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I've always been a Windows guy.
Good tooling, easy use, GUIs...
But now there's this trend to use the command line.
Tools like MongoDB, NodeJS, npm and everything you download from it...
I've always hated the command line.
A simple task takes you about thirty minutes of Googling and then thirty minutes of trying to get the commands and syntax right.
So I've decided to set up an Ubuntu server without GUI.
I've been doing that for about two weeks now.
And I must say I'm impressed...
... at how horribly difficult it is to do ANYTHING!
Two hours to install Jenkins, took me literally five minutes on Windows!
I reckon it's impossible to do anything using just the command line as you need to download stuff from URLs you can't look up as all you have is a command line.
Good thing I have a VM and a browser.
But why do people do this to themselves? 
Right now I'm trying to make SonarQube start when the server starts.
I followed the documentation, but it didn't work (I don't even know what didn't work).
There goes another evening of Googling and trying and trying again 
F*** you, command line...
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Sir,
The "Rant" tag is missing from your post. 
... such stuff as dreams are made on
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Well you know IT people, why do something the simple way when you can find a far more elaborate and complex solution to brag about, show off with and demonstrate your worth to your boss [and extract a few more $$$'s] by demonstrating something that no mortal being can do [because any sane person would just do things the simple way].
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Command line is a power tool - you don't hand off power tools to children.
"Real programmers" respones aside, GUI and command line can both be terrible depending on who developed it. Command line is unbeatable for automatizing tasks though, so it wins. Also most of the time command line is direct - instead of navigating through the 4-5 screens needed to chek and change the IP and router of windows, which take some browsing and a lot of loading time, you can set it up easily with an ipconfig and eventually a route command, and the latter is more powerful than the GUI anyway.
Same for compiling and running a project with VS, if you happen to have a VS instance that must debug another VS instance which has to run a project in debug mode (I had to, it wasn't fun) it saves a LOT of time.
Command line is usually concise and direct, of course it depends on the tools... both the software and the human one.
DURA LEX, SED LEX
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
When I was six, there were no ones and zeroes - only zeroes. And not all of them worked. -- Ravi Bhavnani
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Sander Rossel wrote: But why do people do this to themselves?
Exactly.
Every eighteen months or so, I download the latest "fave flave" of linux and install it on a machine.
... Then after three days, just give up and delete the partition.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Command lines can be good - they can save time and effort, particularly if you are automating tasks. With some GUIs you have click this, enter here, and here, and here, click that, click that over there, and press "go".
Whereas with a command line you can just say "DoMyThing inputfile output file /copy" and press ENTER.
That doesn't mean I'm a command line fan - I moved from DOS to Windows as quick as I could for just the reasons you gave - but they do have a place, and many of my Windows apps accept command line parameters to allow you to automate them.
But there are those perverse few who code with Notepad and CSC.exe "because it's better" - ignoring all the advantages of Intellisense, auto completion, immediate error reporting, etc. They like command lines, probably because it makes them look like they know more than the people around them. 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Yeah, I'm using it to automate my build and everything.
And then curse the command line even more when that action I always did in the GUI is not available from the command line
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Poorly designed command line is poorly designed. Of course it drives crazy - poorly designed GUIs do the same.
DURA LEX, SED LEX
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
When I was six, there were no ones and zeroes - only zeroes. And not all of them worked. -- Ravi Bhavnani
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Sander Rossel wrote: curse the command line even more when that action I always did in the GUI is not available from the command line
There's the rub: A lot of one-click actions initiate a string of commands, running them one after the other, in the right order, and retrieving required details underwater.
OTOH, my typing speed always improves, when I'm heavy on the command line.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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OriginalGriff wrote: Whereas with a command line you can just say "DoMyThing inputfile output file /copy" and press ENTER.
'DoMyThing' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file Possible causes:
0. There should have been an underscore, somewhere.
1. It's not in your PATH, so you have to type the fully-qualified, 237-character path.
2. The guy who wrote it thought it cool to spell "Thing" as "Thang".
But my favourite is the "Usage" catted man, that dumps a hundred lines of white text on the screen for your having dared not know every single switch and param option in minute detail.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Regarding Linux my advice is:
1. When it's server time you save a lot of money in licenses.
2. When it's time to recover files from a broken windows you can always use a Ubuntu live cd to recover them.
3. There's no 3.
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Last time I recovered something from a broken window I ended up spending a lot of time in explanations to two angry-looking policemen...
