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by rounak 4617 days ago
Under the assumption that you're a developer, how do you deal with the lack of a great Terminal/Command line interface on Windows?
5 comments

As a developer (just jumping in) I'd hazard a guess the same way I deal with the horrific lack on consistency with a command line interface on any posix platform I use.

There is a bit of a shift I find, if I'm doing something all Microsoft, I've got Visual Studio and plugins loaded, it is effectively a 3,000lb sledge hammer. A few years ago it was an effort to ensure my PC had enough RAM to run such a beast, complete with Resharper. However I don't have to leave VS for pretty much anything. This is really nice.

When you get used to having a proper IDE, by that I mean one which does everything you need effortlessly, it you don't really ever go outside it.

Ultimately, as a developer rather than a SysAdmin I never need a CLI for getting code made. Managing servers and such is a different union! However I will say powershell isn't bad at all.

As a .Net (work) and FOSS* (free time) developer, I find that the ecosystem just doesn't require the use of the CLI nearly as much. Sure, you can interact with TFS from the CLI (and maybe it's better, I don't know) but the first exposure most have to it is GUI so you learn that way. That's just one example but Visual Studio et. al. tend to take care of many things I use the CLI for on OS X/Linux systems, via a GUI. I'm certainly not saying it's better but it is better than most CLI-gone-GUI tools I've used in the FOSS world. I think this is because Windows dev tools are built for the GUI first (and often have a complete lack of, or a lacking support for, CLI UX) first as opposed to many FOSS tools that assume an understanding of the CLI and are built for that first. Personally I enjoy CLI and, while it has a steeper learning curve, I am more productive with my definition of a "proper" CLI (bash, zsh, etc.) than without. So I am attempting to learn Powershell in order to regain some of lost productivity on Windows. But, that's just me. I know many .Net devs that don't feel that productivity loss without a CLI.

* I use Ruby, Python, and Javascript/Node.JS on a Mac for side projects.

Powershell is actually pretty cool if you embrace it for what it is and don't try to use it like a unix shell.

Of course, through Cygwin, MingW, et al you can also just run bash or whatever shell you want on Windows.

To be honest I don't spend a ton of time in terminal windows on Windows for some of the reasons others mentioned, though I do tend to constantly be using the shell on the Linux VMs I mentioned (often just sshed into a local VM).

I use command line in both linux and windows, they offer the exact same thing, just different commands. Of course it windows has a few problems with it, but mostly just presentation (like static buffer size for width). I'd say 90% of microsoft tools have a CLI you just have to know how to use them, which is the exact same thing when you are going to linux for the first time.
It's like asking people from the future how do they deal with the lack of internal combustion engines. Well, we kind of don't need them in most cases. Because things evolved. GUI has been invented long enough for everyone to catch up.
You should contact Microsoft and tell them that creating PowerShell was a mistake because GUIs are the future. I'm sure they'll weigh your "GUIs are the future" argument carefully, as we have.