Books. Bikes. Boomsticks.
“I only regret that I have but one face to palm for my country.”
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Have I told you my Lakota name?
@TamSlick@Popehat "Inexplicably?" Command line is superior to menus in many, many ways.
— David George (@DavidGeorge43) April 23, 2014
Thank you, Captain Aspie.
Hey, you know how you can find the Linux user at a party? Don't bother looking, because Linux users don't get invited to parties. Sorry, I meant to say "Don't worry, they'll tell you." .
Before we go crazy, pointing out the facts isn't exactly asperger's; after all, isn't that what is done to the bloomberg/brady/hci collective?
And putting on my computer professional hat, I note that even Windows 8 has command line stuff and Microsoft has released a totally new command line interface called Powershell, and is hot and heavy on pushing it onto the system admin types.
"And putting on my computer professional hat, I note that even Windows 8 has command line stuff and Microsoft has released a totally new command line interface called Powershell, and is hot and heavy on pushing it onto the system admin types."
Putting on my real world hat, I will point out that, if a movie scene is in a contemporary office setting, a black computer screen with a blinking cursor is practically the tech version of Chekov's Gun: Before the scene is over, someone's going to sit down and do some "hacking" with foley-ed IBM Model M sounds emanating from the generic keyboard.
I think you'll agree that in regular corporate America, the blinking cursor has become something of a rarity outside of IT departments since 1995 or so.
The computer with the CLI might not be a Chekov's Gun. If you begin the scene with a character doing something at a command line, complete with foleyed IBM Model M, it's not a plot point, but character development. The character at the keyboard is established as the Wizard, and he will later be performing Magic and perhaps intoning Fell Invocations (AKA technobabble), with or without a computer present.
None of which will have much if any resemblance of reality, Tirno.
On the other side of the spectrum of course they go full absurd like Die Hard 4 - "I'm hacking the Sat with my cell phone and my leet texting skills!"
(Yes, I am in IT, and yes, I have at one point or another actually run a few command line pieces of code on a server somewhere *from my phone*. However, just getting a Citrix session to work with a phone interface is such a massive pain its almost not worth it - outside of the geek points that no one in the real world cares about)
Command line interfaces are the computer world's version of the 10mm- powerful, capable, and generally ignored by most.
Fact is, unless you want to memorize a long list of commands and modifiers a GUI is a much easier way of getting the job done. There may be things that command line does better but there's very little that a GUI can't do well.
I like what The Raving Prophet said,"powerful, capable, and generally ingored by most."
About half of my industry runs on the same mid-60's operating system, and so I'm in a building of 300 people with command lines running on ASCII emulators housed on Win7 business machines. Looks pretty funny around here at times.
The command line is superior only if you know exactly WTF you are doing.
I like LINUX because I do have complete control as root at the command line.
But I do damned near all of my day to day stuff using a GUI as a mere user ... it's just easier than battering away on my keyboard, and stupid blunders are easily recoverable when you don't play Captain Root at the # prompt.
I use am IBM zVM/CMS mainframe every day via a 3270 terminal emulator on my Windows 7 box. Not sure why that's deemed odd, I know my bank does exactly the same thing :)
Shoot, I was still getting my email on that thing 10 years ago.
Back when you needed a Lisa computer to write a program for the early Macintosh, Apple wrote a series of books on the user interface.
If I recall correctly, the menu was intended to serve new users, to offer prompts and shortcuts for experienced users, and let power users skip all the graphical stuff.
Then again, I recall working at Star Technologies, with a battery of (cheap) used text-only terminals -- and picking up typing speed on the keypunch. We pulled Hearlbleed gags with RSTS/E to embarrass other students. And used chad from the keypunches to mess up the neighbor's carpet in the dorm (pile of chad outside the door, chemistry bunsen burner hose inflated with water from the shower, hose the whole thing under the door. Takes years to get all those chunks of coverstock out of the carpet.) Moving from IBM System 360 to System 370. The IBM terminal with two second delay, so customers wouldn't notice if the machine was slow -- and recognizing CICS programming at work in the computers at work this week. RIP Grace Hopper, and "a nano second is 9 inches of wire".
Meh, evangelists, not users. But there's a lot of overlap.
