Recommandation to Un*x-guys: Forget about MacOS-X. It's of very poor quality.

[player1]

I did not understand that.

My work here is done.

@OP: Enjoy ur fLamefest, then. <.<  O.o :-?

[Amanieu]

Are you trying to do stuff in console that you can easily do using system preferences?
If the software gives you a GUI to do something that you could do the long, slow, and hard way using command line, I would take the GUI approach.

What if I wanted to make a script? Scripts don't work well with GUIs. There is the same problem in Windows.

[Rocinante]

Are you trying to do stuff in console that you can easily do using system preferences?
If the software gives you a GUI to do something that you could do the long, slow, and hard way using command line, I would take the GUI approach.

What if I wanted to make a script? Scripts don't work well with GUIs. There is the same problem in Windows.

I'd say techhead's analogy, while accurate for people with only a minor knowledge of the inner workings, doesn't exactly hold up if you really know what's going on with the system (similar in any OS).  When I started using Mac OS X, I used the GUI for most settings and such.  Now I'll tend to use 'defaults' to make the same changes at the commandline if I remember which plist it's hiding in :>

The problem is not knowing how your OS does things.  For example, on a SYSV-based system (IRIX, most RedHat-ish flavors) if I want a new daemon to run I drop a start/stop script in /etc/init.d/, and symlink it in /etc/rc.d/rc?.d/.  But Debian uses a different way to start daemons; does this mean that because I know the SYSV way that Debian's way is broken, wrong and not UNIX?  No, it's just different.. on OS X you use launchd.

[tuple]

GUIs are much better is you can't type.

For those of us who type all day everyday, having a consistent environment with which to make modifications is actually much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much,

whew,

much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, faster.

At one point I searched out console tools that I could use at work for email, IM, etc.  I found some stuff, but just not the feature rich stuff I've been spoiled with.  Saying that, I mean IM and email stuff.  The tools GUI folks use.  The sysadmin tools are that are command line are generally much more feature rich, even on the windows side.  The windows side command line crap is a great deal more convoluted, typically single use type tools.

[techhead]

GUIs are much better is you can't type.

Ironically, there is a typo in that sentence.
And some stuff it is second nature to use command-line, but some stuff is pretty complicated if you do it under-the-hood, made easy. Mind you, I can't imagine many uses for scripts that need to change user-names, personally.

[Revan]

And some stuff it is second nature to use command-line, but some stuff is pretty complicated if you do it under-the-hood, made easy. Mind you, I can't imagine many uses for scripts that need to change user-names, personally.

A server admin would need such a script.