linux = impossible? (no offense meant!)

[misterbonnie]

On Tue, 11 Nov 2003, Keith Mastin wrote:

>
> <snip>
> > There is another problem with unix, which I think is less legitimate:
> > people are scared of the command line and following instructions.  Most
> > people simply want to click a button and be done with it.  It doesn't
> > matter if typing 'pkg_add some_package' is equivalent, because you
> > actually have to follow an instruction to do this.  By following an
> > instruction, I mean that the user is doing something other than running
> > a program in the typical way.  (For many years, dragging an icon from a
> > floppy diskette to the hard drive was the acceptable way to install
> > Macintosh programs.  Even though it was mindnumbingly simple,
> > installation programs caught on because most minds were too numb to
> > handle copying files.)  Trying to tell people that our way is easy would
> > be akin to telling Bush that killing people is generally a bad thing.
> > You can do it, but they won't listen because they are completely
> > irrational.
>
> The command line does have a steep learning cliff. So does driving a car
> in traffic for the first time, but they both get easier with practice.
> Both are dangerous with just a little knowledge. Should people know how to
> do both? If they want more out of their car that a trip to the curb and
> back, then yes for the car. If they want more out of their computer than a
> dummy interface, then yes for the computer.
>
> I get a kick out of these 'server config gui thingies'... sysadmins using
> webmin to configure something and never realizing that the thingy can only
> unleash maybe 10% of the apps' potential. I'm not even gonna get into
> ranting about the practice of putting a gui on a server to begin with...
> some people are just much better off taking the bus.
>

the driving analogy is interesting one, but heres another take on it
the commandline is very much a language -- very linear, with vocabulary
and syntax.  as a medium it is closely tied in to writing/print

whereas a gui is akin to driving, a videogame or what have you, a response
to interactive visual cues and is (more) non-linear, approaches more
closely an instantaneous perception of the whole.  the gui is more about
short-term memory and response than a linear sequence of commands
memorized and executed.

if anyone here has read microserfs, there is a hilarious discussion of
user interfaces which bascially concludes that the cli (which it
characterizes as the "pc" or "dos" approach is by nature masculine while
the gui (apple) is a more "feminine", gestalt-focused way of doing things.

while i dont wanna beleive the gender crap, there is a great potential in
analysing these different interfaces from a post mcluhan perspective,
rather than just a leeter than thou one.  a lot of the affection for the
cli does eem to stem from one notorious mcluhanism: with the emergence of
a new medium, its predecessor becomes an art form.

comparing the gui and the cli, which one is "warm" and which one "cool"?
if current guis are unsatisfactory, does that exclude them from the
functionality of the cli for ever?

bonnie

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