  Despite the increased importance of Cloud tooling, and many large-scale
studies of Cloud users, research has yet to answer what tool modalities (e.g.
CLI or web console) developers prefer. In formulating our studies, we quickly
found that preference varies heavily based on the programming task at hand. To
address this gap, we conducted a two-part research study that quantifies
modality preference as a function of programming task. Part one surveys how
preference for three tool modalities (CLI, IDE, web console) varies across
three classes of task (CRUD, debugging, monitoring). The survey shows, among 60
respondents, developers most prefer the CLI modality, especially for CRUD
tasks. Monitoring tasks are the exception for which developers prefer the web
console. Part two observes how four participants complete a task using the
kubectl CLI and the OpenShift web console. All four participants prefer using
the CLI to accomplish the task.
