Command Line Definition

Although it seems to us that the mouse has been there all our life, there was a time, long ago (until the Apple Macintosh changed everything) in which graphical environments were not well seen as a tool of professional work.

But what was there then instead of the environment graphic?

An empty screen, usually with the background color black, a prompt or indicative of waiting for input orders, and a series of commands that we had to memorize with their respective parameters

This meant that working with a computer it was, in general, sequential, that is, the tasks were executed one after another instead of working with several simultaneously (multitasking).

Later, and as the hardware was advancing and allowed interactivity and switch between processes -despite not being able to execute more than one at a time-, it emerged the need to be able to interact more dynamically with the system, for which it became possible to execute processes in batch and have virtual consoles.

The great handicap of command environments is having to learn a long list of commands, since they are not at all intuitive

Let's think about it: when faced with a new operating system, we can always move the mouse and start investigate and test by clicking on the elements that are shown to us, and it is likely that little by little, and by test and error, let's end up getting how to use a high percentage of the interface graph from Username.

But in the case of a command interface, either we already know an order in advance, or every time we try to type something, the system will send us a frustrating error message.

A command line is still an executable program (the command interpreter) more than the system, which provides the interface between the kernel, the user and the applications

This provides a modularity to operating systems that allows them to change said executable program for others, thus having a set of different commands. An example of these are the multiple shells that we can find for UNIX systems like GNU / Linux.

The most popular command interpreter is MS-DOS

For being the one that more people have used, followed by the one of the diverse UNIX systems. Nowadays, all operating systems include a command interpreter, but it is usually found hidden among the various options, since it is considered a tool only for the most professional users, so manufacturers prefer to give priority to other applications installed by default in their systems.

The main advantage of a command line over the graphical interface is that we can concatenate commands, being more flexible than handling with the mouse.

And although there have been attempts to reproduction Of this flexibility in some graphical environments, it is not possible to achieve it.

Now that you remember, in my entire life I've only seen a single software platform that lacked a command line of any kind: the classic Mac OS. Mac OS X was supposed to be based on UNIX, which is an operating system that cannot be understood without a command line.

Photos: Fotolia - Tomasz Zajda

Command Line Topics