GUI vs CLI rethink

I was convinced that CLI is better than GUI.

There was a trend around 2005 that Linux command line shell is the shit. Being young and desperately wanted to stand out from the crowd, I jumped the CLI wagon.

Knowing all the useful Unix commands definitely wasn’t enough. I abandoned the IDE for VIM, them Emacs. I customized my web browser to be keyboard controlled only using vim-mode plugins. I use fancy windows manager like Xmonad.

I felt proud. I can do so much things better: Remotely configure my web projects on any server; Navigate different languages so easily that I often call myself language agnostic. Etc.

Till one day, I realized how short-sighted I was. In my awesome CLI world, once I need some information, I fired up the browser check for online docs. I constantly misspell variables. I go in-and-out different directories so often just to search for specific code segments in files. The last straw on the camel was Notch’s live-coding sessions. He does not even switch tabs using hot-keys!

Auto-completion, language awareness, project scale string search, REPL, platform/OS integration. Dude, what are you talking about? Emacs/VIM/Shell have all these. Right, but to get these shit work, they need MASSIVE CONFIGURATION! When all the IDE/GUI/Windows users are getting them for FREE and OUT-OF-BOX!

朝闻道，夕死可矣。 I am going to embrace the IDE and whatever tool-chain a stack throw at me from now on. I need to be pragmatic.

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