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You Don't Need a GUI

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Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#111
post #92
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

But what if one doesn't remember the `apropos` command?

[deleted]

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#112
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…

> chances are you're already browsing files using a GUI file manager I haven't had a GUI file manager installed on any of my desktop computers since the early 2000s, and the last time I used one regularly was the mid 1990s. Hacker News in 2021: Where the "hackers" think that "doing it in command line is pointless."

They must be Smalltalk hackers...

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#113

As much as I like the command line, I couldn't help noticing from the first 10 or so entries[1] that the "stop" text consists of one of: 1. Drag and Drop 2. Right clicking 3. Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V So these 3-5 things do everything in the list in a GUI, and instead the author wants us to learn 35 different command/syntax combinations? As an aside, I'd like to write an article saying "You Don't Need Github To Write an Arti…

It's pretty damning too when an operation like "merging directories" comes with this warning:

   $ rsync -a /images/ /images2/ # note: may over-write files with the same name, so be careful!
This is something that any GUI file manager worth its salt will warn you about.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#114
Oh for FFS, this is ridiculous. If it was April 1, I'd think it was like that artisanal hand written code post. YOU may not need a GUI, but my 92 year old dad sure does.

Reading this, my first thought was, "You don't need to buy a house" followed by a lot of tips on carpentry.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#116

You need a GUI. The user experience of GUIs are superior to CLIs in discoverability, consistency, etc... The only reason CLIs are still useful is because we still haven’t found a way to compose GUI applications well. We still can’t automate GUI applications, use the result of one app from another app etc... But that’s not something inherent to the GUI paradigm.

> We still can’t automate GUI applications

I've used xdotool for that. A CLI-only tool ironically enough.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#117
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Undoing isn’t a feature of a GUI though, but rather running in a context that maintains history/state. There’s no reason a command line program couldn’t do something like this in theory.

It's been 50 years. Why doesn't bash in a friendly system like Ubuntu have undo for mv.

Because that's not bash' job.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#118
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.

> Name one thing that a GUI program can't handle, I dare you.

Pipe input/output between programs. Chaining cli tools is essential for my work and personal usage.

> 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.

That's observably not true. Why didn't you just type out the name?

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#120
If you've never done it before, I highly recommend writing a single program with multiple front ends: GUI, TUI, CLI, API. Wrap them up in multiple interfaces: for GUI, make a web-version, a desktop version, a tablet version, a smartphone version, etc. And do it in as many toolkits as possible.

At first, you'll want to keep the program simple. My first time doing it, I made a super simple "simulation" of a fish tank. The fish just moved at random. They'd sure if you didn't feed them regularly. That's about it.

It's a highly beneficial learning experience. You get the case functionality done, and then you start implementing new features. And you start to see all the ways in which one format falls and another picks up.

Definitely try to share as much code as possible between them all. Really forces you to separate concerns.

There is no "GUI vs CLI". It's "GUI and CLI".

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