"Reaction [beta]"
Return of the command line interface 9 Jan 2007
"The advent of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) forever revolutionized personal computing. A windowed system with point and click icons made computers usable for anyone who couldn't deal with a black screen and a prompt waiting for arcane textual commands. But in recent years, this enormous interface change is coming full circle. Amongst power users - and more and more, regular Joe's - the command line is making a comeback in modern web and desktop applications."
Examples of CLI 2.0 include Yahoo! Open Shortcuts, Firefox Quick Searches and YubNub ("a social command line for the web").
But isn't this a step backwards? Surely point-and-click interfaces are much more user-friendly? Well, for tasks you perform often, a CLI can actually be far more efficient than a GUI. Trapani compares the two interaction paradigms to main roads and back streets:
"The difference between taking the main roads across town instead of back roads may be that the main roads are easier--but take longer. However, if you drive across town every day, it's worth your time learning the back road shortcuts."
Nicely put.
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4 comments so far
Jonathan Aquino 9 Jan 2007 06:28 AM
Thanks Etre for the YubNub mention!
Try this in YubNub:
yu split {url g etre.com} {url gbs etre.com}
Simon 9 Jan 2007 04:58 PM
@Jonathan: No problem. Good luck with YubNub and thanks for the tip :-)
Abhishek Ghose 27 Mar 2007 03:11 AM
I feel the same way of the CLI too.....and I have a detailed post on it here:
http://quipu-strands.blogspot.com/2007/02/return-of-commandline.html
I was googling to see whether my site is listed in the search results (it is not, God knows why), when I came across your post.
Koyie 4 Oct 2011 02:20 AM
Haha, shouldn't you be chraigng for that kind of knowledge?!