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Why TUIs are back

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Re: Why TUIs are back

#141

Post by tern »

cassepipe wrote: post #136
tommy_axle wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Map to "jj" and call it a day since your finger is already on the home row Also ctrl + [ is standard terminal/ascii for esc so that might be a bit more ergonomic than reaching for esc

Yes but then you get used to jj (or jk) which might not be available on other vi modes (shells vi modes, gdb, glide browser ?) and it's overall quite nice to quickly escape any situation by having the key be closer. Ctrl + [ would be acceptable if it wasn't, imo, the most important function of the editor. EDIT: My bad, you can do it with Glide apparently

I've yet to come across something with vim bindings that lacks a .vimrc where you can map 'jk'. Either way, switching back to ESC is as annoying as it is in the first place.

Re: Why TUIs are back

#142

Post by cedws »

whartung wrote: post #128
spankalee wrote: post #121

I really don't get terminal UIs that try to rebuild GUI-like functionality. Don't we think that computer interfaces should get better? We're not limited to a grid of characters to pretend to draw lines and shapes with anymore. You can't even display an image in a terminal without a non-standard terminal like Kitty or iTerm. It's just a shame that we don't have a great cross-platform, streamed, UI system. The web is g…

This is because of the failure of the modern GUI environment. They want a GUI, but, instead, they have to resort to something like this. A GUI in a TUI. They want something portable. They want something that can run remotely. They want something they can run more safely than having to expose a socket. They don't want to have to bring up an entire desktop. Rootless windows are effectively dead. That leaves web interfa…

Agreed. I dread GUI development, hence I never build GUIs. If there were a library for my language of choice that worked multi-platform and used native components then I’d be interested.

Re: Why TUIs are back

#143

Post by tuvix »

cassepipe wrote: post #37

> The hardcore, moved to vim or emacs, trading immediate feedback and higher usability for the steepest learning curve I’ve seen The only hard part about vim is to be forced to strecth the finger up to Escape for what is essentially the most essential function in a modal editor: Going back to command mode. The ideal workflow is do a quick edit and go back to command ("normal") mode instantly. The fact that Escape is…

Not sure if this is bad form but i’ve always loved using jk for escape. It feels so natural to roll your index and middle fingers to get back to normal mode.

I agree, too, besides reminding myself to use numbers before movement commands there was really nothing that felt super hard about vim. It almost disappointed me, I always heard the jokes about not being able to quit it!

Re: Why TUIs are back

#144

Post by isityettime »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #127
ne8il wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would try switching to Auto Mode which is their own recommendation as a safer alternative to that but still avoids needing to confirm actions endlessly: https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/claude-code-auto-mode

I’d love to. It’s not available to Claude Pro nor Claude Max subscribers. Eventually I got fed up with waiting and just turned off permissions.

Try an external sandboxing tool. When you need to adjust the sandbox, close the agent, launch it with the new params, and resume the session. It doesn't take long to arrive at a stable configuration; for me it's mostly about rw access to the CWD, read access to other local repos, and access to Nix. Other than that I can just use YOLO modes and not sweat it.

I briefly evaluated a bunch (had an LLM make a list of those that satisfied some basic criteria, then visited READMEs and websites) and chose nono. No regrets: https://nono.sh/

Re: Why TUIs are back

#146

Post by throwaway27448 »

mgaunard wrote: post #118

Power users have always preferred the command-line, since expressing what you want to do as a programming language is of course much more powerful and productive than clicking menus. To avoid context-switching from the command-line, many essential UIs were made text-only. Another route would have been to integrate the command-line within graphical applications, but few did it -- the main example that comes to mind is…

TUIs don't use the command line (ie bash, fish, etc), though. They use ncurses

Re: Why TUIs are back

#147

Post by setr »

mr_mitm wrote: post #21
dbish wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m relatively certain it’s just this at the end of the day. Everything I see people doing in their custom built TUIs or claude/codex CLI can be done, likely even easier, in a simplified IDE or easier to scan UI, but it feels nice/cool/cyberpunk/work-like to look like you’re doing more. Everyone will have a “reasonable” explanation though for why they have to stay in the terminal even when they aren’t really coding a…

TUIs already increased in popularity before agents became a thing. The low latency, the ease of remoting and the limited screen real estate which forces the developer to carefully design the interface are genuine advantages. I've been using mutt, vim, tig, tmux, newsboat, etc for over a decade at this point, and the cyberpunk feeling faded quickly.

The low latency and instant startup is by far the primary value add imo. Nothing else comes close.

The inherent lack of UI bloat is an added bonus.

Re: Why TUIs are back

#148

Post by cassepipe »

lucasoshiro wrote: post #96
cassepipe wrote: post #37

> The hardcore, moved to vim or emacs, trading immediate feedback and higher usability for the steepest learning curve I’ve seen The only hard part about vim is to be forced to strecth the finger up to Escape for what is essentially the most essential function in a modal editor: Going back to command mode. The ideal workflow is do a quick edit and go back to command ("normal") mode instantly. The fact that Escape is…

> The only hard part about vim is to be forced to strecth the finger up to Escape I still don't understand why people keep mentioning this, ctrl-c works as well to go back to the normal mode. > windows you just have to edit (create?) a registry key Or use Powertoys, which I don't know why it isn't a setting. (saying as a Mac, Linux and Emacs user, although I still use Vim in the terminal)

Because Ctrl+C for the most important function of you editor kinda sucks ? I mean you can get used to it, but you can get used to anything. Maybe we can have nice things ?

Also just to be pedantic: https://stackoverflow.com/a/5036294/10469162

Re: Why TUIs are back

#149

Post by jbvlkt »

the__alchemist wrote: post #131
schmorptron wrote: post #2

I think part of it is also that we're able to still LARP as full developers of complex systems while vibe coding by seeing an interface that makes us look like l33t h4xx0rs even though we're just pressing continue 15 times

FYI this is why I still use Vim sometimes. I am OOM more productive in JetBrains, but sometimes I have to feel like Hiro Protagonist. So, Vim it is.

I have just combined those together. I use astronvim as main editor but when I need IDE I switch to Idea. I use ideavim with configuration as close as possible to astronvim. So text editing is the same for me in both programs. Modal editors are still great and they can do a lot of work that looks like magic for AI era trained developers.

Re: Why TUIs are back

#150

Post by xiaoyu2006 »

dbish wrote: post #10
schmorptron wrote: post #2

I think part of it is also that we're able to still LARP as full developers of complex systems while vibe coding by seeing an interface that makes us look like l33t h4xx0rs even though we're just pressing continue 15 times

I’m relatively certain it’s just this at the end of the day. Everything I see people doing in their custom built TUIs or claude/codex CLI can be done, likely even easier, in a simplified IDE or easier to scan UI, but it feels nice/cool/cyberpunk/work-like to look like you’re doing more. Everyone will have a “reasonable” explanation though for why they have to stay in the terminal even when they aren’t really coding a…

But GUIs are hard to built - mainly because of tech debts around all three major platforms. But nontheless displaying graphics is harder than outputting control chars.
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