I used Linux as a home server platform for like 15 years, and never told anyone to use it as a desktop platform, or brought it up in conversations that weren't, well, already about operating systems.
(I mean, maybe if someone I hated had asked me I might have suggested they run it like that...)
Tangentially, as someone who owns and uses machines running Win 7, Win 8, Win 8 RT, iOS, Android, OS X, and old school Mac OS (I'd still have a running 98SE machine, too, but it finally died the death) I find staunch platform loyalty puzzling.
>If you can't do what you need to do with a tiny magnet and direct access to the hard drive
You had hard drives? We had to punch holes in cards and refrain from folding, spindling, or mutilating them.
Anyway, it isn't for everyone of course but Linux is the sanitary tees that tie the entire tubes of internet together.
Also, speak not of Powershell, because the bastards couldn't even get "tab completion" to work correctly out of the box. Clearly an abomination upon the face of the one true shell.
(Actually, I'm kinda keen on some of that Plan9 mojo...)
I run Win 7 at home. Currently I support Mac, Win 7, Win 8 and a couple of server platforms at work. I have Linux loaded on an old laptop so I can play with it, do not claim any great skillz in command line.
But in social situations, if someone asks what I do, I'm a bicycle mechanic. Telling people you work in IT is a good way to do free tech support while everyone else eats.
"(I'd still have a running 98SE machine, too, but it finally died the death)" Under this very desk resides a machine whose innards contain a pair of hard drives, one of which dual boots to 98SE or Xubunu 7.04. I'd gladly ship it to ya, if you've a real hankerin' for nostalgia. Sorry, but a few years ago somebody spoke up and got my TI99/4A or I'd offer that, too. ;^) Rob J
Clearly, you're going to the wrong geek parties. MY group's parties involve pig roasts, motorcycles, PNW homebrew, and bonfires to go with the shop talk. And sometimes we'll toss some Magnesium in the fire just for funsies
I thought you were talking about how "2010,The Year We Make Contact" looks so much more dated -- almost like one of those 50's space movies by comparison, than did the "Prequel", 2001: a Space Odyssey. I understand that an effort was made by the set and prop designers of 2001 to try to make the technology seem beyond what the audience understood, perhaps analogous to someone from a remote area of, say, Borneo or New Guinea, or the Kalahari, who had never even seen guns or metal, seeing NASA Mission Control for the first time.
I still use CLI on a daily basis, but I'm an IT geek, and it's part of my job. I spend a not-inconsiderable amount of time arguing with management that we need CLI for certain functions. But what do I know, I'm just the guy they call when their super-expensive computer systems stop working.
Clearly, you're going to the wrong geek parties. MY group's parties involve pig roasts, motorcycles, PNW homebrew, and bonfires to go with the shop talk. And sometimes we'll toss some Magnesium in the fire just for funsies
Sounds like WetLeather to me! But you forgot to mention the riding that goes along with the Gather.
You can recognize them by their late 90's web interfaces.
ReplyDeleteLOL, nice one Tam...
ReplyDeleteWell, if he is wearing a red fedora, that might be a clue.
ReplyDeleteBefore we go crazy, pointing out the facts isn't exactly asperger's; after all, isn't that what is done to the bloomberg/brady/hci collective?
ReplyDeleteAnd putting on my computer professional hat, I note that even Windows 8 has command line stuff and Microsoft has released a totally new command line interface called Powershell, and is hot and heavy on pushing it onto the system admin types.
Hey, you know how you can find the Linux user at a party?
ReplyDeletefind /party -not \( -name "Microsoft" -o -name "Macintosh" \) '{}' \; -print
TheRock,
ReplyDelete"And putting on my computer professional hat, I note that even Windows 8 has command line stuff and Microsoft has released a totally new command line interface called Powershell, and is hot and heavy on pushing it onto the system admin types."
Putting on my real world hat, I will point out that, if a movie scene is in a contemporary office setting, a black computer screen with a blinking cursor is practically the tech version of Chekov's Gun: Before the scene is over, someone's going to sit down and do some "hacking" with foley-ed IBM Model M sounds emanating from the generic keyboard.
I think you'll agree that in regular corporate America, the blinking cursor has become something of a rarity outside of IT departments since 1995 or so.
RKN,
ReplyDeleteOh, well played, sir! :D
Tam,
ReplyDeleteThe computer with the CLI might not be a Chekov's Gun. If you begin the scene with a character doing something at a command line, complete with foleyed IBM Model M, it's not a plot point, but character development. The character at the keyboard is established as the Wizard, and he will later be performing Magic and perhaps intoning Fell Invocations (AKA technobabble), with or without a computer present.
Lakota name: Argues With Nerds
ReplyDeleteNone of which will have much if any resemblance of reality, Tirno.
ReplyDeleteOn the other side of the spectrum of course they go full absurd like Die Hard 4 - "I'm hacking the Sat with my cell phone and my leet texting skills!"
(Yes, I am in IT, and yes, I have at one point or another actually run a few command line pieces of code on a server somewhere *from my phone*. However, just getting a Citrix session to work with a phone interface is such a massive pain its almost not worth it - outside of the geek points that no one in the real world cares about)
Yea, I must be a Wizard, I'm in a cube farm typing on a buckling spring keyboard in a linux VM.
ReplyDelete-Joat
Command line interfaces are the computer world's version of the 10mm- powerful, capable, and generally ignored by most.
ReplyDeleteFact is, unless you want to memorize a long list of commands and modifiers a GUI is a much easier way of getting the job done. There may be things that command line does better but there's very little that a GUI can't do well.
TCinVA,
ReplyDeleteTouche! XD
I like what The Raving Prophet said,"powerful, capable, and generally ingored by most."
ReplyDeleteAbout half of my industry runs on the same mid-60's operating system, and so I'm in a building of 300 people with command lines running on ASCII emulators housed on Win7 business machines. Looks pretty funny around here at times.
FormerFLyer
In the '90's, I actually made some money renting my old renting out a Heathkit Z80 CP/M computer as a prop for a film studio.
ReplyDelete8-P
I'll be here in the corner, installing my Ubuntu distro on these PC's that can't run any supported Windows any longer ...
The command line is superior only if you know exactly WTF you are doing.
ReplyDeleteI like LINUX because I do have complete control as root at the command line.
But I do damned near all of my day to day stuff using a GUI as a mere user ... it's just easier than battering away on my keyboard, and stupid blunders are easily recoverable when you don't play Captain Root at the # prompt.
I use am IBM zVM/CMS mainframe every day via a 3270 terminal emulator on my Windows 7 box. Not sure why that's deemed odd, I know my bank does exactly the same thing :)
ReplyDeleteShoot, I was still getting my email on that thing 10 years ago.
Bah. Command line is for appliance users.
ReplyDeleteAssembly rules.
Anything you need to do on a computer you should be able to do in less than 64k
Back when you needed a Lisa computer to write a program for the early Macintosh, Apple wrote a series of books on the user interface.
ReplyDeleteIf I recall correctly, the menu was intended to serve new users, to offer prompts and shortcuts for experienced users, and let power users skip all the graphical stuff.
Then again, I recall working at Star Technologies, with a battery of (cheap) used text-only terminals -- and picking up typing speed on the keypunch. We pulled Hearlbleed gags with RSTS/E to embarrass other students. And used chad from the keypunches to mess up the neighbor's carpet in the dorm (pile of chad outside the door, chemistry bunsen burner hose inflated with water from the shower, hose the whole thing under the door. Takes years to get all those chunks of coverstock out of the carpet.) Moving from IBM System 360 to System 370. The IBM terminal with two second delay, so customers wouldn't notice if the machine was slow -- and recognizing CICS programming at work in the computers at work this week. RIP Grace Hopper, and "a nano second is 9 inches of wire".
Meh, evangelists, not users. But there's a lot of overlap.
ReplyDeleteI used Linux as a home server platform for like 15 years, and never told anyone to use it as a desktop platform, or brought it up in conversations that weren't, well, already about operating systems.
(I mean, maybe if someone I hated had asked me I might have suggested they run it like that...)
Everytime I read Windows Eight, I somehow read it as Model 8 and have pleasent thoughts of the .35 Remington and Frank Hamer
ReplyDeleteRKN,
ReplyDeletePartially chewed Honey Nut Cheerios and milk all over my iPad. Seriously...
Quality work.
