ripley@tubopal.UUCP (Hans-Ch. Eckert) (01/08/90)
In article <1363@atha.AthabascaU.CA> rwa@cs.AthabascaU.CA (Ross Alexander) writes: ]klute@trillian writes: ]>And another reason to use ZOO or ARC: There is ARCGSH ]>available, a program that lets you work with ZOO, ARC and other ]>programs from a GEM environment. [...] ] ]Arcgsh is the best reason I have ever had to install a shell (gulam, ]msh, any keyboard oriented line-at-a-time shell at all). Yes, I was ]using 2.1 and IMHO it's at least 5 times as much work to use as the ]raw commands themselves. Faugh! As I think, both sides of the medal have their right to exist. What do you get when running a CLI like Gulam to deal with archivers ? You can communicate very direct with zoo/arc/whatsoever by directly typing the appropriate commands as you got used on many other systems. It's almost like invoking them from the desktop where you also type in the command options, although most shell's capabilities (histories for example) allow you a much more comfortable way to do your tasks... What do you get when running a graphical shell like arcgsh to deal with archivers ? Mostly you get a lot of more comfort compared to a regular CLI. The way you can address the archivers and invoke your tasks is luxurious ! On the other hand this cripples the user-interface a little bit. A program like arcgsh can't have every command of those modern archivers. They're just too complex. Even arcgsh with its menus (first choose your base command then you get a list of possible options and so on) can't do this. What you get by using arcgsh or somesuch is an interface to use the archivers in a simple way, which accomplishes most standard tasks. If you're getting more complex, you get too complex for them very soon. That's the point when you grab your CLI to communicate directly with the archiver. Possibly you don't need this directness every time, and beginners don't need every option too. If you're not very used to the direct usage, you probably have finished your task with some clicks before you remembered the appropriate command and the syntax for it. Think of this, then think if it's worth it to complain about graphical shells. Greetings, RIPLEY -- Greetings from RIPLEY | UUCP: ripley@tubopal.UUCP (ripley@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de) Hans-Christian Eckert | ...!unido!tub!opal!ripley (Europe) D-1000 Berlin 30 | ...!pyramid!tub!opal!ripley (World) Regensburger Str. 2 | BITNET: ripley%tubopal@DB0TUI11.BITNET (saves $$$)