Progaramming: how to add a gui front end to a CL command?

[Pete Holsberg]

Karl Auer keyed the following on 8/6/2007 11:42 AM:

>  On Mon, 2007-08-06 at 08:21 -0700, Matthew Voss wrote:
> > If there is no benefit for your self than make sure you pick the
> > right command and do it for some one else. Though, your right, it
> > would be of no use to the person who wrote it!
>
>  This just isn't true. For complex command line programs, and even
>  some quite simple ones, the GUI makes it easier for the guru and the
>  neophyte alike. By preventing (or warning about) bad combinations of
>  arguments, or by sanity-checking parameters, a GUI can help an
>  experienced user avoid mistakes, just as it helps the new user avoid
>  them.
>
>  Think about it - why do we write scripts? To condense a complicated,
>  error-prone sequence of commands and parameters into a simple,
>  easy-to-execute unit. We can forget the complexity and use the power.
>  Only the most masochistic guru would typeout all those commands in
>  full every time. The tradeoff is flexibility - typically a script
>  does only a very limited subset of all the things the individual
>  commands might be able to do.
>
>  A GUI does pretty much the same thing - it reduces complexity and
>  protects against error. The tradeoff is time - it is as flexible as
>  the command line, but it takes longer to get the results, and
>  (usually) has no facility for repetition of the same input
>  parameters, so it is slower on repetition, too.
>
>  So when we need maximum flexibility with maximum protection from
>  error, we take the GUI and trade off repetition and time. When we
>  need maximum power and maximum speed (or high repeatability), we
>  trade off flexibility and take the custom script. When we need
>  maximum power and maximum flexibility, we run the commands ourselves,
>  trading off speed (because it takes longer to get them all right and
>  type them all in, and we have to do it all again if we want to repeat
>  the operation).

Finally! Someone who understands!!

-- 
Pete Holsberg
Columbus, NJ

When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather -- 
not screaming like the passengers in his car.
--Author Unknown