Hey! I wasn't getting invited to parties long before I became a Linux user.
ReplyDeleteDude, back in the day, I could forge emails by telnet into port 25 and typing raw SMTP.
ReplyDeleteI was L33T
If you can't do what you need to do with a tiny magnet and direct access to the hard drive, you ain't shit. OLD SCHOOL KEEPIN IT REAL.
ReplyDeleteHey, you know how you can find the Linux user at a party? ..."Don't worry, they'll tell you."
ReplyDeleteSure they will, right after you get done complaining about whatever thing your Windows computer is currently doing.
I took me ten minutes to find a way to the command line on Windows 8. What a PITA....
ReplyDeleteASM826,
ReplyDeleteSee? ;)
Tangentially, as someone who owns and uses machines running Win 7, Win 8, Win 8 RT, iOS, Android, OS X, and old school Mac OS (I'd still have a running 98SE machine, too, but it finally died the death) I find staunch platform loyalty puzzling.
ReplyDeleteForgot the netbook with Eebuntu.
ReplyDelete>If you can't do what you need to do with a tiny magnet and direct access to the hard drive
ReplyDeleteYou had hard drives? We had to punch holes in cards and refrain from folding, spindling, or mutilating them.
Anyway, it isn't for everyone of course but Linux is the sanitary tees that tie the entire tubes of internet together.
Also, speak not of Powershell, because the bastards couldn't even get "tab completion" to work correctly out of the box. Clearly an abomination upon the face of the one true shell.
(Actually, I'm kinda keen on some of that Plan9 mojo...)
-SM
I run Win 7 at home. Currently I support Mac, Win 7, Win 8 and a couple of server platforms at work. I have Linux loaded on an old laptop so I can play with it, do not claim any great skillz in command line.
ReplyDeleteBut in social situations, if someone asks what I do, I'm a bicycle mechanic. Telling people you work in IT is a good way to do free tech support while everyone else eats.
"(I'd still have a running 98SE machine, too, but it finally died the death)"
ReplyDeleteUnder this very desk resides a machine whose innards contain a pair of hard drives, one of which dual boots to 98SE or Xubunu 7.04. I'd gladly ship it to ya, if you've a real hankerin' for nostalgia.
Sorry, but a few years ago somebody spoke up and got my TI99/4A or I'd offer that, too. ;^)
Rob J
Clearly, you're going to the wrong geek parties. MY group's parties involve pig roasts, motorcycles, PNW homebrew, and bonfires to go with the shop talk. And sometimes we'll toss some Magnesium in the fire just for funsies
ReplyDeleteI thought you were talking about how "2010,The Year We Make Contact" looks so much more dated -- almost like one of those 50's space movies by comparison, than did the "Prequel", 2001: a Space Odyssey.
ReplyDeleteI understand that an effort was made by the set and prop designers of 2001 to try to make the technology seem beyond what the audience understood, perhaps analogous to someone from a remote area of, say, Borneo or New Guinea, or the Kalahari, who had never even seen guns or metal, seeing NASA Mission Control for the first time.
I still use CLI on a daily basis, but I'm an IT geek, and it's part of my job. I spend a not-inconsiderable amount of time arguing with management that we need CLI for certain functions. But what do I know, I'm just the guy they call when their super-expensive computer systems stop working.
ReplyDeleteI do like Arachnophilia 4.0, with real regular expressions in the find and replace box -- makes a lot of manual reformats simpler.
ReplyDeleteCondolences on the death of your SE, Tam.
ReplyDeleteThat old SE30 was a bloody hotrod.
Clearly, you're going to the wrong geek parties. MY group's parties involve pig roasts, motorcycles, PNW homebrew, and bonfires to go with the shop talk. And sometimes we'll toss some Magnesium in the fire just for funsies
ReplyDeleteSounds like WetLeather to me! But you forgot to mention the riding that goes along with the Gather.
"Microsoft has released a totally new command line interface called Powershell"
ReplyDeleteAt first glance, I took the word break to be after the "s", and thought, "how appropriate."
"Command line interfaces are the computer world's version of the 10mm- powerful, capable, and generally ignored by most."
ReplyDeleteHey! I resemble that remark! (Linux dork, 10mm shooter, etc. :D)
Also, Lab Rat <3. :D