Incoming from Mark:
[snippage] easier. We just have a philosophical difference. The less my computer asks me to memorize, the more it is helping me. I would rather click pretty buttons than type cryptic commands from memory.
... As real sysadmins do regularly, with heaping portions of reading man pages, surfing for clues, or just trying things? *Real* sysadmins don't prefer GUIs. They're far too limiting.
VIM cannot do everything well, by the way. Sometimes I drop into raw *nix commands because of VIM deficiencies. Knowing a tool's limits is often more important.
"VIM cannot do everything well, ..." "... VIM deficiencies."
I smell a religious war ... 'Sounds to me like someone doesn't grok that the CLI is a *feature*, not an encumbrance. We definitely have philosophical differences. Computers are good for automating repetitive, trivial tasks for us. Their ability to think for us is nonexistent. Asking a computer to handle something complex *for you* is just asking for trouble. The DWIM ("Do What I mean") key does not exist.
Unix/Linux/Grml rocks. It's not for those who haven't the time to learn its intricasies:
Intricacy \In"tri*ca*cy, n.; pl. {Intricacies}. [From {Intricate}.] The state or quality of being intricate or entangled; perplexity; involution; complication; complexity; that which is intricate or involved; as, the intricacy of a knot; the intricacy of accounts; the intricacy of a cause in controversy; the intricacy of a plot.
GUIs can be useful, for exceptionally well defined tasks. That situation doesn't often exist in a sysadmin's world. Give me a CLI, and I can move the world. Give me a GUI, and I can do what it can do. Ick.
[Apologies to the list. I'll bow out of this now. Anyone wishing to discuss this further, feel free to mail off-list. I'll be happy to play out of earshot of others less interested.]