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You Don't Need a GUI

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Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#371
post #45
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)

or man -k "disk space"

hmmm this one I didn't know :D

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " 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 ri…

what if your mouse doesn't have two buttons? In fact, some mice don't have any buttons. (apple, over the years)

That's apple's problem. I've been fixing apple devices since the puck mouse. They choose to go against the grain on purpose. Sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it makes absolutely none.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#373
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you move your hands (gasp) off the keyboard to the trackpad or the mouse that is presumably very close by, typing that command is probably not faster and more convenient than double-clicking.

The real problem is navigating to the file... I can tab complete or otherwise hop my way around my hard drive much faster than I can visually find a target to click on (and frankly I am shocked that isn't true of everyone who knows how to use a terminal--obviously I appreciate the "easy for beginners" aspect--I feel like the GUI could only possibly be faster for a contrived use case that would never come up in realit…

GUI does not imply mouse-only interaction. Any good file manager will let you browse using the keyboard, with typeahead for file selection and accelerators for the context menu.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#374
It starts to get inefficient when you wanna copy some of this and some of that from the same directory.

I can easily hold CTRL and select what I want based off of the thumbnails alone. In a terminal that would be painstaking.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#375
Yes, you don't need a GUI to run and do programs. But it is essential for the masses. For a guy who has no background in computers, running a program without a GUI would be hard.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#376
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about interfaces that don't have a right-click, such as a touch interface? Are you suggesting that we switch to TUIs/CLIs on touch interfaces? If not, what's your solution? > I've found that doing one-off things is massively easier and faster in a TUI than in a GUI! For example?

> Are you suggesting that we switch to TUIs/CLIs on touch interfaces? If not, what's your solution? My solution is that touch interfaces are a bad design in the first place. They're significantly less accessible to people with disabilities. They present a lot more problems with feedback about which buttons you're _about_ to press. And they're ficking obnoxious because everyone and their marketing team wants a complet…

It certainly is easier for you or me, but not for an average person. Let's look at the command names. find, sort, and even mount are ok. curl? Does it have anything to do with curling? cat? What do cats have to do with files? Oh, it's because I'm using a mouse, isn't it. mv? Why not move? Or going back to previous examples, why not fnd or srt? Consistency is important and you don't want users to guess. grep, xdg-open, and systemctl are just random letters for most.

And that's just those who can speak English. If someone doesn't, it's just nonsense for them.

> One has to be trained to right-click.

One has to be trained to understand which commands exist and what do they do. I can't imagine someone without any training typing `grep -nRIiw`. Sure, you can look it up in the manual, but that's the thing - you shouldn't. You should consult the manual when you're using something for the first time or something isn't working. I can pick up any vacuum cleaner or get in a rental car and start operating them right away. I have to look up how flag works with different CLI apps. I shouldn't have to. Good design should be obvious.

That's why we're not typing `systemctl poweroff --force` to turn off a TV, we just press a button on a remote. And I can pick up remotes from other TV sets and turn them off without looking up their manuals.

> nothing is ever consistent even on the "same" operating system.

Funny you mention that. I tried some of your commands. Turns out, I don't have systemctl or pdfgrep installed. So much for consistency.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#377
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen a Vim master in action? They make a really good case for terminal file manipulation.

'Vim for everything' mentality requires a high degree of autistic behaviour in my opinion. I'm just not there on the spectrum.

hey, keep that shit on 4chan.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Vim for everything' mentality requires a high degree of autistic behaviour in my opinion. I'm just not there on the spectrum.

It doesn't. It just requires openness for the concept. Same with Emacs for everything. That's not to say you should do it. It's fine if you do, it's fine if you don't.

I consider vim and Emacs to be the same thing with different shortcuts. I have no desire to learn either.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#379
post #171

GUI can work across multiple windows/contexts while CLI commands are bound to just one context. For instance: I can open two file browsers in different directories and simply drag and drop a file from one to the other. But there is no command (AFAIK) that allows you to copy a file from the current working directory of one terminal session to another. If for instance tmux or some other terminal emulator would allow so…

Indeed; the "don't ctrl+c/ctrl-v" copy files ignores the fact that you can copy to different windows - but they don't even need to be file browsers, you can copy files over RDP sessions or sometimes into/out of virtual machines, or sometimes into web browser pages for file upload, or in the middle of a standard Win32 "file open" or "file save as" browse dialog, or in a VMware thick-client datastore browser, or in a 7-Zip view on a compressed archive, or in a ton of different common GUI software like FTP clients and etc. etc.

Re: You Don't Need a GUI

#380
post #79
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, like a language. However if I ommit a commmmma or mispel or abbreviate smth you'll still be able to understand me. A computer on the other hand...

Thankfully while computers are indeed picky about typos, they also gladly guess, complete and validate what you're trying to tell them if you ask politely (a.k.a. banging repeatedly on the tab key).

If someone was nice enough to provide that autocompletion for your favorite commands, because Unix commands don't have any kind of introspection.
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