Yesterday I was on a voice call with some TRON players, and a new player had a problem with their game failing to download some of the multiplayer maps. So we were helping this new guy download his maps from the website manually, and someone in the voice chat said “Just use curl to download them, it’s easier than using the gui”.
Now for those who don’t know, curl is the command line interface command to access a website. So this person is saying it’s easier to browse the internet in a bash client, typing in all your commands, than to use firefox to surf the internet.
Linux users, man! I have so much respect for the older people who are so used to using CLIs
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If you know the URL, it takes one command to download a file with curl. That could theoretically be much faster than the time it takes to navigate a website.
I’ve tried browsing lemmy through curl, and I learned a lot, but it was a usability nightmare.
I don’t think most people would try to browse lemmy via curl, unless they’re gluttons for punishment like the people who write brainfuck code. I don’t use it as a full replacement for graphical browsers, it’s more useful for one-off downloads or for scripts that need to search through pages.
Oh yeah, searching! You could use grep to look for specific lines! Thanks, I understand better now
For browsing there’s always links.
Personally I’m partial to Lynx for cli-based browsing, but I don’t really have much reason for it. It’s more of a novelty than a necessary tool for me.
Yeah, but if I recommended that one I wouldn’t have gotten to link a link to links(’ documentation).
It only could have been more exciting to have had an excuse to link multiple links links. This is also why I didn’t link links2.
Links.
edit: Sorry for getting a bit hyper about links.
Imagine having the linux hacking skills to paste a url into something other than a web browser. You’d have to be some kind of insane genius.
older people
I feel offended. But yeah. When I was young, I was under the impression computers were going to be our future and everyone would learn 10-finger typing on their keyboard. And maybe one day Microsoft would finally be replaced by something better 😊
maybe one day Microsoft would finally be replaced by something better
The future ain’t over yet.
I’m doing My part, I run Arch and I tell all My friends that Linux is better
curl is going to be easier than Invoke-WebRequest -Uri in Powershell on a windows machine
I don’t get it why you are being downvoted.
Linux users, man! I have so much respect for the older people who are so used to using CLIs
From that remark, I get that you’re on the younger side of the spectrum yourself. Fyi, nearing my 60s, I consider myself on the older side.
As an older person, I only started getting into CLI in my early 50s and really into it in the last few years, when I decided to actually learn to use Bash and scripts to get things done.
It’s amazingly efficient for some tasks. Heck, even some image edits (which are by nature very graphical) are much simpler and much quicker done with the CLI than using any GUI. Things like image compression, converting from one format to another, resizing, things like that. And also, obviously, batch processing said images.
Now, considering that between younger you and older I there is most ages represented we can safely conclude that the ability to use the CLI is not age related: I’m no more an expert of the Terminal than you are. At best, I may just have started using it a few years earlier than you.
The question now becomes this: how come most of us have never been educated to actually using CLI tools, instead focusing on GUI (like I have been) as if it was more ‘logical’? How come most of us still think of the CLI as some ‘wizardry’ tool reserved some ‘elite’ users while the mouse as natural? It is not.
It’s mere text commands. Text being something we have all learned to read and write as very young kids. Or, at least, we’re supposed to have learned that. Text commands should not intimidate us. Think about it: in order to be fluent in English how many thousand of words is one supposed to master? What about grammar? The Terminal is no different it has words and grammar.
Now, one may want to ask schools/teachers why is that they decided to normalize the GUI instead of the text-based interface. Why go the most demanding way of doing things in terms of resources? Why, using Apple or Microsoft or even Google, pick the one tool that gives us (and kids) the less control over it?
I added that part you bolded after I realised I had poorly communicated My tone. However, by then the damage was already done, and people continued to downvote because the post already had downvotes.
I see. Let’s see if the damage can be undone by enough ‘new’ readers, then ;)
I use curl for downloads all the time without issue and yet you think I’m insane
download his maps from the website manually
If my imagination how that website might look like is right, the guy was totally right
And bonus points: next time they need to download/update them, they can just bring the one-liner back from history, instead of doing all that clicking and waiting and choosing directory again
GUIs have lower entry bar but in the long run TUIs and CLIs are just more user friendly. One only needs to learn a bit beforehand
older people who are so used to using CLIs
I don’t think this is about age. When I was a kid it already was GUIs everywhere. Yet, I’m a CLI/TUI person
