[Grml] Re: Cream for VIM

[s. keeling]

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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