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Many of you probably aren't old enough to remember when most of us did our computing

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through a command line, you know, where you type commands into a black screen instead

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of using modern niceties like Windows, icons, and mouse cursors.

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But despite the fact that graphical user interfaces, or GUIs, are a much easier way

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to interact with our phones and PCs, the command line is still alive and kicking.

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Somehow. If you're a Windows user, it's easy to find both the command prompt and power shell in

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the start menu. And if you use Linux instead, you're probably familiar with Bash, which also uses a command

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line. But in 2021, why exactly are these things still around?

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So if you're a bit older and you've ever used a DOS machine, you probably know that

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even though computers back when DOS ruled the world were way, way slower than what we

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have today, command lines still tended to respond very quickly.

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You typed in a command to perform some kind of file operation and it just worked.

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This is part of their modern appeal. Their lightweight text interface makes them extremely easy to run on even low end machines.

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So if you need to get something accomplished, the command line can be a very reliable way

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to do it, especially as fancy GUIs are a lot more prone to errors or crashes, as anyone

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has ever used Windows ME can attest to. Man, even that makes you old.

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But command lines can make things very quick for other reasons as well.

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This might sound counterintuitive as it seems like you have to type out long drawn out commands

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for everything you need to do. But the upside to this approach is that if you want to perform a complicated or repetitive

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task, a command line can make things much faster.

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For example, if you have to move lots of files around or manipulate large datasets, it might

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require lots of repetitive mouse clicks or copying and pasting within a GUI like File

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Explorer or a spreadsheet program. But with a command line, you can easily automate these tasks, especially as you can keep tacking

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on different arguments and switches onto the end of the line in order to perform these

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tasks with precision. Assuming, of course, you're typing them correctly.

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That is, yeah. Command lines also enable consistency across platforms.

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This is especially true in Linux. Because Linux is open source, it has many different distributions created by many different

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developers. But the Bash Shell, born again Shell Shell, is supported by a huge number of Linux distros

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and even by macOS, until recently when they replaced it with Fish or XSH?

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Things ZSH. Yeah, that's the one. Anyway, even if the GUIs have differences, you more or less know what you're getting

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with the command line. There are also many ways in which the command line is more powerful.

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This might not seem so obvious. So many of us are used to finding ways of getting things done with a GUI.

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But when you use a GUI, you're limited to only the options the developer could fit on

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the screen or chose to give you. However, there are a lot of tricks you can accomplish through a command line that you

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might never know you could do if you only use a GUI.

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For example, in Windows, you can do things like view a saved Wi-Fi password, set a timer

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to shut down your PC once it's done downloading a large program or file, or even batch rename

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files with far more flexibility than you can get in Windows Explorer.

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And this isn't even considering the myriad ways third-party programs support custom features

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through the command line. In fact, there's so much flexibility with the command line, once you learn how to use

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it at least, that during the Windows XP era, Microsoft introduced PowerShell, a souped

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up command line interface that supports much more advanced features.

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Keep in mind, this was way after most people stopped using command lines for everyday computing.

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But the idea was to make Windows more useful for sysadmins, programmers, and anyone else

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that simply wanted to get more out of their computer. So bottom line, while a command line might seem more tedious, it could be worth learning

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if you want to take your PC experience to the next level.

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And hey, it comes to the built-in dark mode. Thanks for watching guys, like, dislike, check out one of our other videos like this one

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on Who Owns Linux. It's pretty good.

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Comment with video suggestions you might have and don't forget to subscribe and follow.