From: johnsd2@jec322.its.rpi.edu.its1 (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: CLI advantages (was Re: Macintosh bigot
Date: 17 Nov 92 00:32:40 GMT
Reply-To: johnsd2@jec322.its.rpi.edu.its1
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.

In article BAq@news.cso.uiuc.edu, tinsel@uiuc.edu (Thomas Aaron Insel) writes:
>CLI's are useful, and allow more flexibility than GUI's, but GUI's are
>usually easier to use for commands that they do support.

This is a common assertion. You probably mean "my favorite CLI
is more flexible than any GUI I have ever seen". This does not
mean that all GUIs must be less flexible than any CLIs (which is more
or less what you are actually saying)

If you really mean that, you have a lot of justifying to do.

>  I maintain,
>therefore, that both arguments are wrong, and that an integrated environment
>is best.  At the moment, neither the Mac nor Windows offers this as
>standard.

I disagree, on the grounds that (as far as I know) nobody has ever
managed to do this without sacrificing one for the other. I have a feeling
this pattern would be maintained.

I also rather hope that one day we will have all the neat flexibilty
of a CLI (scripts, wildcards, pipes) in our GUIs.

You provided two examples (Windows- CLI cant affect GUI apps) and
MacOS (no CLI, even if added it couldn't effect GUI apps);

>Yes, Windows lets you run DOS in a window, but how much can DOS affect
>your Windows environment?  You can run A/UX, but it doesn't really give 
>command line control over native applications.
>
>Now, X (or NeXTSTEP, to some degree) running on top of UNIX _does_ offer
>this flexibility, and most window managers allow one customize menus, etc.
>to automate frequent commands.

Ah, here's the problem. Both of these also have the 'sacrifice' problem.
NeXT apps do not use the CLI very well (I _think_, better ask a NeXT guru
to be sure, but I dont have one handy. :( ); X apps DO use the CLI
very well but are truely pitiful with the GUI- many (trivial) things MUST
be done with a CLI. Say putting a window on a second screen; or even
just setting up your prefs. (Well, thats not a CLI exactly but its
obnoxious nonetheless)

>  An ideal environment would allow the user
>to do everyday work with a GUI, but drop down to a command line to do 
>something unusual.  If he/she needed to do something not allowed for in
>the graphic interface frequently, he/she should be able to add it to the
>interface.

This would indeed be very spiffy. How does manage to make this work?
And how far will you go? I dont think it should be necessary
to do ALL unusual tasks in the CLI; where do you draw the line?

>We (the computer using population) need an interface like this, except 
>without the complication and administrative hassles of UNIX that many of
>us don't want to deal with.  Perhaps, a sort of "personal UNIX".

I think if you took out the hassles, you would no longer have Unix. :)

I do think several other things must be done: You'd need decypherable
command names (these people will not be using the CLI constantly;
they wont memorize it all), some really clean way to handle
spaces in filenames (since GUI users will be putting them in);
Plus the necessary extensions to do a GUI right. (icons in the files,
file type/creator info that sort of thing.)

And get rid of those blasted rc files. :)

---
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

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Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy