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

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

#61

Post by usednet »

parasti wrote: post #54
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #30

It doesn't work for business at all because if you want to do business you have to meet people where they are. You can't email a client and say, sorry, can you please send me that contract in a text file, I only have a terminal. Or, sorry, I can't use your web portal to access the data because it uses JavaScript. If you're not doing business, using the terminal works fine. Up until you have to deal with health insura…

> technologically retarded hellscape The modern web seems pretty great to me. Why do you feel that way?

Censorship, mandatory KYC and ID verification, mass surveillance, ridiculous amounts of ads, everything is a subscription service and my god damn oven needs a login and ethernet connection…

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

#63

Post by kkfx »

parasti wrote: post #54
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #30

It doesn't work for business at all because if you want to do business you have to meet people where they are. You can't email a client and say, sorry, can you please send me that contract in a text file, I only have a terminal. Or, sorry, I can't use your web portal to access the data because it uses JavaScript. If you're not doing business, using the terminal works fine. Up until you have to deal with health insura…

> technologically retarded hellscape The modern web seems pretty great to me. Why do you feel that way?

Is pretty as a prison dressed to be nice. Is pretty for instance if you do not need to do anything than consume someone else provided contents and your favorite services do not cease to exists or change usage terms overnight.

Google reader was nice, a day Google kill it, GitHub seems to be nice for some cohort of users, a day a political move between some countries makes your account locked, a day your ebook reader+service cease to exists with all books you never own but being convinced of the contrary, a day your smart vacuum cleaner stop to work because an AWS service have issues etc.

That's how pretty it is. Pretty to capture you, ugly once you discover you are trapped and than it's too late.

Oh, sure in mere tech terms you might run webapps locally, they are still NOT AT ALL pretty behind sugar-eye graphics, since integrate things, bend things is a nightmare that demand a gazillion SLoC for anything, while on classic CLI or better systems like Emacs you can do it in a snap. Not only: anything you'll learn on classic systems is valuable normally for a lifetime and more, anything you learn for the modern web might be valid for few years but generally last far less and no, you can't advance, you can only remain afloat keep learning the new crap on and on.

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

#64

Post by kube-system »

kkfx wrote: post #59
pb7 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unfortunately the world now revolves around [gui] web browsers. We brought this technologically retarded hellscape on ourselves and we deserve it. This seems backwards. Limiting yourself to CLI tools do retard your abilities, modern GUI apps do not.

Sorry? CLI respect of Emacs yes, is limited and limiting, but modern GUIs are FAR more limited and limiting. Can you integrate them? No. Let's say you want in a single view a set of mails, financial transactions, notes etc. You can arrange something in a CLI, you can do it in org-mode, you can't do it in the most advanced ERP monster. Modern UIs try to go back to the original document UI concept but TOTALLY fails for…

What can't you do in X Window that you can do in a terminal?

I'd agree that some GUIs are bad, but the same could be said about some TUIs.

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

#65

Post by plasticchris »

nico_h wrote: post #60
parasti wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> technologically retarded hellscape The modern web seems pretty great to me. Why do you feel that way?

You must have a very good ad blocker.

It was certainly an eye opener when I went to help a friend with their computer and saw the web without ad blockers for the first time in years. I had no idea.

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

#66

Post by Melatonic »

zh3 wrote: post #34

I keep a 'perfect terminal' in the office, basically a system with an nvidia 7600 in it because that's the fastest 2D text thing I've found to date (yes, modern cards are so slow in text mode it's not even funny). Configured for 24 VT's, a bunch of them autoconnect to remote systems/run specific applications etc at boot - so if I want the calculator, for example, it's Alt-F12. For local graphics programs, that also p…

What do you mean by fast or slow in text mode? Like the 7600 is literally writing text to the screen faster than modern cards or?

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

#67

Post by ghaff »

usednet wrote: post #61
parasti wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> technologically retarded hellscape The modern web seems pretty great to me. Why do you feel that way?

Censorship, mandatory KYC and ID verification, mass surveillance, ridiculous amounts of ads, everything is a subscription service and my god damn oven needs a login and ethernet connection…

That seems to be a complaint, at least in part, about a terminal-based world which only the "right" people had the ability to access vs. a commercialized Eternal September where all the plebes (and scammers/grifters) have access. I'm pretty sure that a terminal line world that somehow had the same access and usage as today's GUIs/Web would find other ways of introducing the same problems.

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

#68

Post by throwaway09223 »

parasti wrote: post #54
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #30

It doesn't work for business at all because if you want to do business you have to meet people where they are. You can't email a client and say, sorry, can you please send me that contract in a text file, I only have a terminal. Or, sorry, I can't use your web portal to access the data because it uses JavaScript. If you're not doing business, using the terminal works fine. Up until you have to deal with health insura…

> technologically retarded hellscape The modern web seems pretty great to me. Why do you feel that way?

The modern web is primarily distinguished by its custom ui/media, as opposed to the old school web which put textual information first and allowed clients more control over presentation. The problems this creates are:

* Accessibility - I can't change presentation to make things easier for me to consume

* Inspectability - I can't search, index, etc. Information is hidden behind js driven interfaces that only present bits at a time.

* Uniformity - I don't want to deal with a deluge of clever interfaces. I want the data only, and I want control over how I will present the data to myself.

* Buggy - All these custom JS driven interfaces means a never ending deluge of weird interaction bugs, most of which we just ignore. Pages are needlessly slow or error prone.

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

#69

Post by zdragnar »

kkfx wrote: post #59
pb7 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unfortunately the world now revolves around [gui] web browsers. We brought this technologically retarded hellscape on ourselves and we deserve it. This seems backwards. Limiting yourself to CLI tools do retard your abilities, modern GUI apps do not.

Sorry? CLI respect of Emacs yes, is limited and limiting, but modern GUIs are FAR more limited and limiting. Can you integrate them? No. Let's say you want in a single view a set of mails, financial transactions, notes etc. You can arrange something in a CLI, you can do it in org-mode, you can't do it in the most advanced ERP monster. Modern UIs try to go back to the original document UI concept but TOTALLY fails for…

This seems like an unfair comparison.

If you limit the capabilities of a GUI interface to only what is possible without code changes, then you must do the same for CLI applications.

Emacs is all code. Most CLI-only applications cannot be modified other than the flags you pass in; you are instead forced to pipe from one application to another.

If you limit the capabilities of GUI applications to the realm of existing software (i.e. your monster ERP reference) then we must also limit the capabilities of CLI tools to what exists, and I know (for having looked far and wide) that I have needs which are not available via terminal-only programs; the only existing set of available software that I need with a comprehensive set of features is in a GUI-only application.

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

#70

Post by jcalvinowens »

Yes, but it depends a bit on the exact nature of your job. At the last job, my Linux work machine never had a mouse plugged into it because I never needed one. The macbook the company gave me was the "chat/email machine".

Nowadays, I have to run a proprietary VPN client that only works via GUI, but even though a full screen terminal emulator isn't as "pure", it feels the same.

I love it: absolutely zero distractions, it's a huge productivity win for me. But I realize I'm lucky in that the kind of work I do doesn't require me to be responsive to chats and emails (my reply latency is 24h).

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