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How I'm still not using GUIs in 2019: A guide to the terminal

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Re: How I'm still not using GUIs in 2019: A guide to the terminal

#121

Post by uberman »

dangom wrote: post #39
hyperman1 wrote: post #7

For me, things like VIM where you first have to configure the hell out of it are a pain. Every time you're on some other machine, all your customization is gone. So after switching machines a bazillion times over the years, making the same little tweaks over and over, I've learned to deal with the default config. What I didn't expect: It made me a lot more productive in the long run.

I would say `git clone` is less painful than downloading and installing an IDE.

I absolutely agree. On the other hand, repeated fast forwarded rebased merges of issue branches that needs to be squashed might be viewed as more painful than installing Tower.

Re: How I'm still not using GUIs in 2019: A guide to the terminal

#122

Post by soVeryTired »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #112
da_chicken wrote: post #48

> GUIs are bloatware. This is only true, firstly, when what you're trying to represent can be accurately, completely, and most concisely represented by plain text. That's actually a fairly narrow range, unless you're a programmer. And secondly, it's only true when you're not interested in using common interface conventions to teach your users how to use your program. While that can certainly be done -- the -? and --h…

> This is only true, firstly, when what you're trying to represent can be accurately, completely, and most concisely represented by plain text. That's actually a fairly narrow range, unless you're a programmer. You would be surprised. I encourage you to visit the lands of Emacs at some time. The reason Emacs feels like an OS is because it turns out that quite a lot of tasks can be accurately, completely and concisely…

> To anyone who believes this, that vim is hard to learn: I ask you to do this challenge. Fire up vimtutor, spend 10 minutes on it, report back whether it's still hard.

I'm learning right now - as in, I started on Sunday. It's not hard to learn, but it's hard to use effectively. I could edit code twice as fast if I reverted to my standard keybindings, but I'm waiting for muscle memory to build.

Learning isn't hard, but building muscle memory is a tonne of work. It's like learning to touch type all over again.

Re: How I'm still not using GUIs in 2019: A guide to the terminal

#123

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

oftenwrong wrote: post #77
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With emacs, however, people tend to use tramp to edit files on a remote server as if they were local. So, there’s less need for actually using emacs on a server in the first place.

You can do the same with vim (in recent versions) out-of-the-box via netrw. :help netrw

Yeah, although my experience is that when I use vim, I generally ssh into the box and start vim there while when I use emacs, I use tramp.

Re: How I'm still not using GUIs in 2019: A guide to the terminal

#124

Post by addicted »

mediocrejoker wrote: post #102
cliff_badger wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? iterm2 is the only OSX program in that list of five. [edit] Plus, his whole point is that you don't need a GUI to get work done. Not, that you don't need software at all.

Saying that you should learn the terminal because a machine may not have Atom or Sublime is sort of saying that an advantage of the terminal is that you don't have to install additional software, isn't it?

There is a difference between pre-installed only vs being allowed to install apps, and CLI vs GUI.

There are many environments that are CLI only. That’s what the author is talking about. You’re talking about environments that don’t allow you to install apps. That’s a completely different discussion.

Re: How I'm still not using GUIs in 2019: A guide to the terminal

#125

Post by TeMPOraL »

kbutler wrote: post #111
TeMPOraL wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, as you get into actual software engineering, the first time you need to do some semantic refactoring will wipe out any time you saved through low-level efficiency. That applies to Java and C# only, where the language grammar is so simplified that you can be 99% confident semantic refactoring didn't screw your code up. > You can become more efficient at low-level tasks by doing faster text editing. It's not…

> Also, for actual software engineering, nothing beats a pen and a piece of paper. Sometimes I use pen and paper quite effectively, but between the slowness of writing and the difficulty of editing, I wouldn't describe it as ideal.

Personally, I use pen and paper (and a whiteboard) almost exclusively to draw and jot down very short notes. I do plenty of longer outlining when designing too (much more than drawing), and that happens in my text editor (Emacs, Org Mode).

Re: How I'm still not using GUIs in 2019: A guide to the terminal

#126

Post by pulsarpietro »

I mean .. use whatever you feel comfortable with, make sure you understand what you're doing, the terminal is the closest interface to the OS.

I personally use it a lot but this arguments have been going on over (and over)+ again. And it won't be the last time :-)

.

