This article from eWeek details a shocking revelation for Microsoft users: the command line is darn useful, oftentimes more than the GUI.
This is no big news to the regular users (like myself) of command-line-based operating systems, such as Linux and various forms of UNIX. Even for the Macintosh crowd, there are a decent number of advocates of typing what you want the computer to do instead of clicking on it.
I find this article to be a pretty interesting observation in human behavior with computers. Follow me as we trip down the saffron-paved path of this account:
Apparently, Beta 1 of Exchange 2007 was released with a bunch of features that were half-assed and a severe lack of a decent GUI interface from which to administer the service. This, to quote Terry Myerson, “scared the heck out of users”. This is not the first instance in which Microsoft has generated brown stains on the shorts of its users, of course — Patch Tuesdays are regular events of this nature. But this is pretty darn humorous — the lack of a GUI! OH, NO! WHAT WILL WE DO, CHRISTOPHER ROBIN!?
Millions of Windows “administrators” cringed at the thought of actually having to type something on their server for once instead of racking up miles on their rodent. The stench of fear was thick in the testing labs across the country; Starbucks’ stock went sky high and the Tums corporation held an all-employee family cruise with the profits.
But good news was on the way, according to Terry: “Yes, we need to give GUI users GUI, but I know they also need a command line. With Beta 2, we give them both. The fear that they will be forced to learn the command line will hopefully go away.”
But something miraculous happened, Virginia. “‘What we found was that our Exchange administrators naturally gravitated to the command line over time,’ Ingalls said.” Well, you must have some sysadmins on your staff worth their salt, then. The fact is, GOOD sysadmins PREFER a command line over a GUI any day. It provides more concise data in a format that is more flexible and easier to work with for automated and repeated tasks, as well as chaining together various utilities and scripts to create a result much more than the components. The fact that there are admins just discovering this is the fascinating part.
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Brian Tirch, a senior engineer for the U.S. Army’s Advanced Technologies directorate, in Fort Belvoir, Va., is one such TAP member. Tirch told eWeek that, having grown up using Windows, “I tend to stray away from the command line. But being an early adopter has allowed me to get past that bias and work closer with [the] Monad [scripting environment, now known as Exchange Management Shell.]”
“I am glad to see that everything that can be done via the GUI can be done via a command line. … Each task in the GUI is a set of commands that are shown before or after the task is run,” Tirch said. “This is nice because one can copy the commands and use them to build scripts.” |
I’m glad that you finally realized what it’s like to really be a sysadmin, Brian. Mind you, you’re still working with a shell that sounds an awful lot like “gonad”, leaving you open for any number of terribly easy jokes, but at least you’re typing something — that’s a start.
It’s just terribly interesting to read an article where people are “discovering” the command line’s power, as if it was hidden all this time, all the while *nix people sit back and snort and go back to writing five-line-long bash command lines to do their taxes.
All is not lost on this article, however; I still have to give out a DumbAss award. This award goes to the unnamed systems integrator “with close ties to Microsoft” (meaning she either pays them a lot of money and gets invited to the Christmas party or she’s boinking the Product Manager) for her comment that a feature in Exchange that was removed, “must be like just 20 lines of code”. HA! Since when has anything programmed for Windows been 20 lines of code? It’s good that you’re not named becuase this remark just shows your ignorance into how things work. DUMBASS!
I leave you with one more tidbit of laughter, from the end of the article, where it is talking about the 5 different ways you’ll be able to install Exchange 2007 and the thoughts of compassion towards system administrators:
| But to some IT administrators, who are already stretched by having to focus on e-mail, instant messaging, firewalls, spam, virus filtering, telephone systems, unified messaging, and desktop and printer maintenance, having to spend time understanding five separate server roles for e-mail is “incredibly painful,” as one told eWeek. |
Two statements:
1) If you have problems understanding five, that’s 5, as in 1-2-3-4-FIVE ways of configuring a program, you have SERIOUS issues as a sysadmin. Some of the things I install and configure have FIFTY ways of configuring it. Read the damned docs. This isn’t Mac’n'Cheese, it’s an MTA. Do your job.
2) If you’re tired of the pain, time to switch to another operating system where a lot of that will either be simplified or eliminated. There are lots of good options out there that could make your life easier without learning anything more than what you have to learn normally. Of course, if you’re hardcore Windows, you’re just used to learning new GUIs, so there’s something wanting there, but you’ll maybe survive.
Exchange 2007: Revenge of the Command Line — Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You
