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A coworker of mine was asked to make a utility C# app to help with our internal testing. The idea was that the app would collect data and display the results.

He decided that it was very important that the app have a command line interface. He's spent far more time building the app from scratch for the command line than he would have if he'd used C#'s built-in GUI utilities.

Today was our demo day and he shows an internal command-line app in 2017 built in C#. I asked about the GUI and he said that the command line functionality was more important. I suggested that it was maybe less user-friendly and he proceeded to explain to me how "non-technical" people might prefer a GUI, but clearly any serious developer would just want a command line app.

I feel like, in one fell swoop, he trivialized my suggestion, didn't address any of the data visualization needs, and suggested I wasn't a "real developer". Am I right to feel a little outraged by this?

Comments
  • 3
    It kinda depends who will be using it. We have internal tools to help with testing, and they have a GUI so even our product specialists who are mostly non-technical can pick them up and create their own test data and so on. If you give it a GUI you can potentially open up its capabilities to more than just developers. Sounds like hes just being a little big headed like "look at me i use command line for everything"
  • 1
    I even use the commandline yo watch porn!!

    http://howtogeek.com/howto/linux/...
  • 0
    Technically he could have had both a GUI and a command line if he shared the core domain logic.

    Command lines are still good in 2017, they are useful when you want to automate.
  • 1
    @Rabb that's true. Eventually, he's planning on making the GUI. This is supposed to be the highest-level test automation tool we use, though. Maybe in a few years, the command-line automatability of it will pay off, but that's yet to be seen.
  • 2
    We can agree on the speed and scriptability (is that a real word ?) of a command line tool, but please don't even try to sell me the idea that a console data visualization is better then some kind of GUI, unless you just hit 88 mph with your DeLorean and jumped to our times from the 80s.
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