[Grml] Re: Cream for VIM
s. keeling
keeling at spots.ab.ca
Sat Sep 23 06:17:46 CEST 2006
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.]
--
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(*) http://www.spots.ab.ca/~keeling Please don't Cc: me.
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