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GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
OriginalGriff7-Jul-20 5:53
mveOriginalGriff7-Jul-20 5:53 
GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
honey the codewitch7-Jul-20 6:40
mvahoney the codewitch7-Jul-20 6:40 
GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
kalberts7-Jul-20 7:24
kalberts7-Jul-20 7:24 
GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
honey the codewitch7-Jul-20 7:41
mvahoney the codewitch7-Jul-20 7:41 
GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
Member 133016797-Jul-20 22:59
Member 133016797-Jul-20 22:59 
AnswerRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
Ravi Bhavnani7-Jul-20 6:19
professionalRavi Bhavnani7-Jul-20 6:19 
GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
honey the codewitch7-Jul-20 6:35
mvahoney the codewitch7-Jul-20 6:35 
GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
kalberts7-Jul-20 7:18
kalberts7-Jul-20 7:18 
Ravi Bhavnani wrote:
If you expect the tool to be used in CI process, it must be a command-line tool.
Sure, that is a heavily promoted myth.

I've been through I-don't-know-how-many disussions over the years with people who insist that the driver must be a command line thing, and therefore all the components must be, too. Often, there are specific counter-examples, systems acutally available that are configured through a GUI, the configuration is saved in a database or configuration file, and the GUI may e.g. leave the configuration to a be run by a service at regular intervals - this is quite common for backup systems.

One of my earlier employers ran nightly incremental and weekly full backups through a system managed that way. Lots of the developers insisted that the only way to do regular jobs automatically was to write a shell script and supply it to cron. I dragged them one by one over to the GUI based backup configuration and monitoring / management system for the backup: It provided all the facilities they insisted that they needed a command line for, everything managed in a user-friendly GUI and without having to typy all those nasty options on every invocation. "Well, of course you can do it that way, but... Oh well, you can!"

Later, I have been using several other example systems. And hyphotetical back-of-envelope sketches when people argue "but no CI systems are like that". Or network management systems. Or systems controlling all sorts of physical equipment. Or whatever. The main reason why we still use the command line is that we haven't sat down to build a proper GUI. We could have done it; we haven't.

One example: The Docker engine interface. It could very well have been a GUI where you select objects from lists, delete them with the delete button, create new ones with proper prompts and help information. For a while we were considering making extensive use of Docker (it turned out to be less suitable than we thought), and after failing to find a good ready-made alternative I was seriously considering to write a Docker GUI myself, but the activity cooled down before I got a round tuit.

Lots of systems like Docker, or Jenkins / Bamboo, git, ... are activated and controlled through a communications interface. In some systems, the interface is "telnet type". Lots of sytems are e.g. REST based: Command line guys insist on making a shell friendly (but user unfriendly) command interface translating text commands to REST operations. But e.g. Jenkins (for talking about CI tools) are delivered with a fairy decent GUI for configuring and running the pipeline. It can also trigger a build by events reported through a network protocol. A CLI is just an additional control interface that you can do without.

There was a network named Bitnet - "bit" was not "binary digit" but "Because It's There". That is why we are using CLIs: Beacuse they are there. Circular arguments work because circle arguments work. We must build CLI tools because we must build CLI tools (because that is what we've got).

Please give me one single solid and undisputable argument, one case study, where we "must" have a CLI, where it would be impossible to do the task without.

How can command line affecitionados manage life with a smartphone? Do they install an app that lets them control the computer through a 7-bit ASCII only bash shell?
GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
Sander Rossel7-Jul-20 21:46
professionalSander Rossel7-Jul-20 21:46 
AnswerRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
Ron Nicholson7-Jul-20 6:19
professionalRon Nicholson7-Jul-20 6:19 
GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
honey the codewitch7-Jul-20 6:31
mvahoney the codewitch7-Jul-20 6:31 
AnswerRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
pkfox7-Jul-20 7:42
professionalpkfox7-Jul-20 7:42 
GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
honey the codewitch7-Jul-20 8:11
mvahoney the codewitch7-Jul-20 8:11 
AnswerRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
F-ES Sitecore7-Jul-20 8:46
professionalF-ES Sitecore7-Jul-20 8:46 
GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
honey the codewitch7-Jul-20 9:03
mvahoney the codewitch7-Jul-20 9:03 
AnswerRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
Eddy Vluggen7-Jul-20 10:27
professionalEddy Vluggen7-Jul-20 10:27 
AnswerRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
harold aptroot7-Jul-20 20:20
harold aptroot7-Jul-20 20:20 
GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
honey the codewitch7-Jul-20 20:33
mvahoney the codewitch7-Jul-20 20:33 
AnswerRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
Davyd McColl7-Jul-20 23:56
Davyd McColl7-Jul-20 23:56 
GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
Davyd McColl7-Jul-20 23:57
Davyd McColl7-Jul-20 23:57 
GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
honey the codewitch8-Jul-20 3:35
mvahoney the codewitch8-Jul-20 3:35 
GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
honey the codewitch8-Jul-20 3:34
mvahoney the codewitch8-Jul-20 3:34 
AnswerRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
MSBassSinger8-Jul-20 9:23
professionalMSBassSinger8-Jul-20 9:23 
AnswerRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
Peter Shaw8-Jul-20 10:53
professionalPeter Shaw8-Jul-20 10:53 
GeneralRe: Extending Visual Studio, do you prefer VSIX extensions or scriptable/batchable CIL tools? Pin
honey the codewitch8-Jul-20 11:03
mvahoney the codewitch8-Jul-20 11:03 

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