

The Command Line - The Best Newbie Interface? - parenthesis
http://www.osnews.com/story/6282

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pierrefar
No. Not in a million years.

Anything that requires typing obscenely cryptic commands in the right order
and getting very variable-quality feedback about the results is not user
friendly by any definiton let alone newbie friendly. Just because you and I
know how to hack the command line doesn't make it easy or good and we
shouldn't kid ourselves.

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dimitar
Commands don't need to be obscenely cryptic and if they get too long you can
easily teach autocompletion. If you have basic verbal skills, then you know
stuff like context, so there should be no problem with the "variable
feedback". I used DOS when I was 5 - learning to create text files, run
programs, navigate the file system wasn't hard at all. My mom explained to me
those things only once or twice. I certainly didn't need to "hack" anything in
any sense of the word.

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stonemetal
So it goes something like this then: Aunt Tilie wants to go outside so she
goes to her desk and writes on a sheet of paper door open then presents it to
the door which responds with a paper that says how do I know it is you aunt
Tilie some one could have crawled in the window last night. To which she hands
the door another sheet of paper with her password.

Riiight. She approaches the door pannel and visually identifies the door's
current state and manipulates objects on that panel until it is in the
appropriate state then she can open the door.