DURA LEX, SED LEX
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
When I was six, there were no ones and zeroes - only zeroes. And not all of them worked. -- Ravi Bhavnani
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Joan Murt wrote: 3. There's no 3.
Wrong.
3. When Mickeysoft gets crazier than a rat in a frying pan, let them have the sheeple they are looking for and don't look back.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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Is that a poem? It doesn't rhyme!
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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Sander Rossel wrote: at how horribly difficult it is to do ANYTHING!
It's problem with Linux, not command line. Whenever you try to do something, you always miss some package or have incorrect version library or your system is not configured in the right way™. If there's more then 3 steps in instructions that you're following, usually it's 3 pages, something will fail.
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Sander Rossel wrote: ... at how horribly difficult it is to do ANYTHING!
So, here we have someone who writes code for a living, and prefers visual tools. That sounds a little ironic 
The big advantage of the WINDOWS Gui is that it is predictable, and if done properly, most people will be able to use your application without prior training and/or books. (Which does not mean that management wont invest in those)
As someone who grew up with a command-line, I rather FTP from prompt than go and find the latest malware. The switches hardly change, so after a short while you don't have to look up each and every option. Also no ads (yet) in most command-line applications, and the added bonus that commands may be scripted - something that is harder to do for GUI's.
So no surprise that GUI's are easier; that was their main selling point. Also no surprise that the command line is a bit more efficient.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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I grew up on UNIX and loved it to bits.
When I first moved to Windows development, I pined for the power of the UNIX command prompt and it took me a long time to get used to using GUIs for things that I'd always been doing in a more "hands-on" way.
The world has changed a lot since then, though:
1) The world was not a connected place - we were rarely interested in anything going on outside of the local server.
2) File names were short and didn't have spaces; paths tended to be short and predictable.
3) Everything was done in ASCII.
4) Source code was a whole lot smaller and involved far fewer files and fewer file types.
Yes, command lines still come in very useful from time to time and most of us still use them from time to time but would anyone in their right mind choose to work exclusively that way these days?
Or to put it another way, who would prefer to type something like ":!find ../../MyProject -name "*.c" -exec grep SomeObjectName {} /dev/null" when they could simply press F12 and go straight to the definition? (Apologies if the UNIX is wrong in any way, it's been a great many years, but you see the point).
UNIX was a truly wonderful thing and from the early '70s to the mid '90s it was the best tool for anything but I've never really seen the point of LINUX beyond being an exercise in applied nostalgia. Why try to make a better penny-farthing in the age of the modern bicycle?
Slogans aren't solutions.
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The mouse-over message is the best.
Marc
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You have been worked for many years with Windows and did know meanwhile where to find more hidden configuration options.
Me too, but I'm still annoyed when I have to change a specific option and did not remember where to find it. And then they moved options with new Windows versions. So it does not help when knowing where it was with 7 when it is somewhere else with 10.
But I have also worked with Linux servers for many years. With the usage comes the experience. I know where to look for the configuration files. Even when not, it is not difficult to find them below /etc or /usr/local/etc.
My tips:
Use Linux. After a year or more you will know enough to ask Google less often.
Don't forget the man and info pages. Using them makes asking Google often not necessary.
Select an editor that you like.
Use some helper tools.
I prefer the Midnight Commander (MC) for directory navigation, quick editing and viewing, changing file permissions, and much more.
Finally:
A server does not need a GUI.
If you still want to use a mouse you can install a remote configuration utility like Webmin.
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Using command line is hard for me also, can never remember the commands and what all the options. I suppose if i used it enough i would but a gui is so m7ch easier.
New version: WinHeist Version 2.2.2 Beta I told my psychiatrist that I was hearing voices in my head. He said you don't have a psychiatrist!
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Sander Rossel wrote: But why do people do this to themselves?
The Inferior/Superior Unix Man:
Because they have an inferiority complex, and knowing obscure command line commands and their obtuse arguments gives them a feeling of superiority.
The Ostrich Unix Man:
Some prefer to keep their head buried in the sand, claiming that they can do things faster and better with the command line.
The Child Superpower Unix Man:
Knowing the command line gives some the sense of immense power over the operating system, because they never had any authority when they were children.
The Cheap Anti-Corporation Unix Man:
Isn't it amazing how people will actually pay the evil corporation when all this stuff is free!
Marc
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