**The Enduring Appeal of Command Lines**

Despite the widespread adoption of graphical user interfaces (GUIs), command lines remain alive and kicking. For those who are new to computing, it's easy to find both the Command Prompt and PowerShell in the Start menu on Windows, or familiarize themselves with bash on Linux systems. So, why exactly are these tools still around?

One reason is their speed and responsiveness. When compared to GUIs, command lines tend to respond quickly to user input, making them ideal for tasks that require rapid execution. This is particularly true for low-end machines where graphical interfaces can be slow and resource-intensive. The lightweight text interface of command lines also makes them extremely easy to run on even the most basic hardware.

Another advantage of command lines is their reliability when it comes to error-prone or crash-prone applications. While GUIs are more prone to errors due to user input and visual cues, command lines can be a reliable way to get things done quickly. This is especially true for repetitive tasks that require precision, such as moving large files around or manipulating data sets.

Command lines also offer consistency across platforms, which is particularly true in Linux systems where the bash shell (also known as "born-again shell") is supported by a wide range of distributions and even Mac OS until recently. Even when using GUIs, users are familiar with the command line syntax and can easily adapt to its use.

But there's more to command lines than meets the eye. One of their greatest strengths is flexibility – many tasks that require extensive mouse clicks or copying and pasting within a GUI like File Explorer or a spreadsheet program can be automated using command lines. This is particularly true for repetitive tasks that require precision, such as batch renaming files.

Additionally, the Command Prompt offers features that are not available in Windows Explorer, such as viewing saved Wi-Fi passwords, setting timers to shut down the PC once a download is complete, and even batch renaming files with more flexibility than the GUI. And, of course, PowerShell on Windows offers much more advanced features, including support for custom scripts and command-line interfaces.

In summary, while command lines may seem more tedious at first, they offer a wealth of benefits that make them an excellent choice for power users who want to take their PC experience to the next level. With their speed, reliability, flexibility, and consistency across platforms, it's no wonder that command lines remain a popular choice among developers, sysadmins, and anyone else who wants to get more out of their computer.

