Conversion Purgatory

[kacir]

Let me sum it up.
Despite what one of previous posters claimed the Command Line Interface (CLI in further text) is still used in some situations.
Graphical User Interface (GUI) is good for different situations.
Ther life would not be good without either of them.

I myself tend to use CLI in situations when I use program in Power User mode -- that is when I want great control over things, or when I want to work more quickly, or when i do things in batch mode (more quickly). I also use CLI for manipulating text in the VIM editor or graphics in AutoCAD, because CLI can be much more efficient for certain tasks once you climb the steep learning curve

GUI on the other hand is good in situations when the nature of the work is graphical - like making text + grapnical layout (please dear LaTEX users let us not start another religious war here , I know you have climbed the steep learning curve of mastering arcane Latex commands and setting up elaborate templates and macros) or when you want to do something quickly withour becoming an expert on certain program.

You also have to understand than when somebody is creating a program for his own needs (like the author of ConvertLit) his developement time is a very precious comodity. Some kinds of programs are much more easy and much quicker to develop as a CLI tool than as a GUI tool. So the author of ConvertLit creates the first version that does "quick and dirty conversion" of Lit file to its html components without any fancy options.
Now imagine a situation: the author has one hour of spare time this evening and he wants to work on his open source ConvertLit. The list of ToDo features is long. He has a choice.
1. he can add an option to the CLI to process lit file in different way because he has some lit files that are not converted to his liking with the newest version
2. he can polish GUI without adding new functionality.
I think that most of the time he will choose point 1.

That is the reason why open source programs are very often excellent for processing files, command line manipulation, serving html files, receiving and processing mail, and doing things that do not require GUI.
This is also the reason why commercial programs used to be much nicer and more polished in GUI domain. Because GUI sells programs. Users want to use GUI until they become Power Users. There are very few users that say "let us see the man page and find out some interesting arcane options for command line".

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kacir

That is the reason why open source programs are very often excellent for processing files, command line manipulation, serving html files, receiving and processing mail, and doing things that do not require GUI.
This is also the reason why commercial programs used to be much nicer and more polished in GUI domain. Because GUI sells programs. Users want to use GUI until they become Power Users. There are very few users that say "let us see the man page and find out some interesting arcane options for command line".

Another reason is that if you as a developer does not need to use the GUI then it is hard to motivate you to code it especially since GUI coding and design usually is pretty boring. I have noticed that in the cases were I use a GUI it is fun to program it. And I suspect that the reason that most commercial GUI:s are so bad is that the developers themselves do not use the GUI. You are missing batch functionality and macro functionality on most GUI:s just because the developers use command line tools for this.

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by kacir

Let me sum it up.
Despite what one of previous posters claimed the Command Line Interface (CLI in further text) is still used in some situations.
Graphical User Interface (GUI) is good for different situations.
Ther life would not be good without either of them.

I myself tend to use CLI in situations when I use program in Power User mode -- that is when I want great control over things, or when I want to work more quickly, or when i do things in batch mode (more quickly). I also use CLI for manipulating text in the VIM editor or graphics in AutoCAD, because CLI can be much more efficient for certain tasks once you climb the steep learning curve

GUI on the other hand is good in situations when the nature of the work is graphical - like making text + grapnical layout (please dear LaTEX users let us not start another religious war here , I know you have climbed the steep learning curve of mastering arcane Latex commands and setting up elaborate templates and macros) or when you want to do something quickly withour becoming an expert on certain program.

You also have to understand than when somebody is creating a program for his own needs (like the author of ConvertLit) his developement time is a very precious comodity. Some kinds of programs are much more easy and much quicker to develop as a CLI tool than as a GUI tool. So the author of ConvertLit creates the first version that does "quick and dirty conversion" of Lit file to its html components without any fancy options.
Now imagine a situation: the author has one hour of spare time this evening and he wants to work on his open source ConvertLit. The list of ToDo features is long. He has a choice.
1. he can add an option to the CLI to process lit file in different way because he has some lit files that are not converted to his liking with the newest version
2. he can polish GUI without adding new functionality.
I think that most of the time he will choose point 1.

That is the reason why open source programs are very often excellent for processing files, command line manipulation, serving html files, receiving and processing mail, and doing things that do not require GUI.
This is also the reason why commercial programs used to be much nicer and more polished in GUI domain. Because GUI sells programs. Users want to use GUI until they become Power Users. There are very few users that say "let us see the man page and find out some interesting arcane options for command line".

Very good points!