Re: [gnome-love] Where to make a policy suggestion?

["David Berg" <drberg1000 gmail com>]

On 3/14/06, Joachim Noreiko <jnoreiko yahoo com> wrote:
> --- David Berg <drberg1000 gmail com> wrote:
> > The reason I'm writing is a complaint I've had about
> > GUI's in general
> > since I started with linux around '99.  They do too
> > good of a job of
> > hiding the command line.  They are great in that the
> > make the learning
> > curve more gradual and give you an idea of what is
> > possible.  I think
> > that they could go a step farther though and do a
> > wonderful job of
> > teaching the command line.
> >
> > So here's the feature request I'd like to file:  The
> > command line that
> > is to be run should be visible to the user before it
> > is run.  For
> > example if I burn a CD in GnomeBaker, I should see
> > the `cdrecord
> > dev=/dev/cdrom image.iso ...` line in a status bar
> > underneath the
> > "start" button when I initiate the burn.
>
> Simple question: why?
> If a user can burn a CD in GnomeBaker, why show them
> some arcane and hard to remember command?
> Every single time I find something that needs the
> command line, I go looking for a GUI alternative. Why?
> Because GUIs are easier to learn and remember. I want
> to focus on the things I am doing, not remembering how
> to apply a patch, how to get a diff out of CVS, or how
> to burn a CD.

Why?  Because some times the command line is more efficient than any
current gui.  You may argue that if that were the case then the gui
needs work.  I would tend to agree but, fixing the gui is rarely
trivial and not always worthy of the time spent.   Also, GUIs can grow
to be very large.  Sticking with the CD burning example, which is
easier:

1.  Launching Gnomebacker
2.  Waiting for it to launch
3.  Dragging the directory/selecting the files
4.  starting the backup.
5.  Repeat every time you want to burn a disk (1-4 or 3-4)

OR

1.  Run Gnome backer once to get the commandline that works well
2.  Create an alias for that command ( burn="mkisofs FILENAMES  | cdrecord -" )
3.  run `burn FILENAMES`
4.  repeat step 3 for every disk you want to burn

In example two I'm assuming that you already have a terminal open --
usually the case on my desktop.

You don't necessarily have to remember some arcane command -- thats
what alias is for.

If I don't make any points with that, let me throw out another reason.
 Now and then a fellow wants a task automated that doesn't need any
user interaction ( or minimal interaction ).  When that is the case,
one needs to know how to write a script.  (I hope you aren't going to
try to argue that scripts are unnecessary also.)  Knowing what
commands programs are using would be very helpful in knowing how to
write the script.

Many of linux users (I would wager 90% of linux users until recent
years) use linux because of the command line (among other reasons). 
It is definately not for everyone, but we need some users that
understand the system intamately so that the great programs like gnome
can continue to get developed.  The users who already know the
information won't be with us for ever and should try to recruit new
ones when we can.  I think making the commands available is a great
way to do that.

If the locations of where the commands ( think status bar not tooltips
) are displayed bothers users ( I'd like to see it default on and just
be very quiet ) the switch to turn it off would be very handy.  If it
isn't enabled by default, I'd like to do something to make sure the
users know it is available so that if and when they're ready to learn,
they know of a good place to start.

--Dave