Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#1

Post by ilovecaching » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 4:49 PM UTC

In college I did a month long experiment where I only used my computer's terminal emulator to do all my work. I wrote my code/notes in Vim, browsed the web with elinks, and wrote my emails using mutt. It was a great learning experience.

Recently I looked into doing this again and ran into a bunch of issues:

- My company uses Slack's enterprise auth, and all the CLI slack clients I could find haven't been updated in years and no longer work.

- The web is using more javascript than in the past.

- Mutt doesn't handle multiple email accounts natively for work/personal. The solutions are hacks at best. Email servers are starting to use more complete auth mechanisms that don't work well with mutt.

It seems like the terminal world is slowly getting abandoned in favor of proprietary GUI apps. Anyone still living inside the terminal? Links to tools for Slack are appreciated.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#2

Post by PaulHoule » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

How do you read documentation for work?

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#3

Post by Jiro » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

From the headline, I thought the post would have been about this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehran_Karimi_Nasseri

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#4

Post by atemerev » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

You can, if you’re working as an independent consultant. I have a few friends like this who do live in a terminal. (I am also a consultant, but Gnome works fine for me)

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#5

Post by golly_ned » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

Emacs (which can be run in the terminal using the "-nw" option) has a slack package -- I dipped my toes in and noped out quickly, as I found it too difficult and too ugly compared to using the app: https://github.com/yuya373/emacs-slack

I've tried to do the same thing: going completely text mode. For me, it was disastrous -- it was a big distraction for me at work, at two jobs. I even left a good job partially so that I could try to go text-mode rather than click my way through lots of GUIs. It was something of an obsession. Now I look back and sigh.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#6

Post by ilovecaching » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

How do you read documentation for work?

Man pages, pdftotext, elinks, go doc, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#7

Post by beardyw » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:30 PM UTC

Jiro wrote: post #3

From the headline, I thought the post would have been about this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehran_Karimi_Nasseri

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#8

Post by slowhand09 » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

Jiro wrote: post #3

From the headline, I thought the post would have been about this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehran_Karimi_Nasseri

I was thinking The Lawnmower Man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LNvXjb44-U

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#9

Post by daggersandscars » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

For email, it appears Alpine (the successor to Pine) supports multiple email accounts via Roles. I have not tried this.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#10

Post by gregjor » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 5:49 PM UTC

I do almost everything in terminal windows, but for emails, Slack, video calls, and other support-related things I use native MacOS/iPadOS apps. It doesn't make sense to do everything in a terminal because not every useful service works in a terminal. Choose your environment and tools based on utility.