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enmany of you probably aren't old enough to remember when most of us did our computing through a command line you know where you type commands into a black screen instead of using modern niceties like windows icons and mouse cursors but despite the fact that graphical user interfaces or guis are much easier ways to interact with our phones and pcs the command line is still alive and kicking somehow if you're a windows user it's easy to find both the command prompt and powershell in the start menu and if you use linux instead you're probably familiar with bash which also uses a command line but in 2021 why exactly are these things still around so if you're a bit older and you've ever used a dos machine you probably know that even though computers back when dos ruled the world were way way slower than what we have today command lines still tended to respond very quickly you typed in a command to perform some kind of file operation and it just worked this is part of their modern appeal their lightweight text interface makes them extremely easy to run on even low end machines so if you need to get something accomplished the command line can be a very reliable way to do it especially as fancy gooeys are they're a lot more prone to errors or crashes as anyone has ever used windows me can attest to man that even that makes you old but command lines can make things very quick for other reasons as well this might sound counterintuitive as it seems like you have to type out long drawn out commands for everything you need to do but the upside to this approach is that if you want to perform a complicated or repetitive task a command line can make things much faster for example if you had to move lots of files around or manipulate large data sets it might require lots of repetitive mouse clicks or copying and pasting within a gui like file explorer or a spreadsheet program but with a command line you can easily automate these tasks especially as you can keep tacking on different arguments and switches onto the end of the line in order to perform these tasks with precision assuming of course you're typing them correctly that is yeah command lines also enable consistency across platforms this is especially true in linux because linux is open source it has many different distributions created by many different developers but the bash shell born-again shell shell is supported by a huge number of linux distros and even by mac os until recently when they replace it with fish or ss zsh you think zsh yeah that's the one anyway even if the guise have differences you more or less know what you're getting with the command line there are also many ways in which the command line is more powerful this might not seem so obvious so many of us are used to finding ways of getting things done with a gui but when you use a gui you're limited to only the options the developer could fit on the screen or chose to give you however there are a lot of tricks you can accomplish through a command line that you might never know you could do if you only use a gui for example in windows you can do things like view a saved wi-fi password set a timer to shut down your pc once it's done downloading a large program or file or even batch rename files with far more flexibility than you can get in windows explorer and this isn't even considering the myriad ways third-party programs support custom features through the command line in fact there's so much flexibility with the command line once you learn how to use it at least that during the windows xp era microsoft introduced powershell a souped up command line interface that supports much more advanced features keep in mind this was way after most people stopped using command lines for everyday computing but the idea was to make windows more useful for sysadmins programmers and anyone else that simply wanted to get more out of their computer so bottom line while a command line might seem more tedious it could be worth learning if you want to take your pc experience to the next level and hey here comes the built-in dark mode thanks to storyblocks for sponsoring today's video storyblocks helps you bring your stories to life without sacrificing due to time budget or lack of resources storyblocks has over 1 million different stock assets for you to use and you can use their in-browser video editor to save yourself some time they've got pre-designed templates animations and outros plus they use an affordable subscription model their unlimited all access plan gives you an unlimited amount of video and audio downloads instead of costly pay-per-clip models like some other sites use we use it here on tech quickie is we don't always have time to go out and shoot the perfect b-roll footage because it's called tech quickie after all so check out storyblocks today at storyblocks.com techquikie we'll add that link below thanks for watching guys like dislike check out one of our other videos like this one on who owns linux it's pretty good comment with video suggestions you might have and don't forget to subscribe and followmany of you probably aren't old enough to remember when most of us did our computing through a command line you know where you type commands into a black screen instead of using modern niceties like windows icons and mouse cursors but despite the fact that graphical user interfaces or guis are much easier ways to interact with our phones and pcs the command line is still alive and kicking somehow if you're a windows user it's easy to find both the command prompt and powershell in the start menu and if you use linux instead you're probably familiar with bash which also uses a command line but in 2021 why exactly are these things still around so if you're a bit older and you've ever used a dos machine you probably know that even though computers back when dos ruled the world were way way slower than what we have today command lines still tended to respond very quickly you typed in a command to perform some kind of file operation and it just worked this is part of their modern appeal their lightweight text interface makes them extremely easy to run on even low end machines so if you need to get something accomplished the command line can be a very reliable way to do it especially as fancy gooeys are they're a lot more prone to errors or crashes as anyone has ever used windows me can attest to man that even that makes you old but command lines can make things very quick for other reasons as well this might sound counterintuitive as it seems like you have to type out long drawn out commands for everything you need to do but the upside to this approach is that if you want to perform a complicated or repetitive task a command line can make things much faster for example if you had to move lots of files around or manipulate large data sets it might require lots of repetitive mouse clicks or copying and pasting within a gui like file explorer or a spreadsheet program but with a command line you can easily automate these tasks especially as you can keep tacking on different arguments and switches onto the end of the line in order to perform these tasks with precision assuming of course you're typing them correctly that is yeah command lines also enable consistency across platforms this is especially true in linux because linux is open source it has many different distributions created by many different developers but the bash shell born-again shell shell is supported by a huge number of linux distros and even by mac os until recently when they replace it with fish or ss zsh you think zsh yeah that's the one anyway even if the guise have differences you more or less know what you're getting with the command line there are also many ways in which the command line is more powerful this might not seem so obvious so many of us are used to finding ways of getting things done with a gui but when you use a gui you're limited to only the options the developer could fit on the screen or chose to give you however there are a lot of tricks you can accomplish through a command line that you might never know you could do if you only use a gui for example in windows you can do things like view a saved wi-fi password set a timer to shut down your pc once it's done downloading a large program or file or even batch rename files with far more flexibility than you can get in windows explorer and this isn't even considering the myriad ways third-party programs support custom features through the command line in fact there's so much flexibility with the command line once you learn how to use it at least that during the windows xp era microsoft introduced powershell a souped up command line interface that supports much more advanced features keep in mind this was way after most people stopped using command lines for everyday computing but the idea was to make windows more useful for sysadmins programmers and anyone else that simply wanted to get more out of their computer so bottom line while a command line might seem more tedious it could be worth learning if you want to take your pc experience to the next level and hey here comes the built-in dark mode thanks to storyblocks for sponsoring today's video storyblocks helps you bring your stories to life without sacrificing due to time budget or lack of resources storyblocks has over 1 million different stock assets for you to use and you can use their in-browser video editor to save yourself some time they've got pre-designed templates animations and outros plus they use an affordable subscription model their unlimited all access plan gives you an unlimited amount of video and audio downloads instead of costly pay-per-clip models like some other sites use we use it here on tech quickie is we don't always have time to go out and shoot the perfect b-roll footage because it's called tech quickie after all so check out storyblocks today at storyblocks.com techquikie we'll add that link below thanks for watching guys like dislike check out one of our other videos like this one on who owns linux it's pretty good comment with video suggestions you might have and don't forget to subscribe and follow\n"