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Re: should CLI have a nice UI today?

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  Re: should CLI have a nice UI today? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@surfnaked.ca> - 2023-03-24 18:10 +0100
    Re: should CLI have a nice UI today? "Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net> - 2023-03-24 20:10 +0100
    Re: should CLI have a nice UI today? <paulf@quillandmouse.com> - 2023-03-24 21:10 +0100
    Re: should CLI have a nice UI today? Tom Browder <tom.browder@gmail.com> - 2023-03-24 22:00 +0100

#256328 — Re: should CLI have a nice UI today?

On Fri Mar 24 09:13:41 2023 coreyh@free.fr wrote:

 > Should CLI (command line interface) have a nice UI library?

As an option, possibly.  As a standard default, NO!

 > today web dev has so many libraries that make web pages with
 > rich/colorful interactive views.

And which often get in the way of getting real work done.

 > But CLI is still in dull mode. That should be improved in these days.

What's wrong with dull?  Sometimes you just want an answer without
all the eye candy.  If you're making a shopping list, does it have
to be a coffee table book with 100 pages in dazzling colour?

 > for example, run "df -h" we got the statistics with plain text. But
 > web statistics for cloud storage (GCP,AWS etc) are chart like, which
 > give people more intuitive feeling.

But you can redirect the output of "df -h" to a file for archival
purposes, or pipe it to other tools that can do a quick analysis.
And once you get to know it, you can get an intuitive view from
well-designed text output much faster than with a graphical view,
as well as actually being able to do something with it.

And what do you do if you're having trouble getting X running,
and can't see those fancy displays?  Give up and get a Windows box?

Let me give you a real-world example.  Recently I renewed a credit
card.  I tried going onto the bank's web site to activate it.  I can
access the bank's web site for normal banking functions, but halfway
through all the pretty screens (how many pretty screens do you really
need to activate a credit card?) the process froze.  I went to the
bank and complained.  I was lucky enough to get a supervisor.  The
first thing he said was, "What browser are you using?"  When I said
I was using Firefox, he replied, "Never heard of it."  Because I was
not using one of the approved browsers from our favourite monopolies
(Edge and Chrome), I was persona non grata.  And all so I could be
presented with a wonderful User Experience (yuck!), when half a dozen
lines of text could have done the job quickly and let me get on with
my day.

IMHO computer systems should be ugly and boring.  Ugly, as in lacking
all the eye candy that gets in the way, and boring as in just doing
what you want without unpleasant surprises.

Short answer: Not over my dead Teletype.

-- 
/~\  Charlie Gibbs                  |  You can't save the earth
\ /  <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>      |  unless you're willing to
  X   I'm really at ac.dekanfrus     |  make other people sacrifice.
/ \  if you read it the right way.  |    -- Dogbert the green consultant

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#256330

Hi,

Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> IMHO computer systems should be ugly and boring.

+1


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

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#256331

On Fri, 24 Mar 2023 09:35:09 -0700
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@surfnaked.ca> wrote:

> 
> IMHO computer systems should be ugly and boring.  Ugly, as in lacking
> all the eye candy that gets in the way, and boring as in just doing
> what you want without unpleasant surprises.
> 
> Short answer: Not over my dead Teletype.
> 

I have to agree. This business of having to have a GUI for everything
is excessive. It's why long time admins typically go straight to the
command line, rather than enlisting the help of some mouse-and-window
whiz bang program.

Paul

-- 
Paul M. Foster
Personal Blog: http://noferblatz.com
Company Site: http://quillandmouse.com
Software Projects: https://gitlab.com/paulmfoster

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#256334

On Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 12:00 Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@surfnaked.ca> wrote:
> IMHO computer systems should be ugly and boring.  Ugly, as in lacking
> all the eye candy that gets in the way, and boring as in just doing
> what you want without unpleasant surprises.
>
> Short answer: Not over my dead Teletype.

Hear, hear!

-Tom

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