Overloading/Inheritance issue

Bruno Medeiros brunodomedeiros+spam at com.gmail
Tue Aug 7 03:41:22 PDT 2007


Walter Bright wrote:
> Derek Parnell wrote:
>> On Sun, 05 Aug 2007 11:06:10 -0700, Walter Bright wrote:
>>> FWIW, a lot of hard core programmers still use vi.
>>
>> And I think that some are even still chipping away at granite blocks :)
> 
> I'm a command line interface curmudgeon. The reason is simple- it's more 
> productive, since:
> 

You distort the argument somewhat, by mentioning ahead several tasks 
which are specific to the command line *shell*, whereas what was being 
discussed was programming and editing source code.

> 1) I can touch-type. There's no such thing as using a mouse without 
> looking. Using a mouse is like being forced to type using only your left 
> pinkie, and every program you use has a different keyboard layout.
> 

Good GUIs understand this, and understand that it's important to have 
several available shortcuts for common tasks. Eclipse in particular is 
designed to be able to work without using the mouse *at all*, and it 
actually has developers testing it's usability that way (ie, prohibited 
from using the mouse), to ensure it works well. Eclipse also has an 
Emacs keybindings setting for text editors.

> 2) I have muscle memory in my fingers, meaning a lot of complex commands 
> can just spew out with no thought required.
> 

Same as above.

> 3) Pipes are cool. Can't do the equivalent with a gui.
> 

Shell-specific point.

> 4) I routinely write simple batch files to automate whatever I'm doing 
> at the moment. Can't do that with a gui.
> 
> 5) Ever tried to do a series of repeated actions with a gui? Like, one 
> by one, save all the emails in a folder to a text file? It's agonizing. 
> With CLI, I'll just dude up a quick batch file using cut & paste, and 
> it's done.
> 

When I have need for such a thing (a more complicated series of 
actions), I load up the CLI and do it there. That's why I have Cygwin 
installed in Windows, and why an Explorer context menu option that opens 
a shell on the selected folder. The remainder 95% of the time is spent 
using the GUI.
But again this was a shell-specific point. When programming, I don't 
recall ever *having the need* to do a series of repeated actions in an 
IDE. Perhaps you can give an example?
(The closest I recall is "refactoring" C++ code, but that's something 
where the CLI won't help you either)

> 6) Most of the time I need a command, I've already done it, so I just 
> type the first couple characters then F8, bam, I'm flying.
> 
> Guis have their uses - mainly for programs you aren't familiar with. But 
> once you are familiar, CLI is faster.
> 
> P.S. I use microEmacs, not vi. Mainly because I have the source to it 
> and just fix it to work like I want.

GUI based programs intrinsically have more usability potential that 
text-based ones, just for that fact that you can have a 
text-based/command-line interface in a GUI (or alternate to it), but the 
reverse is not true.

-- 
Bruno Medeiros - MSc in CS/E student
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D



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