Prompt snobbery

[helloopenworld]

My friend, a true Adobe-fan, tells me I should stop bug him with more Unix hints. He think I am a prompt snob. He believes that the prompt is not necessary, that it would take him back 20 years.

Me might of course be right, but for me the Terminal is the main reason I bought my Powerbook and not a cheaper Linux laptop instead.

If Apple had made a more useful Finder, maybe I wouldn't use Midnight Commander so much.

I love to use applications like Pine and Pico. They are so beautiful in my nice-coloured, anti-aliased, MPW-font Terminal.

Please tell me what you think about all this prompt snobbery.

[saint.duo]

stupid IE forgot my cookies again... oh well.

I would say that there are uses for the command prompt, but in everyday use, it should not be necessary. I have quite a few customers who I basically refuse to tell how to do things in the terminal, because I know that there is a 99% chance that they will mess it up, and wreak havoc. (like using sudo rm).
Personally, I use the prompt very little at home, and find most uses to not need it. Even with the supposed "shortcomings" of the Finder. I'm not a normal user, by any stretch of the imagination, either.
To me, from an old-time Mac standpoint, the terminal should only be used when there is no other alternative. On the other side of the coin is my geek side, which sees the terminal as a very powerful way to get things done without having to resort to third-party products.

uh oh, guess I'm ranting more than I meant to.

If something can be done in the terminal/prompt to simplify or empower one's work, I say "go for it". But, if you're trying to get someone who really doesn't want to use the terminal to use it for tricks and such, then i would leave the person be, and find GUI alternatives to these things. I appreciate that Apple is doing a good job of hiding the UNIX from users, and it will only get better with the release of 10.2. I do quite a bit with AppleScript to give users like my girfriend and office manager (two people who shouldn't be in a command line) features or options that are only otherwise available by using the terminal.

bleah, I think I'm done... sorry for my semi-rant. :)