Side effects?

[James Linder]

On 02/02/2013, at 4:00 AM, macports-users-request at lists.macosforge.org wrote:

>> CLI does the job nicely and well, why on earth would you seek to make an easy, automateable task hard/impossible.
> 
> Here are a few things that a GUI can do that the CLI cannot:
> 
> 1. Filter ports by category. port offers no way to see all the "aqua" 
> ports, for instance.
[haycorn] /Users/jam [503]% port list |grep aqua
Warning: port definitions are more than two weeks old, consider using selfupdate
AppHack                        @1.1            aqua/AppHack
AppKiDo                        @0.988          aqua/AppKiDo
AquaLess                       @1.6            aqua/AquaLess
ArpSpyX                        @1.1            aqua/ArpSpyX
AssignmentTrackerX             @2.0beta3.1     aqua/AssignmentTrackerX
BGHUDAppKit                    @0.7            aqua/BGHUDAppKit
BigSQL                         @1.0            aqua/BigSQL

etc

> 2. Browse and sort ports visually. "port list" dumps all available ports 
> to the Terminal, but you can't sort them with a single click.
> 3. Get the homepage of a port with a click. A GUI can format web pages 
> as hyperlinks, but "port info" can't.
> 4. Save yourself from fat-fingering the command invocation to install a 
> particular port.
port install wossname

> CLI is an essential tool, and for uber-power-users it may be easier than 
> a GUI. But for a high-level view of MacPorts, the GUI is better, in my 
> view.

I notice that I almost never use synaptic (GUI) but do use apt-[cache][get][file] or dpkg [lower level] for my debian based systems.
I know of no GUI rpm tools for rpm based distros.

In any event the great thing about foss is YOU choose what/how YOU do stuff. I wanted to hear the perspective of someone doing what-I-think-is-daft. Thanks.

James