[jnbiche]

>an underpowered, user hostile design

In your opinion, of course. Many of us find the * nix command line not only elegant and highly-productive, but actually enjoyable.

In fact, the only Linux command line tools that I did not immediately start using in a highly productive manner are `tar` and `find`, arguably two of tools that least abide by the ideals of * nix command line tools (I've since gotten used to `find`, but `tar` may always send me searching for my personal wiki's corresponding entry[1]).

If you want to argue that there are better ways to program on the console, I grant that it's possible -- although as mentioned, I find the composability of * nix tools to be an almost magically productive approach.

But to condemn anyone to a life of GUI tools is not only going to drastically increase their chance of developing carpal tunnel syndrome, but also inevitably will slow down their work flow -- often drastically. It's simply not possible for even an experienced user to point and click with a mouse as fast as an fluent typist can issue commands on the terminal.

1. http://xkcd.com/1168/

[matt_kantor]

I too love the CLI, but I wish someone would go through and standardize flags, naming, ordering concerns, long-form arguments, etc across all of the POSIX tools. GNU put in some effort here, but in my opinion they didn't go far enough and non-GNU operating systems (BSD, OSX, etc) are missing out.

Actually, as much as I dislike Apple, they're probably one of the few entities that could pull off something like this.

[danielweber]

Honestly I feel like most Unix command-line tools are pretty good. I can make a good guess what "-n" and "-i" will mean on a new Unix tool based on context.

The git commands are a big exception; it's like each individual git command was written by its own committee, each deep with NIH syndrome. The one example I remember is two different git tools having a different way of colorizing their output.

[hderms]

I so agree with you. The only thing I hate about the *nix userland is that all tools follow their own set of arbitrary concerns regarding the things you mentioned. Really limits the intuitiveness and discoverability of the system.

[Kalium]

I don't think Apple could. Their influence on serverland is virtually nil.