Re: How I'm still not using GUIs in 2019: A guide to the terminal

#127

Post by qwerty456127 »

broken_symlink wrote: post #68
qwerty456127 wrote: post #10

I bloody wish there were a really good TUI toolkit for Python, something like Visual Basic for DOS but with a bigger selection of more advanced widgets.

What about ncurses?

As far as I know it neither does window management nor provides widgets (perhaps it can as Wikipedia says it's "added the form and menu libraries written by Juergen Pfeifer" in 1.8.8 (M1995) yet there is not a single example doing this with curses in Python), it just makes it slightly easier to build your own TUI toolkit on top of it rather than without it.

I know about 3 Python TUI libraries available to the date: urwid, npyscreen and picotui (the first 2 using curses and the 3-rd one not using it), neither of them is anything nearly as good as any of the GUI framework I've ever tried.

What I consider the best UI frameworks I've ever tried are WPF, WinForms, JavaFX and Swing - if there was something nearly as convenient to use in Python (or any other reasonably high level language, e.g. I don't mind JVM, Common Lisp or Ruby) but rendering itself via curses I would hardly ever use GUI as there would hardly be many valid reasons to besides watching/editing pictures and videos.

Perhaps if there were a good text-mode web browser featuring full support of modern JavaScript (which I believe is not really much work to implement for a person with experience in the area as they wouldn't have to code the entire JavaScript engine from scratch, all it probably takes is to attach V8 engine libraries properly and/or implement the entire browser on Node, the problem is this hardly has market value) we could use React, Angular or something. Many of the console-dwelling hackers will probably consider this kind of thinking profanity yet it's a fact most of the people (including those who could prefer TUIs) don't have time to debug C code and implement low-level stuff.

Re: How I'm still not using GUIs in 2019: A guide to the terminal

#128

Post by TeMPOraL »

soVeryTired wrote: post #122
TeMPOraL wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is only true, firstly, when what you're trying to represent can be accurately, completely, and most concisely represented by plain text. That's actually a fairly narrow range, unless you're a programmer. You would be surprised. I encourage you to visit the lands of Emacs at some time. The reason Emacs feels like an OS is because it turns out that quite a lot of tasks can be accurately, completely and concisely…

> To anyone who believes this, that vim is hard to learn: I ask you to do this challenge. Fire up vimtutor, spend 10 minutes on it, report back whether it's still hard. I'm learning right now - as in, I started on Sunday. It's not hard to learn, but it's hard to use effectively. I could edit code twice as fast if I reverted to my standard keybindings, but I'm waiting for muscle memory to build. Learning isn't hard, b…

> Learning isn't hard, but building muscle memory is a tonne of work. It's like learning to touch type all over again.

Muscle memory does take time to build up, but it goes much faster if you don't try to take on too much at the same time. Just focus on small pieces at a time. Spend 30 minutes fully focused on basic semantic navigation (forward/backward by letter, word, paragraph, expression; up/down by line, page). Spend another 30 minutes on navigating via incremental search (an extremely useful trick, it can easily replace half of your navigation). Etc.

(This is my tried&true method I used to master various tricks in Emacs.)

Also relax, and notice that half your frustration comes from the fact that you already know another set of conventions, and it's tempting to just stick to it. But the new one will get easier very quickly :).

Re: How I'm still not using GUIs in 2019: A guide to the terminal

#129

Post by mypalmike »

cphoover wrote: post #16

I'm one of the few people who agree with you. I'll bet I can do most things in vim faster than intellicode or whatever the new hotness is.

Rename a class in Java. This includes renaming the files (including git mv) and fixing up all references to it (not simple text-matching - actual parsed declarations).

In an IDE, I'm done before you can decide whether it's "worth it".

Re: How I'm still not using GUIs in 2019: A guide to the terminal

#130

Post by 188201 »

fxfan wrote: post #35

terminals unfortunately are a complete no-go for "all" Asian languages. to my knowledge right now no terminal emulator properly handles * cjk- specially so called double width chars * Indic- dependant vowels * west asia- rtl that's the entire breadth of Asia for you who cannot use terminals if hey want to write a letter in their own language.

With urxvt and hassle to install the correct font, it is doable to edit cjk using vim. Though it is less usable than using English, since you have to go back and forth to input cjk for input, and switch back to English for navigation and vim tricks. Some binding like f[some cjk work] becomes pointless since you are effectively typing f + (ctrl + shift) + (cjk word input) + (Ctrl + Space). You would rather use nano for extensive editing cjk. However, one or two words in cjk in some codebase is okay and not that bad.
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