💾 Archived View for adamthiede.com › log › 2023-12-04.gmi captured on 2024-06-16 at 12:29:39. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-12-28)
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It's far easier to tell someone over the phone or over email to open a terminal and enter a command than it is to use a GUI. First, you have to remember where things are, make sure you're using the same config as the person on the other end, and make sure you're on the same versions, etc. It's hard. What if you're telling someone "now in the lower right of your screen you'll see the wifi icon for windows" but he's moved his taskbar to the left, or he's not using wifi, but ethernet? Maybe when he opens a program it's an old version, or he upgraded and has carried over legacy config?
I think it's easier to tell someone "here, type this into the black text box and tell me what it says" over the phone, as opposed to "ok, move your mouse to these coordinates I can't see on a screen that's different than mine, and describe using your limited technical vocabulary what is happening." It's rough. I did it today with my wife, who's rather technical because I rub off on her, and it was hard. A few months ago I had my mom, who is very non-technical but trusts me completely, use the terminal to delete a wireguard config and bring down an interface from the terminal. It worked surprisingly well. I'm going to stick with telling people to open a terminal.