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You Don't Need a GUI

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Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#11

Post by karlicoss »

GUI is better for discoverability of the most common scenarios (I can right-click to see everything that can be done with the file, including some third party programs). But it's bad for composing programs and interoperability, often it's impossible or very hard to automate (how many people are doing UI testing? there is a good reason it's not many -- it completely sucks)

TUI/console is very good for interoperability/automation/muscle memory, but doing one-off things is harder. If I don't remember the `df` command... what do I do apart from searching on the internet? Maybe searching man pages, but it isn't as fuzzy (e.g. `man -K "free space"` isn't very fruitful). In comparison, I know that if I start going through GUI, eventually I'll eventually find the free disk space info.

It's interesting that there is some analogy to object-oriented and functional paradigms -- if I have a rich object in a debugger in Python, I can call dir() on it to immediately see what I can do with it. Whereas if it's a simple dataclass, I'd need to search through code to find how I can use it. Might be a too far fetched analogy though.

I think we need all of it, and also need to make the distinction less apparent. Would be nice to make GUIs more composable, and TUIs more discoverable. Ideally it should be a spectrum of interfaces, so you don't have to make a hard choice and can gradually move into the direction you want.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#12

Post by eyelidlessness »

thrower123 wrote: post #2

I'm not sure how big the subset of people that use unix systems and are ignorant of the command line is. Most of your GUI users are on Windows, and unix shell commands mostly do not work or are aliased to other commands that don't work exactly the same way as they do in GNUland.

Presumably you’re intentionally excluding phones and tablets (nearly all of which run some Unix or GNU variant), but it seems exceedingly odd to overlook macOS. While I don’t have hard numbers on Mac CLI usage/familiarity, I would assume it’s proportionally higher than Windows (lots of tech adoption especially since Macs switched to Intel) but lower than Linux (lots of consumer adoption, similar timeframe).

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#13

Post by thrower123 »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #12
thrower123 wrote: post #2

I'm not sure how big the subset of people that use unix systems and are ignorant of the command line is. Most of your GUI users are on Windows, and unix shell commands mostly do not work or are aliased to other commands that don't work exactly the same way as they do in GNUland.

Presumably you’re intentionally excluding phones and tablets (nearly all of which run some Unix or GNU variant), but it seems exceedingly odd to overlook macOS. While I don’t have hard numbers on Mac CLI usage/familiarity, I would assume it’s proportionally higher than Windows (lots of tech adoption especially since Macs switched to Intel) but lower than Linux (lots of consumer adoption, similar timeframe).

I do forget that Chromebooks are a thing.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#14

Post by eyelidlessness »

analog31 wrote: post #4
thrower123 wrote: post #2

I'm not sure how big the subset of people that use unix systems and are ignorant of the command line is. Most of your GUI users are on Windows, and unix shell commands mostly do not work or are aliased to other commands that don't work exactly the same way as they do in GNUland.

Oddly enough, even in the Windows world, I'm seeing more and more instructions for things like installing a software app or component, as a list of commands that you enter into the shell or the taskbar search box. Installation instructions for Windows are horrifying -- page after page of pictures, with circles and arrows and a paragraph... And when the OS is updated, all of the dialog layouts and icons change just a…

Is it still that bad? I haven’t used Windows since 7, I just assumed at some point in the zillion pivots since then MS would take a cue from macOS and make installing apps as easy as a click or drag-dropping a single “file”. It couldn’t possibly be a huge design or engineering feat to copy. Do people who use Windows just actually prefer installers?

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#15

Post by koolba »

karlicoss wrote: post #11

GUI is better for discoverability of the most common scenarios (I can right-click to see everything that can be done with the file, including some third party programs). But it's bad for composing programs and interoperability, often it's impossible or very hard to automate (how many people are doing UI testing? there is a good reason it's not many -- it completely sucks) TUI/console is very good for interoperability…

> If I don't remember the `df` command... what do I do apart from searching on the internet?

You can do that locally on the command line too!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apropos_(Unix)

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#16

Post by eyelidlessness »

thrower123 wrote: post #13
eyelidlessness wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably you’re intentionally excluding phones and tablets (nearly all of which run some Unix or GNU variant), but it seems exceedingly odd to overlook macOS. While I don’t have hard numbers on Mac CLI usage/familiarity, I would assume it’s proportionally higher than Windows (lots of tech adoption especially since Macs switched to Intel) but lower than Linux (lots of consumer adoption, similar timeframe).

I do forget that Chromebooks are a thing.

That too. But that’s also an odd response in context?

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#17

Post by gsich »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #14
analog31 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, even in the Windows world, I'm seeing more and more instructions for things like installing a software app or component, as a list of commands that you enter into the shell or the taskbar search box. Installation instructions for Windows are horrifying -- page after page of pictures, with circles and arrows and a paragraph... And when the OS is updated, all of the dialog layouts and icons change just a…

Is it still that bad? I haven’t used Windows since 7, I just assumed at some point in the zillion pivots since then MS would take a cue from macOS and make installing apps as easy as a click or drag-dropping a single “file”. It couldn’t possibly be a huge design or engineering feat to copy. Do people who use Windows just actually prefer installers?

no. Windows is surprisingly consistent.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#18

Post by unnouinceput »

gruez wrote: post #5

Most the things in this list are things that you technically don't need a GUI for, but a GUI is so much better that doing it in command line is pointless. For instance, you could do all those file operations in the terminal, but chances are you're already browsing files using a GUI file manager so opening a terminal to do those things is pointless. Terminal is great if you want to do something complicated that a GUI…

Quote: "..you want to do something complicated that a GUI program can't handle..."

Name one thing that a GUI program can't handle, I dare you. Me, on the other hand, I can point you to a trillion dollar business that uses only GUI and not a single CLI, to say the least.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#19

Post by Kranar »

unnouinceput wrote: post #18
gruez wrote: post #5

Most the things in this list are things that you technically don't need a GUI for, but a GUI is so much better that doing it in command line is pointless. For instance, you could do all those file operations in the terminal, but chances are you're already browsing files using a GUI file manager so opening a terminal to do those things is pointless. Terminal is great if you want to do something complicated that a GUI…

Quote: "..you want to do something complicated that a GUI program can't handle..." Name one thing that a GUI program can't handle, I dare you. Me, on the other hand, I can point you to a trillion dollar business that uses only GUI and not a single CLI, to say the least.

The numerous examples given are the automation and composition of basic operations.
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