a possible missed opportunity for CLI folks

[woodsmoke]

Something really odd just appeared in my "inbox" from the college.

But before I mention it I'm going to reference an article, for which I do NOT have the link, from several years ago.

The article was one in which research had been done between "students or people (don't remember which)" in Europe and the U.S..

The upshot of the article was that those surveyed in the U.S. vastly preferred to "type" an URL than to copy and paste or some such.

Let me restate that. The U.S. preferred to type out an URL than to somehow "search for" or to "copy and paste" an URL. Notice typing the URL. That in, and of itself, was unusual to me. Also same, apparently, for other things, preferring to type while the Europeans preferred to use a "mouse" to "do stuff".

The rest of the article went on to say, by inference, that the people in the U.S. probably were not sufficiently sophisticated to be aware of all the wonderful attributes of using a mouse.

However, I had exactly the opposite take, and that was that people in the U.S. KNOW HOW TO TOUCH TYPE! lol

But.....back to what happened today...

The college, after doing extensive research, is going to greatly simplify the front page for the whole college because.....

"The vast majority of people who hit the front page do not use the links, they instead type into the search box."

Ok so what are the implications of that for CLI people?

a) the people in the U.S., seemingly, are very comfortable with typing "commands/search terms" as opposed to mousing around to find a link.
b) the MEMORY of the people would seem to be at least "somewhat ok", because they possibly remember using a search term before and re-enter it.
c) the ability to LEARN a new "term/whatever" is, apparently, good and when learned is retained.
e) They go for what they perceive to be "faster" than "easier".
f) and this is kind of "esoteric"........they have CONFIDENCE that what they type will be correct.

Ok, so to get back to CLI people.

The attitude of many people with whom I have interacted on fora, etc. is that the average U.S. is just a dolt and not up to speed with those "Europeans". And that U.S. certainly are not "technical/CLI" people.

Well, I'm not saying that the people are wrong......but.......

CLI people prefer to type..... they keep commands in their heads, they are confident that what they type is correct.....

So....maybe ...... a different take maybe ought to be taken on "at least" college kids from the midwest U.S. in terms of getting them "into the fold" of Linux programming... don't know...

maybe online classes... don't know...

just a thought and probably of little worth.

woodsmoke

[Teunis]

Interesting observations.
Myself I'm very much a GUI person, I really like to have list to select from.
But in a browser, mainly Firefox in my case, I often type one or two letters of a previously visited site and let the awesome bar give me a few options.
And that's even though I've got a very full bookmark bar.
But I'm not one of the many that types the name of the website into google and then clicks the offered links.
I must be European.

The not so flattering rep USAians sometimes get in international fora might have more to do with the news crossing the water than with actual experiences.
An example is the discussion in Kentucky about the inclusion of creationism in the national standards for school tests or "Legislators were then shocked that evolution was so prominently featured".
In Europe there would be little political life left for a guy like representative Ben Wade who stated that evolution is just a theory and that Darwin made it all up.
Bush jr. and Sarah Palin were other prominent Americans that make many Europeans just shake their heads in disbelief.

If you have to believe the popular media we're sometimes living in different worlds. but I think it's for a good part folklore mixed with some misunderstandings.

[Snowhog]

I, for one, am not a 'purist'. I enjoy a GUI, but I also could not do without the CLI. An example: I prefer and use a GUI Web Browser and email client. But, for package management, I use the CLI almost exclusively. I use the tool that works best for me.

[woodsmoke]

thanks for the thoughtful comments folks. and Tenuis, yes, I go to church and also teach evolution. My preacher says something like "evolution....well duuhhhh does it matter how much time it took and .....also there is the various translations of what in Hebrew was "day"'s length".

I agree, what is portrayed on the media is not what is the reality of people who are not "hyper-liberal" in the U.S..

Anyway, nice posts folks, if anyone ELSE would care to post that would be great!

There is even one other person who posts here semi-randomly that is easily within driving range of me and my college actually has a real, bona-fide, linux "programming" class and I have had several students take it as part of a "programming" degree.

So anyway, don't know....just seems like there is a missed opportunity here....don't know how to address it...but...

again, thanks.

woodsmoke

[sixonetonoffun]

Well written search scripts often simply get you there faster. Wish the web programmers at our company understood that. Because its results are often useless. But they do turn out some superbly narcotic effects with flash. Yet try to find a specific form or document good luck. Follow links and hope for the best. Uhg!

[NickStone]

Interesting article about where people live as to how they use computers. However, personally I believe that its the type of person you are as to whether you prefer to use a GUI or command line. For example, those people who just want a computer to "just work" and are not interested in whats going on "under the hood" will only use a GUI and in fact those people will proberbly stick to using Windows based computers.

The more technical person, the ones who are interested in programming and understanding how computers work will want to use the command line more often but will also use the GUI as well. These people are the ones that will tend to use other operating systems and have upgraded their computers themselves.

Of course there is no scientific evidence for what I have just typed, it is only my observation of what I've seen and heard from other people. What I think could be a load of ****

[Qqmike]

If at one time you were a programmer, using the CLI doesn't scare you and it comes naturally.

Not a programmer in a previous life? Start with a basic tutorial that starts by removing the "scary" part. Like this one:
http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...inners-3-parts

;-)

Risks of using CLI infrequently ... Unless you have a very good, sticky memory, using the CLI is a bit difficult without having cheat sheets of commands handy UNLESS you do the same/similar CLI tasks often and on an ongoing basis.

GUI is more intuitive, requires almost no memorization, and increases the probability that at least you will arrive somewhere.

There are many things you can do by CLI that you can't do by GUI.

Nice to have them both.

[woodsmoke]

Qqmike wrote:

using the CLI is a bit difficult without having cheat sheets of commands handy

When you wrote that the thought of the keyboard wraparound "cheat placards" for WordPerfect sprang to mind! lol



woodsmoke

[Qqmike]

Yeah! I remember WordPerfect very well (and Lotus and .... ).
That was my choice of word handler until a consulting stint shoved me into learning the Word (and Excel and ... ).

[SteveRiley]

word handler

What's the difference between a word processor and a word handler?

[Qqmike]

Don't mind ya ask'n at all there, Riley. The phrase "word handler" is used by a cowboy who has done more sh*'n word processing than he cares to remember in his senior years and now he's trying to modify the memory-reality of the past by incrementally reframing and metaphor-ing those memories into a more exciting story. And I take it I can use the word metaphor-ing here? Kind of a favorite of mine.

[SecretCode]

Risks of using CLI infrequently ... Unless you have a very good, sticky memory, using the CLI is a bit difficult without having cheat sheets of commands handy UNLESS you do the same/similar CLI tasks often and on an ongoing basis.

Or unless you have set in .bashrc

export HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth:erasedups
export HISTFILESIZE=10000
export HISTSIZE=10000

and in .inputrc

"\e[A": history-search-backward
"\e[B": history-search-forward
"\e[1;5A": history-search-backward
"\e[1;5B": history-search-forward
"\e[5~": history-search-backward
"\e[6~": history-search-forward

and then you have a massive cheatsheet of previously used commands accessible via typing a few letters and using the cursor keys.

[Snowhog]

What key sequences are referenced by your .inputrc code?

[SecretCode]

Curses, I was afraid someone would ask that.

...

\e[A is the cursor up arrow - Up
\e[B is Down
\e[1;5A is Ctrl-Up
\e[1;5A is Ctrl-Down
\e[5~ is PgUp
\e[6~ is PgDn

The read or showkey -a commands are useful to find the key codes for a given key. They'll give output starting with ^[ which you need (I think) to replace with \e for the .inputrc.