What Is Behind the CLI Making a Comeback?

https://apievangelist.com/2019/11/05/what-is-behind-the-cli-making-a-comeback/

by pollgill • 7 years ago

3 2 7 years ago

simonblack• 7 years ago

Faster, generally easier, cheaper (in terms of start-up time).

I have no problem with choosing between GUI or CLI interfaces, but I find myself doing far more work via the CLI than with GUI.

My desktop is comprised of several (usually 6) virtual desktops with both graphical apps and CLIs (xterms of various sizes) liberally placed thereon.

As such, there is no obvious incentive to use a GUI and no obvious incentive to use a CLI. I believe I tend to use the right tool for the right job. So it is natural to start up a GUI app when images are required.

When it doesn't matter whether a particular image is supplied, I generally use a CLI. Because I don't need to 'fire up' yet another standalone program, it's 'cheaper', both in effort and also in start-up time, to simply use the nearest xterm.

In effect, one xterm can take the place of maybe half-a-dozen different apps, as well as being more convenient for me.

Jobs which need to repeated more than once a week can be stored as CLI scripts which can be invoked with a single word or, better again, called by 'cron' automatically. Try doing that with a GUI.

amandana• 7 years ago

I remember when I was first on-boarding with AWS S3 and EC2 back in 2006 they only had an API and CLI, no GUI dashboard. CLI seemed to be on equal footing with API in those days, but as the popularity of web APIs grew, the CLI didn’t seem to keep up.

What limitations did he find with the CLI?

Have been using CLI regularly at work for 10+ years and CLI is always there so I don't understand the comeback.

What Is Behind the CLI Making a Comeback?

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