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Are GUI Dev Tools More Advanced than CLI Counterparts?
JohnG inputs: "I just got into quite a long argument over on the Yahoo! message boards over the power of command line dev tools. Basically the guy told me that it is impossible to create 'state of the art' programs with command-line tools. But when I asked him to give me reasons why he just called me stupid and 'behind the times'. Considering he was an avid supporter of anything Microsoft, I take what he says with a grain of salt. But what I want to know is how many of you developers have switched from command line work to KDevelop or CodeWarrior? And what advantages you think it offers? Certainly there are many 'state of the art' apps created with command line tools, but I'm open to anything that can increase productivity. I've just never seen a compelling reason to make the switch from what I am used to and comfortable with." Personally, I feel the best development environment to work in would be one that ignores neither the GUI, or the command line.
Don't make incorrect absolute statements like this; it's annoying.
CLI's are quite inefficient when you need to do a lot of typing. E.g. if you were moving files to a path that was very long; where you have to perform operations on files that can't be selected through grep b/c there's no common rules that are applicable.
Besides which, in the real world, the time you waste trying to remember some cryptic argument and how to use it IS a factor to be weighed.
CLI's have their uses, as do GUI's. Far better for them to augment each other (e.g. right-clicking on a CLI command to select from a list of argument options with their full names; selecting files spacially with the mouse and renaming them with wildcards) than to persist in maintaining a wall.
As for the comment below re: keyboard shortcuts, testing reveals that they are for the most part slower than using the mouse. People don't consciously realize it, but unless the command is incredibly common and ingrained as only a few are, they pause and try to remember it. It's objective testing has revealed this - not people's subjective senses of time.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
No-one seems to have mentioned Comeau C++ yet.
Greg Comeau is a regular contributor to C++ newsgroups, and I've had some personal communication with him in the past. He obviously takes some pride in his product. From what I hear, it's justified; the output it produces is good, and its compliance with standard C++ is, and always has been, at the head of the field. For example, it gets a credit in Alexandrescu's "Modern C++ Design" for being sufficiently up to speed that it can use the Loki library's template tricks, and they're predicting the all-important "export" support by the end of this year. Perhaps most important, Greg seems open to comments, and willing to proactively improve the product.
The big problem used to be lack of a standard library implementation, but I believe it now ships with the latest Dinkumware libraries (as used in VC++, but a much more recent version without the irritating flaws). It should also be noted that this is a commercial product, although Comeau Computing provide a free "try it out" facility on their web site.
I have no association with Greg Comeau or Comeau Computing other than having spoken to Greg in the past and found him to be a good guy.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I've spent a fair share of time programming with CLI tools. One time I even wrote PC software remotely on Amiga complete with handcoding all the graphics. While you can automate a lot the question still is, why bother?
As someone already pointed out in this thread, Delphi gives you both GUI and CLI tools. The GUI is just great when you're developing. Draw your graphics, set properties and doubleclick controls to write code. Especially debugging is fast as you are automatically sent to the error place. I just can't see why this would be a bad idea?
The GUI sucks when you have to automate something, though. Like compiling customized executables from a set of patches. Visual Basic sucks especially bad here but Delphi shines again as it's command line compiler is excellent.
So don't argue which one is better. Have both and use the right tool for the right job.
There is another class of GUI tools, however, that allow you to incorporate UML diagrams within your design and development process. I guess that the two programs that best represent this class of "modeling tools" are RationalRose and Together.
RationalRose is more popular, since it was out first, and essentially set the standard, but it supports only a one-directional process (unless that has changed recently) -- design your UML diagrams, and generate code from them (some OO people actually see this as an advantage, but that's another discussion).
Together, on the other hand, is bi-directional -- it constantly updates the UML diagrams to keep them in sync with the code you are writing. As a result it has the neat property that you can actually write your code w/o going through the UML modeling/design stage, and yet you get complete UML diagrams of the code when you are done.
Personally, I am ambivalent about the utility of RAD tools for building GUIs -- they can be great for quick prototyping, but on the other hand they tend to produce code that is not very maintainable and thus not too suitable for large commercial application (although a lot of people are so used to them, that it is hard for them to see the alternatives).
On the other hand, UML modeling tools can be tremendously useful, especially in team environments. A picture is worth a thousand words, and that is very true even in programming. Even if you do not use UML for design, Together's ability to generate diagrams representing the code is invaluable when you have to take over or maintain someone else's code. It is much easier to see how classes relate to each other at a first glance, than to try to figure that out by going through the code manually.