over vi/nano

@C0D4 understandable

@Bubbles gui for tasks I need to control lots of variables for. Monitoring, anything requiring wide layout, anything that is faster/more reliably and easily done w/ gui.

Tui - likewise. Exvept any less standard task or any task requiring unlimited flexibility or any task that has anything to do with automation - I find them much easier done via a tui.

Working with lists, bare numbers, patterns, searches, parsing, automation, scripting, etc - tui is the way. Not to mention tui can be used in both gui and non-gui envs. Tui does not require X, so ssh into a shared headless server and you can easily use tui for your needs.

Nein. Absolutely outdated/old-fashion

gui? what's that? I could end the world with one cli command! #31337H4X0R

😄

Amen to that

Almost always, so long as it's not a graphical task.

Anyone who says "It's <currentyear>, no way would I use a command line, it's outdated" is missing the point. We're not using it because of some misplaced sense of nostalgia; when you've developed your muscle memory it's genuinely faster for many tasks than pointing and clicking.

It really depends, but for some reason when i'm on anything linux I just have a sudden nostalgic need to reopen the Terminal and use that.
Ctrl-Alt-T has basically become a reflex for me over the years.

@jurion Why put it in a script? Because it takes 2 seconds to set up, then I can literally type ./publish or similar and it does it all for me without taking my hands off the keyboard. Since I'm using a shell for a whole bunch of other things, I've always got one open, so tabbing to it and executing that script literally takes less than a second. Probably more like half a second.

That's a significantly shorter time than it takes me to move my hand to the mouse, move the cursor, and click the right button.

Yup, and that's still significantly quicker on the shell. Funnily enough I have pretty much that exact setup at work.

Autocomplete means you don't need to type the whole thing out ;)

I prefer a GUI for web browsing. Usually.

;)

@jurion I use w3m. Still not very convenient for any but edge cases. Text browsers can't keep up without JS or full CSS support.

Depends on what I'm doing, but if it's something that can be done within 2 clicks, I prefer GUI. If not, I open a terminal :D

I am a really fan of cli. With CLI I can create scripts and automate anything exactly the way I want (not the way the developer of GUI wants).

But, for easy tasks that I just need to use once at while, no automation needed, I choose the GUI.

@brunofontes @AlmondSauce What do you guys use for automating? Python or bash/batch(depending if windows or not) or maybe another scripting language?

@legacy07 I wouldn’t say it’s outdated at all

@Bubbles usually bash, but sometimes even php. A simple "#! /bin/php" and I run it the same way as a shell script.

@brunofontes really. Huh I’m glad I know that. I personally like PHP’s syntax

@jurion fwiw deploying to prod should *NEVER* be a single click :)

even if it is, how many clicks away are you from the button that deploys to prod? How many left-clicks? Right-clicks? How long will you be moving your mouse to find and get your cursor on all those buttons [app icon, all the buttons/links to the view + loading, rendering time, browsing the lists]

Open a tool/browser, navigate to the view/page, etc, etc.

With a cli: ctrl+alt+t ´depl[TAB] prod´ <-- that's it. I can easily do it literally in 2 seconds with my eyes closed [1 second if I had a good night sleep or am highly caffeinated].

If you do not consider all the clicks mentioned above then it's not an apples-apples comparison. You might say that cli deployment is also 1 click away -- the ENTER button when the command is already typed in, as compared to your gui version where you are already navigated to the deployment view :)

having a cli version means I can set it up to be LITERALLY 1 click away. Write the deployment to prod script and bind it to the F12 key on your keyboard :) how do you do this in gui?

Tough one.

I'd wager the folks preferring GUIs envision themselves using a form with a button that says "Do all that stuff for me" which, when pressed, does just that. And they view the CLI proponents as nerds with thick, round glasses, a sveatervest and a master degree in Linux.

The folks preferring CLIs, on the other hand, view themselves as Neo from Matrix and envision the GUI folks as that basketball player Brendan Frazer turned into in Bedazzled who enters 999 because he held his note saying 666 upside down.

If you always had the choice between a good GUI and a good CLI, I guess I'd choose the former. Sadly, it's mostly bad GUI or bad CLI...

echo -e "\e[38;5;2mme"

I use gui every time I do something I'm not well versed in but a gui showing all the options exists. Rest of the time, CLI.

@Bubbles idk maybe because i wasn't really into it. It's just too much of a hassle to memorise all the right commands and keep a track of the progress. Sure, i use cli for some db operations etc... but i prefer GUI for pretty much everything else. Like, visually you understand what you're doing and the error rate is well reduced by doing that. I personally don't want to follow all the dashes and slashes to complete a task to be honest.

I prefer a nice and intuitive gui. Tho, using the command line helps me making me seem busy on bored days ;)

@mksana "The folks preferring CLIs, on the other hand, view themselves as Neo from Matrix and envision the GUI folks as that basketball player Brendan Frazer turned into in Bedazzled who enters 999 because he held his note saying 666 upside down."

Err... what you smoking?! I generally prefer a CLI because it makes tasks quicker, and therefore makes me more productive. There's no conspiracy theory where we think we're all elite hackers, leagues above everyone else. I usually spend my time telling people the *exact opposite* of that, that being that CLI isn't that hard, and is definitely worth learning.

Definitely GUIs, because they provide a more streamlined usability than figuring out the terminal.

My 2 cents.

@AlmondSauce Stay calm, it was just an appearently failed attempt at humor on my side.

Using CLIs isn't that hard, sure - I grew up on DOS and worked with Linux for years, but many mundane tasks for which a decent UI exists are far easier to do with a GUI.

Say, to zip a folder, I generally right click it and say add to zip - done. Merely opening the command shell takes more time than that.

@1337M0nst3r ooof no, you forgot to reset, now your colored output is bleeding through the rest of my condo6lences output!!!

>:(

@Nanos On the second day you learn the commands, and in a half decent os/terminal tab completes paths so you actually have to type about 2 characters per path section on average. So the abomination you showed would be about 20 keypresses. As for the version numbered folders, that's a bad idea with gui too.

And if you still think it's slow, just use ranger.

@Nanos Indeed, but if you _want_ to uae the command line there won't be 11,000 days without using common commands like cd, ls, cat, grep, etc.

I preffer CLI
I feel like it give u more control some how plus h8 clicking

@Bubbles Usually just a bash script, or powershell script if I'm on windows. That's more than powerful enough to throw together a few commands, which is usually all that's required.

@AlmondSauce yeah I figured, I was just making sure. Is it worth it learning bash or would I be better off with just python as a scripting language.

@Bubbles Python is fine. To be honest, I don't really *know* bash, since almost every script I write is just a culmination of a few commands and nothing else. If I need even something as simple as an if statement, I still have to look it up every time.

@AlmondSauce okay thanks for the input :)

Varies