Am I the only one who doesn't like programs with GUIs?

[ki4jgt]

As the title asks, Am I the only one who doesn't like GUIs. I would gladly add a few lines of code to a project, making it terminal usable, if I didn't have to program a GUI. I also enjoy using terminal based programs for some reason. ???

[krazyd]

Are you posting using lynx?

[Thewhistlingwind]

Are you posting using lynx?

Of course not.

Elinks:popcorn:

I know wheres he's coming from though. A well made command line utility can in many cases be superior to the same utility, but with an GUI. (In most cases an poorly implemented one.)

Reasons usually include:

1. Takes less resources when you don't have to draw screen
2. When the output is just text, a wall of text may actually be easier on the eyes then the same output in a box. (Plus terminal supports your preference of color.)
3. Unparalleled automation and scripting ability
4. A good GUI is hard to design and implement. Adding extra time and resources to the cost of developing a utility. If CLI means the project gets finished sooner (Or at all) then the better.
5. A POOR GUI will be less intuitive then a good CLI implementation.

GUI does best when the medium it's presenting is inherently visual.

As pointed out above, it's hard to imagine a terminal browser having more then niche use in the modern web. (A very useful niche though, depending on your need.)

[simeon87]

The fun in programming is usually the technical part of your application: editing data, calculating things. Constructing a GUI is usually the boring part.. it's quite straightforward to make the buttons do something so it's just some boring type work.

[Petrolea]

For some things I also prefer using terminal rather than GUI. But you can't use terminal for everything. So your question is a bit silly here. You should specify the range of apps you meant.

[ki4jgt]

Obviously, as stated above, apps driven by visual information IE browsers, email clients, photo editors . . . need to have a GUI, but almost every other program I've seen, I would really prefer it to be terminal. It just has so much more potential in the terminal.

[skytreader]

The fun in programming is usually the technical part of your application: editing data, calculating things. Constructing a GUI is usually the boring part.. it's quite straightforward to make the buttons do something so it's just some boring type work.

Code-monkeying a GUI is, indeed, boring but not creating a user-friendly GUI.

While I love coding without IDEs and compiling from command line, I have come to prefer using SVN with a GUI. SVN may not be the best example of user-friendly but it's the best (personal) example of GUI-over-CLI I can think of at the moment.

(User-friendly wise, I'd give Chrome as an example. But the issue of browsers has already been settled in this thread.)