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Thursday, November 21, 2013

Shell Prompts

Every craftsman needs a solid, reliable workbench for holding his/her work-piece at a convenient position while working with it. For programmers, the workbench is the command shell. From the shell, we can launch applications, debuggers, browsers, editors, and utilities.

But the programmers raised in GUI interfaces might find this difficult. They might also ask the question:

Can't we do everything equally well by pointing and clicking?

The answer is ‘No’. By using GUI, you are missing many of the capabilities of the environment.

A benefit of GUIs is
WYSIWYG — what you see is what you get. 
The disadvantage is
WYSIAYG — what you see is all you get.

GUI environments are normally limited to the capabilities that their designers intended. Never chain yourself by the restrictions created by the GUI. Gain familiarity with the shell, and you will find yourself improving.


summary of Shell Games, from The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

5 comments:

  1. WYSIWYG and WYSIAYG, very interesting.

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    2. Pragmatic Programmer is simply awesome :-)

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