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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

#171

Post by godshatter »

collyw wrote: post #70
Spearchucker wrote: post #64

The world moved from CLIs to GUIs. Guis have not only persisted, they've improved. If someone insists on using a CLI and nothing else, after all these years of the world having moved to GUIs, I wonder what prejudice is behind it. How, reasonably, can all these tools beat a thing like Visual Studio? Must limit job opportinities too...?

Some tasks are better suited to the command line. Others are better in the terminal. Package installation lies right in the middle for me. If I know exactly what I want sudo apt-get install is the quickest and easiest. If I am not sure exactly what I want its easier to browse around using synaptic. I can do more complex greps on the command line than most GUI tools will allow me to use.

I tend to use apt-cache search a lot if I know generally what I want but don't know the exact package name. It lets you use regular expressions when searching and you can restrict it to just the package names by giving it the --names-only switch.

If I'm actually wanting to install a game of some type, but don't know what I want to try out, then I'll load up synaptic.

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

#172

Post by CivBase »

> GUIs are bloatware.

Why stop there? Most terminal editors are bloatware!

"When I use an editor, I don't want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want an EDitor!! Not a 'viitor'. Not a 'emacsitor'. Those aren't even WORDS!!!!"[0]

GUI and terminals both have their place. There is no single combination of software that perfectly covers everyone's use cases. By all means, share details about the environment that works best for you, but blanket statements like that just create controversy.

Besides, modern terminals are really just GUIs designed to use the keyboard as the only peripheral. You don't necessarily need a REPL interface to support that use case.

[0]: https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed-msg.html

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

#173

Post by jshevek »

amriksohata wrote: post #170

I'm not being funny but why do people prefer writing out lines of command line text versus right click and select in two clicks?

For many people, writing out the command text is faster. Fantastically faster, when you take advantage of the efficiency improvements like tab completion, readline hotkeys, aliases, scripts, etc.

And you don't lose time from whatever you do before and after, by taking your fingers off the keyboard.

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

#174

Post by gambler »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #164
eitland wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Some of us would say well-designed instead of simplified :-)

> Some of us would say well-designed instead of simplified :-) That's a longer topic. Having worked professionally both with Java (Eclipse, Netbeans, IntelliJ IDEA) and Common Lisp (Emacs + SLIME), I've experienced both sides of the coin. On the one hand, working with a language without a proper REPL and macros is painful to me. On the other hand, I frequently wish it was even possible to have semantic completion and…

C# has both semantic refactoring and REPL. It might look like Java, but it's a much better designed language. They are even fixing all the horrible crap that was dragging it down with .NET Core.

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

#176

Post by jshevek »

tom_ wrote: post #19

You can always run a terminal alongside your IDE, you know! The IDE-type approach is generally very convenient, making your day go past that bit more smoothly, and the terminal is good for all sorts of things that are just a faff to do with a GUI. (Interop is straightforward: just save from the IDE, operate on the file from the command line, then reload.) This probably won't be to all tastes, but I've been happy work…

Before Android Studio, I found eclipse to be a laggy, buggy, slow-moving mess, but still I relied on it heavily for a variety of functions.

I started using your solution out of necessity, but with a little bit of context switching muscle memory found it to actually be a wonderful way to code.

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

#177

Post by jshevek »

robzhu wrote: post #151

This is why I'm creating a command-line alternative to Photoshop.

I once worked as part of a team which had graphics people who were allergic to the command line.

Of course there are some things for which Gimp/Photoshop is really necessary, but it turns out that there is a massive amount of image manipulation that is better done on the command line than within Photoshop. The people who were dependent on Photoshop would take endless hours completing the same tasks which can be done in seconds using the command line.

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

#178

Post by coldtea »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #87
plexicle wrote: post #78

"Not every machine has VSCode, Sublime or Atom installed, but every machine has a terminal." I love that the article goes from this sentence immediately to: "These are the main programs I use to make my terminal a complete development environment:" And proceeds to list 5 different programs, some of which are only available on macOS. Brilliant. Edit: One of which are only available*. My point isn't that there isn't a…

Using the terminal at least makes you proficient with the lowest common denominator of tools. I know I can SSH into any random machine, and edit a config with the copy of vi/vim it has, even if it doesn't have my fancy plugins. And if I get a new machine, all I have to do is install my tools via Apt/Brew/etc, clone my dotfiles repo, and run an install script.

>Using the terminal at least makes you proficient with the lowest common denominator of tools.

Why even use a computer then? Aren't rocks and sticks an even lower common denominator?

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

#179

Post by pfranz »

plexicle wrote: post #78

"Not every machine has VSCode, Sublime or Atom installed, but every machine has a terminal." I love that the article goes from this sentence immediately to: "These are the main programs I use to make my terminal a complete development environment:" And proceeds to list 5 different programs, some of which are only available on macOS. Brilliant. Edit: One of which are only available*. My point isn't that there isn't a…

I agree. I feel like that argument is better for a different subset of users. I got into terminal multiplexers when Tmux started getting traction. So I chose that after only using Screen briefly. Since then I've met a few old-schoolers who have used Screen for 20+ years who have asked me to pitch them on Tmux. Maybe I'm doing a poor job, but they already have configs they like and aren't really interested in the new features. Plus, Tmux is missing or not installed by default on older or more obscure distros. The only practical thing I could come up with was better support for vertical splits (the more sanely named and organized config wasn't relevant because they hadn't changed theirs in years). Similarly with NeoVim. I can usually get by with vi on those obscure systems since I'm usually reading a log or tweaking a config instead of editing source code.

On systems I don't administrate using these fancier new tools are a pain. I either have to bug the sysadmin to install my pet set of tools or try find static compiled versions, or try and build them myself in my homedir. I feel like I've wasted a lot of time jumping through hoops for things to mostly work with old versions of things. AppImage (what neovim offers) requires Fuse. s.minos.io which has a handy app to download static builds, is missing new versions and many packages I'm looking for.

The situation for Terminal apps is often worse than GUI apps.

As an aside, the only things I've seen gain traction with old-school Linux users are alternatives to grep since they're so much faster, have better defaults (like honoring gitignore), and are generally compatible with grep's arguments.

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

#180

Post by JdeBP »

gambler wrote: post #159
JdeBP wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"still don't have"? For many years we did . "no longer have" is more correct. * http://xahlee.info/kbd/i/kb/sun_keyboard_left.jpg

You're right, I should have said "still don't have on PC". I believe Xerox Star also had all those keys and then some. This might not seem like a big deal for some. But there are two important points to consider: 1. A lot of inexperienced user still go to mouse menu for copy-paste. This is horrible, but kind of natural, since a lot of UIs don't teach shortcuts. 2. Cut/Copy/Paste/Undo/Redo should be treated as fundame…

I hope that the people who remember the OS/2 Workplace Shell have some idea. (-:
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