RE: GUIs and CLIs

[Ozymandias]

in reply to GUIs and CLIs
in thread The sad state of Perl documentation

Who says you have to stop scripting to use a GUI? I use scripts every bit as much as I did before. And a CLI is NOT the way humans work. Humans work interactively, based on multiple inputs, and multiple outputs. Humans also multitask. CLIs do not; they accept one input and one output - text - and even with multiple CLIs, you still use only one at a time. Even if you have five CLIs all running different processes, YOU can only look at one at a time. Not true on a GUI.

- email Ozymandias

[merlyn]

Maybe it's a matter of terminology, but I bet you aren't scripting the GUI. You are driving the GUI from "command-line" programs that can display graphics widgets.

But let me come along and now try to "script" your application. I can't. I haven't found any decent "scripting language" for your typical "GUI" that let's me say "click THIS button when THAT button turns green". If you have, please help us out here.

Sure, I use multiple windows, with CLIs in each window. I don't call that a GUI. I call the gimp or Photoshop (depending on your bent) a GUI. Try scripting that in a meaningful way. It won't be from the GUI end. Gimp scripting is done because they have a (surprise!) CLI interface specially grafted on to the back end. And Photoshop has its little macro language, and I can tweak at that with some Applescript if I'm desparate. But it's just not the same as taking the output of "ps" and looking for the "httpd" processes.

Imagine if you didn't have "ps", but only the "top" program. (Welcome to MacOS or Windows98 {grin}). This is what I'm talking about. You cannot script a GUI!

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

[Ozymandias]

No, you can't easily make a script to do "click this button when this light turns green". But you CAN make a script triggered by the data that turns the light green to create the same action clicking the button does.

The point, just to be clear, is that a GUI is not meant to be a machine interface, it's meant to be a human interface. If you're human, use the human interface; when the light turns green, click the button. A script is a machine. Use a machine interface for it.

- email Ozymandias

[merlyn]

No, you can't easily make a script to do "click this button when this light turns green". But you CAN make a script triggered by the data that turns the light green to create the same action clicking the button does.

And to do that, you need a CLI. Hence, GUIs for basic interaction, but power users must become proficient with CLI.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker