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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?

#241

Post by selfmodruntime »

ar_lan wrote: post #203
mekster wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like a sales pitch but my NeoVIM based off of AstroNvim breaks in very random ways across a dozen of servers even under same configuration, I'm about to try Helix instead of the ecosystem with pile of random quality plugins. It looks promising at first with LSP and all that but I don't know when I had any stable moments.

Are you using different OS? This sounds like the programs your NeoVim is calling is failing you - not nvim itself. _cough cough_ NixOS can help you out here

It's not neovim, but the surrounding plugin architecture I need. I'm using coc.nvim to get autocompletions and documentation and I find that to be increasingly brittle. Also the python3 provider stuff randomly breaks in a venv sometime.

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

#242

Post by comfypotato »

havercosine wrote: post #218

I was doing this experiment few years back with `emacs -nw`, tons of other packages in Emacs and custom elisp code. Used `ein` in emacs instead of Jupyter notebooks, browsed web in text browser etc. But as I grew older I realised I need to pick my battles wisely. I still use emacs for some simple edit tasks and tramp for remote server file edits. But for normal day to day development that pays the bills, I've switche…

Did you leave before the lsp-mode revolution? You mention Python like you used elpy when it was effective. I don’t find myself needing to leave eMacs for development for anything besides debugging

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

#243

Post by comfypotato »

rbanffy wrote: post #115

I still use the command line extensively. However, I use a browser for collaboration tools and email, and Emacs GUI for coding. On the work computer, sadly a Windows box, I have no such luck. Having said that, current windowed terminals are a sad shadow of the days of the VT330. Almost none can do double-width and double-height, many can’t blink, and none can do smooth scrolling. Honorable mention to Apple’s (NeXT’s?…

Sounds like you’d enjoy wsl at work. Wsl1 is necessary for file system IO

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

#244

Post by nikau »

ryandrake wrote: post #184
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you care so much what workflow some rando on the internet uses?

Not OP, but to me, software that requires installing multiple plugins and extensions on top of it and requires much configuration in order to be useable is basically "unfinished software". It's 2022. Software not just has to work out of the box (or out of the download), it has to be packaged with everything needed to actually use it. It has to come fully configured for the most common use cases, or be able to fully c…

Yeah spending some time to set up a tool you will probably use for the next 30+ years is outrageous.

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

#245

Post by kkfx »

pb7 wrote: post #76
kkfx wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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+s…

You seem to have a lot of complaints about the internet and they may even be valid concerns on their own, but I fail to see how this relates to CLI vs. GUI. Google Reader would still be dead if you interacted with it via CLI. GitHub would still be dead if their servers shut down. Maybe you're equating CLI with some "good old days" that you fondly remember?

CLIs are family of UIs, whose name is normally used to identify TUIs at a whole, while GUIs tend to identify ONLY modern GUIs, so ignoring the classic Documenti UIs and that's the trick.

My point is:

- modern TUIs, called by most CLIs, compared to modern GUIs (widget based GUIs and WebUIs) are more powerful because AT LEAST they allow limited easy user extensibility and composability (scripts and unix IPCs);

- classic GUIs, in the sense of document UIs, like Emacs, like old Xerox Tioga etc, on contrary can be called 2D CLIs in modern lingo and they are FAR superior both of TUIs and modern GUIs because they are "graphical" and they are even more extensible and composable than TUIs.

That's is. Modern developers regularly push toward classic GUIs without knowing them, think for instance how popular Notebook UIs have became. WebUI themselves as a "more like documents" widgets-based GUIs. Still are are far behind classic document UIs.

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

#246

Post by kkfx »

zdragnar wrote: post #69
kkfx wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's exactly the original Unix model fault: it's designers though that's possible making many very small and simple "programs as functions" to be easy combined in scripts and with IPCs to doing almost anything without the need to go to "system code" as a cheap and easy solution to the hardness of a classic system design.

They quickly drop such idea introducing GUIs, who fail to offer composability and scripting, and they derailed hitting their own design limits. Modern GUIs are the monster emerged form such ashes who happen to be worst than the problem it try to solve. The issue in the example comparison in my previous post is that at least in CLIs you can combine/compose a bit, with modern GUIs you can't. Write a script is easy, at least FAR easier than change an ERP.

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

#247

Post by kkfx »

kube-system wrote: post #64
kkfx wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not in, but with modern GUIs (so X11 xlibs wrapped by some widget lib) I can't compose nor integrate anything. For instance if I want to do some simple math in an email I'm composing I need to launch another application, type the same math I've typed in the message body, evaluate it, copypaste the results, copy-pasting is the sole IPC such tools have.

On a terminal, I can run a terminal based editor who typically can run code from inside the text buffer. In Emacs I can do much more in both terminal and X11. That's is.

My org-mode notes links anything, meaning mails (searches, specific messages, threads), financial transactions (ledger), elisp code, for instance to act on notes themselves like an `* Online retails orders` heading with a "click here to add a new one" or to change the Emacs/EXWM graphic, for instance to present something, org-ql queries on my notes etc. In pure CLI (not TUI) I can at least cat and process programs output, in modern GUIs I can't.

A simple showcase: https://youtu.be/B6jfrrwR10k

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

#248

Post by kkfx »

pb7 wrote: post #79
kkfx wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The GP lists some ways that a terminal-only workflow limits you. >Modern UIs try to go back to the original document UI concept but TOTALLY fails for the interactive part, they are mere view where you can touch some knobs someone else placed there for you, nothing more, and try to bend them is a nightmare. I don't see this as a bad thing. I want someone responsible for the product to figure out the best way to use it…

Just a simple example: you probably buy on Amazon and find it's order history webpage simple and nice. Now let's say you want to collect such history in your desktop, link it to the corresponding bank transactions per any order (you have bought many things and they are charged separately on your bank), link to some bought items notes like when the warranty period end in your agenda. What do you need to achieve such result?

In CLIs you need a way to query in text all such elements, you are limited by the limited and limiting Amazon WebUI who do not offer anything cat-able, even not anymore a manual *sv export. Not much different is the situation on your bank side where if you are lucky you just get manual ofx/qif export.

In a classic CLI world you wold have a remote service who can be queried ssh-in it and locally process the output. In modern Emacs you can do the same in a modern 2D DOCUMENT-BASED GUIs. You just need a bit of math to mach items to bank transactions, nothing more than 20 SLoC. With the WebUI paradigms you need perhaps a WebVM extension with around 5-10k SLoC to achieve something similar...

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