How Ya Gonna Get 'Em Down On the UNIX Farm?

theodp writes "In 1919, Nora Bayes sang, "How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?" In 2013, discussing User Culture Versus Programmer Culture, CS Prof Philip Guo poses a similar question: 'How ya gonna get 'em down on UNIX after they've seen Spotify?' Convincing students from user culture to toss aside decades of advances in graphical user interfaces for a UNIX command line is a tough sell, Guo notes, and one that's made even more difficult when the instructors feel the advantages are self-evident. 'Just waving their arms and shouting "because, because UNIX!!!" isn't going to cut it,' he advises. Guo's tips for success? 'You need to gently introduce students to why these tools will eventually make them more productive in the long run,' Guo suggests, 'even though there is a steep learning curve at the outset. Start slow, be supportive along the way, and don't disparage the GUI-based tools that they are accustomed to using, no matter how limited you think those tools are. Bridge the two cultures.'" Required reading.

Comments

Stop trying

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone cares.

Those who do, while learn the power of the command line, just like myself and many others. Those who don't, will be happy with the guy.

THATS FINE. STOP TRYING TO CHANGE THAT.

Not EVERYONE needs to be a sysadmin or developer. Some people do stuff other than dick with computers 24/7 so knowing how to use awk is a waste of time, just like I doubt too many of you guys know how to milk a cow (even just hook one up to the milker which is pretty much automatic today).

Different tools for different jobs. Not all of us need a freaking hammer.

-BitZtream

Re:Stop trying

[fisted]

Because by coding against a black box, you can only become more and more proficient in knowing how the black box behaves for given inputs - the underlying concepts are pretty much invisible so the computer mostly remains 'magic'
It's the price you pay for being "ready for granny" ;).

Another reason would be the WINAPI. It's a horrible, horrible mess.

Re:Stop trying

[AJH16]

Understanding what the tools do under the hood is important. Using command line tools is not. I could write in assembly if I really wanted to, but I use C# for most stuff. I understand what it does under the hood, but that doesn't mean I have to always work at that level. Using GUI tools is the same thing. I know my GUI tools for administering a Windows server and I can typically make complex adjustments just as fast on it as my UNIX buddy can do using command line tools on his Linux boxes. The difference is what we are comfortable with. Some things go faster with one command, but when you have more complex actions, sometimes the GUI is faster. Either way, you still have to know your system and know what all the buttons or commands actually do.

Re:Stop trying

[fisted]

That isn't what i was talking about.

They are stuck in the way TFA points it out -- it's in their minds.

Lets try an analogy:
Say you have a hammer - yet nobody ever taught you how to use it, so you have to figure it out yourself. You mistake the head for a grip, and start bashing nails into the wall by holding the hammer's head in your hand, and hitting them with the /actual/ grip.
It sort of works, and more importantly, you aren't aware of a better way, so it's "the best way" (you know).

Now imagine being told that you've been doing it wrong all the time, that the hammer is to be held at the other end.
Skeptically, you give it a try. Holding the hammer correctly for the first time in your life, you realize it's a bit harder to handle than the way you're used to.
Then you violently, like most people on their first attempts to hammer something, smash it onto your thumb, OUCH, WTF, this is fucking dangerous.
Clearly, your original way to hammer was superior, and way less painful/dangerous. Right?
No -- all it would have taken is to actually see someone working the hammer properly, before you realize how wrong you've been.

It's pretty much the same when it comes to CLI vs GUI

Re:Stop trying

[NotSanguine]

Cygwin is an abomination.

No, seriously.

Compared with cmd.exe and the standard MS command line, it is heaven, my friend.

Re:Stop trying

[danlip]

Cygwin is the only thing that made life tolerable while doing development work for companies that only allowed employees to run Windows. I don't think I'd call it an abomination, it's perfectly fine if all you need is a bash shell and the standard tools (find, grep, sed, etc). But I hope I never have to use it again, mostly because I hope to never be stuck on Windows again.

Re:Stop trying

[HarrySquatter]

I wasn't talking about what 'the tools do, under the hood' (dammit, typical windows speak), my point was that your operating system is a black box. dammit there isn't even source code available.

Darwin source code no longer exists? This link no longer works? In an education environment you can also get access to the NT source code. Either way, it's all irrelevant to most programmers even those on Linux.

IOW, windows experts know how to use windows, unix experts know how unix work (and therefore, due to the openness and clarity, a lot more about how their computers work).

So OS X is no longer Unix? No longer bundles all the Unix utilities? No longer uses POSIX?

Re:Stop trying

[Desler]

How many people writing applications on Linux ever regularly read the kernel code? Or, for example, the Qt source code beyond the headers? Yeah, next to none of them.

Re:Stop trying

[Anonymous Coward]

The "standard windows commandline" is now powershell, and it is wonderful in many ways despite its quirks.

Absolutely. Indeed, it is approaching the Bourne shell of the 1970s, almost approaching late '70s C shell.