Are Console based apps...?

Are console based apps still viable these days?

I mean, who still uses them and writes them by choice?

I'm writing a Minimum Spanning Tree calculator app which is command line driven. It probably isnt worth writing a proper GUI for because its pretty straight forward. Just pass a filename into the program and a few minutes later a new file is created and the ser is prompted for another filename. I'll need to write a windows app to interpret the results of course.

If I packaged these 2 programs together and tried to sell it, would people really not buy it because part of it is commandline driven?

What are your experiences / thoughts?

Discuss :)

if you need something like batch converting files etc i think the command line is a lot better, you can put it in the desired folder and then it will do everything without the user have to worry about setting things etc

Console Apps are perfect for automated tasks. For example, I created a console app. that loops through records in a database and if the mailingDate field is equal to (todays Date) It sends builds an email based on the other fields and sends the email out.

For internal enterprise or organizational use, it would be fine. IF you are planning to sell it, go ahead and create the GUI. I mean, really, it would take you all of 5- 10 minutes to design a GUI and hook it up with the code you use in your console app.

If you think about it, a GUI app for a console app wouldn't be very hard to create.

I created a simple file renamer where you put in the path to the folder of the files you want to change, the extention of the files you want to rename, and the name you want to rename them to. All this could easily been done with a command line. The truth is though, that MOST people do not feel comfortable with the command line. So I create a small window that allows the user to have a graphical app to work with in which they are familiar.

for batch processes
console applications are the best

for unix os also
console apps are the best

I agree with hellswraith . And also , GUI is faster and possibilities of typing errors is just zero , not like with command line . People don't want to struggle much to know the syntax and the commands of this console app . They just want to be one click away from upshot ! . But , it's still ideal for patch-like apps which doesn't require more interaction with the user.