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The Command Line - Best Newbie Interface?
An anonymous reader writes "This essay describes the surprising results of a brief trial with a group of new computer users about the relative ease of the command line interface versus the GUIs now omnipresent in computer interfaces. It comes from practical experience I have of teaching computing to complete beginners or newbies as computer power-users often term them."
Apprentice: "What is that, Master?"
Master: "It's a command line. The instrument of a Unix Programmer. Not as random or clumsy as a GUI. An elegant interface for a more civilized age. Before the dark times. Before...Microsoft!"
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
If only there was a -1: Author's Girlfriend moderation option...
Rich
I find it amazing how many computer "experts" are dead in the water when the mouse doesn't work or the GUI doesn't come up as expected.
These same so-called "experts" tend to have MCSE certificates proudly displayed on their cubical wall.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
How about a little animated 'bash$' command prompt which jumps up when you hit F1, or which politely asks "It looks like you're composing a shell script. Would you like some help!" when you're in a bit of a pickle. You could type in a plain-English question about what you wanted to do, rather than having to remember the cryptic names of Unix commands. When you selected your specific query from a list of options that the animated character presented to you, it would then go on to show you exactly how to enter the command you were interested in. It would be great! You could even theme this 'assistant' according to your shell...it could appear as an animated 'ksh' or even just a '%' sign for those wanting to get on with the job.
As for a name, what about 'Bob'?
Now that's newbie friendly.
READY.
#
She will also enjoy his strong and nimble fingers, whereas the lonely mouse user will have to find his own use for his strengthed wrist.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
And many of us still use the most powerful keyboard ever created, the IBM (super-clicky) Model M. The sound of these keys has been known to kill users at twenty feet and drive MCSE's mad.
Apropos? Yes that's the word that springs instantly to mind when looking for help on something... Apropos. Not "help", no never. Who would ever think of typing "help"?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
I wonder how many Windows users, would, if they read your post, say "Hey, what a great idea!". Reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon. Dilbert jokingly tells the PHB that in order to get more customers they should start a massive spamming campaign. When Dilbert goes home, Dogbert says "You look like someone who was just put in charge of his own sarcastic suggestion."
We don't care that you don't want to know how your computer works. We like discussing interfaces and tech lawsuits. That's what we want to do, not type friggin letters or pay the bills over the internet. Different websites for different people. This is slashdot.
How about info? man interface is crap, but info is pretty user friendly. OK, I admit, I mostly browse info in emacs where it is all flashy and colourful, but AFAIR it is quite easy to navigate also in console. Although a small bar with basic navigation keys on the bottom would help a lot. Of course still quite often if you type 'info foobar' all you get is a man page but that's a different story.
Raf
even just a '%' sign for those wanting to get on with the job.
As for a name, what about 'Bob'?
How about you make it an @ sign and call it CLIppy?
just as much as I don't give a toss for how my car or my phone works.
Please change the oil in your car. And that rattling sound is your catalytic converter. The squeeking sound is your brakes. Just a heads up.
Yeah, there needs to be another default output stream. stdin, stderr, stdout and stdidiot. Stdidiot is where you tell the user verbose output of what you are doing including positive affirmation! Jack Handy beware. Of course one should be able to setenv STDIDIOT=/dev/null to turn that off. Moreover, maybe you re-direct it into a pipe that a consolish app could tail? Then a little ticker window on the desktop closes the loop for those needing positive responses?
Ok the name was tongue-in-cheek. But maybe there is something the idea. I've been living in Unix for more than a dozen years and most of the time I like the "tell me about it iff there are problems" philosophy, but a centralized ticker might occasionally be handy. As a first cut one could basically write a layer that takes the stuff spewed forth by most utilities when -verbose is kicked in and peel it out to stdidiot. If -verbose is thrown on the cmd line, then stdidiot is echoed to stdout too.
That's a great error message. I think I'll create a whole class of "short bus errors" on the app I'm developing for work.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
By the time I moved out I had my mother using pine over ssh to read her email.
Most of the trouble of Linux is the inertia related to not wanting to learn new things and not being technically difficult.
Yeah I know what you mean. When I was in high school I used to visit my grandmother in a nursing home all the time. She didn't know how to use Windows or E-Mail so I just gave her an old linux box. Like 2 months later she had root at NASA.
(define set-him-straight
(lambda ()
(display "Learn a language that's capable of abstraction without boilerplate, dammit!")))
(set-him-straight)