aptitude vs apt-get

[MacGoose]

I've been using some of The Perfect Server howtos for Ubuntu. Specifically the 10.04 and the 11.10. In 10.04 aptitude is used throughout and apt-get is used in 11.10.

In my understanding aptitude is the new and prefered one and apt-get is old and outdated.

So why does an old howto use the new aptitude and the new howto use the old apt-get?

Anyway. Should one use aptitude or apt-get?

My main server is still 10.04 as it is LTS.

[till]

As far as I know, aptitude was the new and preferred installer some time ago and thats why it was used in some of the older tutorials, but that has been changed and now apt is the normal way to install packages again.

It does not matter of you use apt or aptitude, they work both as they are just to different interfaces to the debain package databases, you can even switch between them during install without causing any problems.

Personally I use apt for years, never switched to aptitude and never had a problem with it. Beside that, the command is shorter.