The New Command Line

In the old days, you would type ...

> mutt

... to read your mail, and this to read your news ...

> tin

... or this to edit a file ...

> emacs ~/document.txt

... but then the command line interface (CLI) became an archaic user interface and the powers that be adopted the GUI. Now-a-days, one may use the following single line commands to read mail, news or edit a file, respectively:

• http://mail.google.com/
• http://news.google.com/
• http://docs.google.com/

Is this a revival of the command line interface? Some people will say No... This is a completely different context. I agree that the context is different, but the principle behind CLI is still the same that it was 30 or 35 years ago. This principle is that written language is power, be it in CLI or any other paradigm. Nobody understands this better today than these guys. I am keeping an eye on them.