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0 pointsjolux5y ago0 comments

>I've never really understood why command lines are so intimidating for people.

Really? The most popular computing device of our time is the smartphone, and you don't understand why people find command lines intimidating?

Command lines are unforgiving, frequently obscure, and will let you delete files and break things without blinking. There's plenty to be intimidated by for people who have no need to learn the skills.

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carlosf5y ago

Just a thought: that is more related to security models than to GUI vs CLI.

In Windows you can delete and break things if you're a local admin. Warning messages got better, but using a PC also used to be intimidating.

Smartphones on the other hand lock all apps by default, which is way better to novices.

I believe CLIs might be made friendlier with the correct segregation / security model.

joluxOP5y ago

>In Windows you can delete and break things if you're a local admin.

Yes, but deleting things with direct manipulation is more intuitive and less dangerous than doing it with rm and globbing.

asdff5y ago

The lack of discovery makes it harder to learn CLIs, they need to be studied and memorized basically. There is no intuitive way to ever learn that you need to type "man bash" into the terminal to start this journey, for example. These are meaningless words to the layman, despite holding so much meaning to someone already fluent in bash.

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