From: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: More Defense of CLI (there, I changed the subject ... )
Date: 15 Oct 92 16:06:30 GMT
Article-I.D.: convex.ewright.719165190
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In <1992Oct15.125115.16705@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au> davidme@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au (David Meiklejohn) writes:


>Yeah, sometimes I do write a quick C program to accomplish something - 
>just a quick hack I'll throw away because it's easier in some instances 
>to code in C rather than write an awk or sed or shell script.  

Okay, so much for the myth that writing a UNIX shell script is "easy." 


>The point is that you use the appropiate tool for the job and, with Unix, 
>you have a large array of tools at your disposal.  

No, the point is, using a computer should make your life easier, not
harder.  It should make it easier to do the things you bought the
computer to do.  Unless you bought your computer to become a programmer,
you shouldn't have to learn a programming language (or CLI language) to
do that. If you did buy your computer in order to write programs, you 
should not have to learn *another* language, in addition to the one in
which you program, just to operate the machine.


>My time is worth something (at least they do pay for some strange 
>reason), and the time I've invested in mastering Unix has paid itself
>off since.  

How so?  Unless you're a UNIX system manager by profession, you 
don't get paid for being a "master of UNIX," you get paid for
whatever it is you produce.  If learning UNIX takes time away
from what you're getting paid to do, the only "payoff" is reduced
efficiency in your job.  I concede that time spent learning UNIX
now may make you more efficient at using UNIX in the future. But 
if you had a computer that didn't require all that expertise, you 
could enjoy the same efficiency right now, and you could spend that
time learning something that is directly useful in your job.


>Then again, it's not as if I spent a year learning, then reaping
>the rewards since - it's a case of learn as you go.  Not so painful, really.

Okay, so you spend that year's time spread out over ten or twenty 
years.  That's still, assuming a life expenctancy of 100 years, 1% 
of your life.  Not painful, maybe, still a collosal waste of time.   


>>>BUGS
>>>     The syntax is cumbersome.

>Fine.  It is cumbersome.  It's also flexible.  I just don't see how 
>the first can be fixed without losing the latter.

Oh.  I'm sorry.  I thought you understood.

The fix is simple.  Two easy steps.  1) Buy a Mac.  2) Choose the
"find" command in the Finder.


>>  Of course, you can do a lot on the Mac
>>without ever needing to write a script.  Can you say the same
>>thing about UNIX?  

>Yep, most of our users only ever see a front-end menu, and hardly 
              ^^^ ^^^^^
>know a thing about Unix.  They still get their work done.  

Ahem.  I think you tried to slip something by here.  Do these "users"
set up and maintain their own systems using this "front-end menu?" 
Or do they pick up the phone and call a system manager or user support
for something like that?

Of course, if all the users see is a front-end menu, they aren't
really *using* UNIX at all.

>It's just that you can get more
>done if you're familiar with scripts, or even simple pipe combinations (pipes
>being a CLI advantage, which is what we're supposed to be discussing).

Oh, really?  I recall my old Atari ST having pipes, but I don't recall
it having a CLI.


>Hey, I already _am_ a UNIX sysadmin!  :-)

Well, that explains a lot.

>>what has this new knowledge qualified you to do?  

>It's made it possible for the newly educated user to make more efficient use
>of his/her environment, which we assume they're using for real work.

Of course, an environment like the Macintosh makes it possible
for the same user to do real work without ever bothering to
become "educated" in UNIX.