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You Don't Need a GUI

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Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#181

Post by unnouinceput »

rank0 wrote: post #118
unnouinceput wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because it is obvious, but apparently not to the HN crowd. Let me name it then. Game industry, it's bigger than both music and film industry and it runs exclusively on GUI. Even text based games are GUI actually, not CLI.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#182

Post by unnouinceput »

ben509 wrote: post #51
unnouinceput wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Google has been around since 1998, and after 23 years, their search is still a CLI stuck in a form. > 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. No you can't. There are 5 companies with a market cap over a trillion. We can easily rule out Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google as they have all developed CLIs. That leaves Saudi Aramco. D…

Yes, I can. Game industry. See my other response to one of your siblings.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#183

Post by pkulak »

I don't really like bc. Just seems so old-school, and typing things like "100.0 / 34.2" gives you "2". Is there really nothing better? I feel like someone has to have made some new hotness in Rust by now.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#184

Post by unnouinceput »

creata wrote: post #180
unnouinceput wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Here's an easy one: take all the files in a directory, including files nested in subdirectories, pick ten random ones, and open 'em in a new Firefox window. firefox (find . -type f | shuf -n10) I doubt your computer comes with a GUI program that can do that for you. My point is that CLIs can easily be plugged into each other whichever way you want, but GUIs (except in some niches like audio) aren't built that way for…

I think you miss the point of API's regardless of your programming language. If it's used inside a CLI then definitely I can write a GUI program that does the same.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#185

Post by pjmlp »

I started computing in the 80's, if you don't need a GUI I have a couple of old hardware to sell, the real experience, what about that? /s

We know pretty well how computers without GUIs look like for the general population since the 1950's, that is why we moved away from them.

CLI or REPLs are great for special cases, that is all.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#187

Post by freeone3000 »

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…

Except modern UI design sort of threw the aspect of discoverability out the window. Context-sensitive elements, dependent elements, hidden elements, and the dreaded hamburger menu are all awful for discoverability, and they're present on nearly every GUI.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#188

Post by creata »

unnouinceput wrote: post #181
rank0 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Because it is obvious, but apparently not to the HN crowd. Let me name it then. Game industry, it's bigger than both music and film industry and it runs exclusively on GUI. Even text based games are GUI actually, not CLI.

You said "a trillion dollar business", not "a trillion dollar industry" so of course people misunderstood you!

And even though the game industry primarily makes GUIs, it still uses CLIs everywhere in the development process, so it's pretty silly to say that it "uses only GUI and not a single CLI." And the console that's present in just about every game doesn't seem very "graphical" either.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#189

Post by creata »

unnouinceput wrote: post #184
creata wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an easy one: take all the files in a directory, including files nested in subdirectories, pick ten random ones, and open 'em in a new Firefox window. firefox (find . -type f | shuf -n10) I doubt your computer comes with a GUI program that can do that for you. My point is that CLIs can easily be plugged into each other whichever way you want, but GUIs (except in some niches like audio) aren't built that way for…

I think you miss the point of API's regardless of your programming language. If it's used inside a CLI then definitely I can write a GUI program that does the same.

You could write such a program, but my point is that it's a horrible inconvenience. CLI programs compose to the moon, but it's hard to get GUI programs to compose at all.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#190

Post by vitorgrs »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #74
goranmoomin wrote: post #28

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.

You absolutely can automate GUI applications. The Mac had AppleScript and the Amiga had ARexx back in the late 1980s. Even iOS, which a lot of people think of as very obstinately non-scriptable/customizable, can automate a surprising amount of stuff using Shortcuts. What you need, as cle mentioned in another reply, is a way to decouple the data and core operations from presentation -- to wit, for applications to prov…

And on Windows, there's also Power Automate now btw.
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