[CLUE-Tech] A Simpler way

ian iguy at ionsphere.org
Sun Apr 15 15:07:55 MDT 2001


In a highly complex system the "simplest way" can be defined as the way
you know how to do it.  When there is as many ways to do something as you
can imagine and one more, getting it done in a way you know how counts 
pretty high in my definition.  

It is an academic exercise to find the way that is the simplest.  What
criteria will it be defined to do something the simplest?  Least keystrokes?
Least button clicks?  

I routinely use both the CLI & GUI to do things.  Its all a matter of what
I know now and what I have the time to learn.  

ian


On Sun, Apr 15, 2001 at 08:49:40AM -1000, Cyberclops wrote:
> I think you make a very good point about doing things the simplest way. 
> One of the problems I have is just understanding the command line
> syntax.  Ideally. I would like a session with computers where a simple
> file is created and then we learn to manipulate it with the CLI
> interface and a variety of ways and then explore the possibility of
> doing the same maneuvers with a GUI.  SOmetimes I believe the GUI is
> simpler for simpler things, but I believe the CLI would be better for
> more complex tasks.  I'm also wondering if the CLI is more error free
> assuming you type the correct commands ion the first place.  THe reason
> I say this is that I know for a fact that the KDE copy or move
> operations can become overwhelmed and crash out in the middle of the
> operation.  I doubt this happens in a CLI mode only.
> 
> Kevin Cullis wrote:
> > 
> > Hey all,
> > 
> > I've been having a discussion with a programmer friend of mine and it's
> > funny how we both have different views of the same problem.  I sometimes
> > want to "cut and paste" data from the web browser into VIM in order to
> > parse the data into useable form, such as records to be inported into a
> > database. However, he has stated, along with other programmers I know,
> > that I should save the file in HTML and then parse the HTML out of the
> > file.  However, while both achieve the same results, my programming
> > friends way takes considerably more work and knowledge than my "cut and
> > paste" method.  In fact, all I have in my file is the data with a large
> > number of spaces which require ONLY one command to use in order to
> > remove the multiple spaces rather than his PERL or other method to
> > parsing HTML tags.
> > 
> > Why am I mentioning this?  Because most new people to Linux can be
> > bombarded with more technical approaches to a problem when sometimes a
> > simple problem requires a simple solution.
> > 
> > In VIM, I type:
> > 
> > :%s/   *//g
> > 
> > to remove all multiple spaces leaving only my data in fields.  However,
> > my friends approach can be used for more complex approaches to other
> > problems which I can consider in future projects.
> > 
> > Just a comment.
> > 
> > Kevin
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