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You Don't Need a GUI

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Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#331

Post by trixie_ »

I still don't understand why I'd use the command line for git at least. Using a visual tool like Sourcetree I can easily see my staged/unchanged changes, the outstanding commits to pull/push of all my branches at a glance without typing anything.

I can easily fetch/pull/push/merge and switch between branches with a click, which is much faster than typing git commands and branch names. I can back merge/rebase changes basically do anything way faster than someone typing in a ton of text to do the same thing.

Plus I can get the same situational awareness across all my repos by just clicking through some tabs. No directory change commands or any further git commands to see the state of things. I feel like I have a better situation awareness, am much faster, and haven't had to type a git command in a long time. I work on a team of many developers who use the CLI and I still don't understand the appeal.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#332

Post by maxekman »

trixie_ wrote: post #331

I still don't understand why I'd use the command line for git at least. Using a visual tool like Sourcetree I can easily see my staged/unchanged changes, the outstanding commits to pull/push of all my branches at a glance without typing anything. I can easily fetch/pull/push/merge and switch between branches with a click, which is much faster than typing git commands and branch names. I can back merge/rebase changes…

With a good CLI setup good speed can be achieved. For example ZSH with the Git plugin from Oh My Zsh and history based autocompletion with arrow up gives you super speed. I rarely type more than a few characters for all my regular operations, including auto completing all branch names and origins.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#333

Post by ryanbrunner »

bregma wrote: post #308
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…

>GUI is better for discoverability of the most common scenarios (I can right-click to see everything that can be done with the file... You know the secrets on how to use the Microsoft Windows 95 GUI so it's easy for you. Consider the person who has not been trained over years in its use. The concept of a context menu that pops up at the mouse position when clicking button number two is not intuitive or discoverable.…

You're right that there's some irreducible aspects to even GUIs that isn't intuitive and you just need to be told how to use it once, but GUIs have an advantage in that the overall 'language' of those things is far more limited at a basic level.

Once you've figured out that mouse movements correspond to moving the pointer, clicking your left button usually means you want to do the primary interaction with whatever you're clicking on (opening a program, pressing a button, checking a checkbox), and right click gives you additional things you can do with the thing you're right clicking on, you've figured out enough to be able to at least use the system (I agree you're by no means proficient in it though).

To get comparable proficiency with a command line requires a much larger set of things to remember for even basic usage.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#334

Post by nicoburns »

thies226j wrote: post #314
nicoburns wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be more because finder is so bad and less to do with file management GUIs in general. Windows Explorer and Nautilus are both much better than finder.

Imagine using Windows Explorer... Right Click -> New Folder Choosing the files you want to move there -> CTRL+C -> Going into the directory -> CTRL+V Yeah that’s just the best and most efficient way to move files into a new directory.

You can also drag and drop

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#335

Post by alexvoda »

ori_b wrote: post #328
alexvoda wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You touch upon the problem. The space is actually bidimensional instead of unidimensional. On one axis we have graphical (raster mode) at one end and text at the other. On the other we have as you calld them action-oriented (WIMP) and line-oriented (I would call it command-oriented). There are text mode action-oriented apps: ncurses/turbo vision/etc. based applications like *Commander, or the old Borland IDE, or Tild…

> There are text mode action-oriented apps: ncurses/turbo vision/etc. based applications like Commander, or the old Borland IDE, or Tilde, or the old FoxPro, or plenty others.* These are graphical programs, just with a substandard drawing api.

You did not get the point the parent (me) and grandparents made.

They are not graphical programs. They are generally recognised as TUI programs. If these are graphical then so is Vi or the fancy powerline prompt.

Our point was that you can also have command lines in graphical applications and WIMP in text mode applications.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text-based_user_interface

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIMP_(computing)

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#336

Post by jodrellblank »

bregma wrote: post #308
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…

>GUI is better for discoverability of the most common scenarios (I can right-click to see everything that can be done with the file... You know the secrets on how to use the Microsoft Windows 95 GUI so it's easy for you. Consider the person who has not been trained over years in its use. The concept of a context menu that pops up at the mouse position when clicking button number two is not intuitive or discoverable.…

> "People need to be very careful when making an argument that something is better because it's what they're familiar with as if they are some definitive exemplar."

That is not the argument they made, they said right-click acts as a "tell me what I can do with this file" discoverability tool, not that right-click is itself discoverable. There is approximately no way to discover this on a command line, but if you right-click and "play with Windows Media Player" is there, it tells you something useful.

But I'm going to make the argument that it is discoverable. Why isn't the context menu second nature to you after over 25 years of use? You put your hand on the mouse, it has two buttons, you click one of them in ordinary operation, what kind of hyperbole is it to say that "clicking the second button does things" is "not discoverable in any way"? You discover that by accidentally mashing it one day, if nothing else.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#337

Post by kaba0 »

KeepFlying wrote: post #23
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.

"can't handle" is super subjective. Sure a GUI can have every feature available and be super capable. But it can also lead to it taking 10+ clicks to do something, and another 10+ clicks to do it again. Super painful. So just because companies have proven that GUI is successful and capable, it's still possible that it "can't handle" a lot of things nearly as effectively as CLI in some cases.

A GUI doesn’t disallow using hotkeys. Hell, it has superior opportunities for using both keyboard and mouse. You don’t have to imagine a dumb ok and cancel button on a window, what about blender? It extensively uses intuitive hot keys, and would be plain impossible to do anything 3D modeling related in a CLI.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#338

Post by herbst »

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…

Interestingly enough i have no idea how to see free space with an UI on my desktop. Once df is momorized there is no reason to ever use an UI

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#339

Post by alexvoda »

rorykoehler wrote: post #250
rewgs wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree, and this is one reason why, broadly speaking, command line applications often turn me off, even though in theory I prefer them for the reasons you laid out. There's a sort of implication that you're not "in the club" if you don't remember this or that flag. Why then isn't a kind of very simple approximation of a GUI (or, at least, easily-discoverable commands) more common in command line applications…

I just keep cheatsheets handy. For new scenarios, if I find they aren't already on the sheet, I add them. The best command line tools have good documentation you can find with a command like "help" or the "-h" flag. I am slightly annoyed there isn't a convention for this though. Perhaps it should be made into a RFC standard.

Cheat sheets are not form of discoverability. People generally want to use software and learn-while-using. By searching beforehand for a cheatsheet or reading a man page you are already studying how to use the software before actually using the software.

Compare that to most GUI apps where you can just open and use and learn as you go.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#340

Post by topaz0 »

ponytech wrote: post #214
userbinator wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because that's way faster and more convenient than double clicking on an icon. It is if you happen to have both hands on the keyboard. That said, I usually navigate a GUI file explorer using the keyboard too, so pressing Enter to open a file is even faster. (This comment was submitted entirely using the keyboard.)

This comment was submitted entirely using the keyboard How did you do that? Using a specific browser extension? I am looking for ways to use my browser with keyboard only.

Worth noting there is no need for an extension. This comment is also submitted entirely using the keyboard. Tab navigates to the "reply" button.
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