Question

Discuss the pros and cons of an IDE vs command-line interpreters. Why are command-line interpreters still being used? Be sure to argue both sides.

Answer 1

Pros and cons of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE):
Pros:
* Its added features to using IDE are very useful.
* It provides code insight or code completion.
* Offers resource management.
* It provided tools for debugging.
* It provides the functionality and supports compiling and building.
* It requires less effort and time.
* It enforces company or project standards.
* It provides project management.

Cons:
* For beginners in programming, a sophisticated IDE may be too complex and may not be a good tool for them to use.
* It is not easy to learn IDE, as there is a unique learning curve time required for each IDE.
* It cannot fix errors automatically.
* Needs knowledge to code efficiently.
* It cannot fix bad design, practices, or code.

Pros and cons of command-line interpreters:
Pros:
* If a user knows correct commands then this particular interface type can be much faster than other interface or interpreter types.
* Users can directly interact with Operating System (OS) through commands that get interpreted by this command-line interpreter acting as a middleware between the human or user commands and the OS machine language.
* It is used to carry out tasks very efficiently.
* They are power tools.

Cons:
* Someone who does not what it is or has never used it, it can be very confusing.
* Commands used and typed by the user have to be precise and must have the correct syntax for it to work and provide the desired output.
* There are a lot number of commands to be learned and understood.

Command-line interpreters are still being used in many places for performing some basic tasks. It allows users for interacting with a program using and typing in commands in the form of text lines. It is used to perform routine tasks, It is used to perform tasks in bulk. It is used because it is robust. It is used still used because it is less prone to error. Also, it is still being used mostly to automate a large number of tasks. It is still used to perform repetitive tasks, done automatically.