> You think that if I tell my parents this, they'll suddenly start using the command line?
Probably not, but that doesn't really matter as it was never the intention (if it were, there's probably a better place to write it than Hacker News).
I was offering software developers a perspective which demonstrates that the GUI/CLI distinction is mostly artificial, and that a CLI doesn't automatically mean "hard to use". After all, as others have pointed out, people managed just fine on DOS back in the day (where "managed just fine" == "shouting at machine for not doing things right", just like today).
> This is userfriendly and easy.
I don't like applying the phrase "userfriendly" to a piece of software, as it depends just as much on the user.
For example, I'm a user of youtube-dl, and I find it incredibly userfriendly: when I use it in scripts, I just write "youtube-dl" followed by flags for the appropriate behaviour. In contrast, your solution sounds really unfriendly to me. First my script would need to open a browser, and since the downloader is part of an addon, I wouldn't be able to use PhantomJS like I usually would. Instead, I'd probably have to go off and learn Selenium, assuming that Selenium drivers can use browser addons? If not, I might have to write a custom XUL app (not done that in a while!), and make sure it's compatible with the addon. Does XUL even work on a headless machine (in my case, RaspberryPi with SSH access)?
You are of course right with the part about user-friendliness but you do realize that most of the internet population did not understand what you tried to say with most of the sentences? ;)
So yes, it depends on the users just as well as your target group.
I'm not sure what your assumption that the difference is mostly artificial bases on since just the difference in the physical act is already overwhelming.
Probably not, but that doesn't really matter as it was never the intention (if it were, there's probably a better place to write it than Hacker News).
I was offering software developers a perspective which demonstrates that the GUI/CLI distinction is mostly artificial, and that a CLI doesn't automatically mean "hard to use". After all, as others have pointed out, people managed just fine on DOS back in the day (where "managed just fine" == "shouting at machine for not doing things right", just like today).
> This is userfriendly and easy.
I don't like applying the phrase "userfriendly" to a piece of software, as it depends just as much on the user.
For example, I'm a user of youtube-dl, and I find it incredibly userfriendly: when I use it in scripts, I just write "youtube-dl" followed by flags for the appropriate behaviour. In contrast, your solution sounds really unfriendly to me. First my script would need to open a browser, and since the downloader is part of an addon, I wouldn't be able to use PhantomJS like I usually would. Instead, I'd probably have to go off and learn Selenium, assuming that Selenium drivers can use browser addons? If not, I might have to write a custom XUL app (not done that in a while!), and make sure it's compatible with the addon. Does XUL even work on a headless machine (in my case, RaspberryPi with SSH access)?