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Ask HN: How feasible is it to “live” on the command line?
I've been wanting to try going without a GUI for some time now. For those of you who have tried it: how hard is it? Are there any pieces of software, tricks, Emacs packages, etc. that make it easier?
- smt88 8y agoI did it a few years ago out of necessity on an underpowered dev laptop. I didn't have resources to build my app and also run a GUI. It was awful. I don't know why anyone would choose to do it, unless they're a hipster dev who thinks "old and difficult" is "better" for some reason. There are lots of drawbacks and no benefits. If there's some task you like to do with a command line, just use a terminal emulator when you want. Honestly, thinking about it now, it's even crazier because most websites are fairly useless in a terminal-based browser...
- greenyoda 8y agoI definitely agree. As someone who has been programming long enough that I "lived on the command line" in many different operating systems (Unix, DOS, VMS, IBM mainframe, and more) back when that was the only option, I really don't want to go back to those days. The Unix shell is a wonderful environment and I love it, but there are lots of useful GUI programs that make my life easier, and using them doesn't make me a lesser programmer. (I also don't want to go back to punched cards or typing in machine code in hex.)
- gregjor 8y agoI live in ssh, vim, Linux command line. I also have Chrome running at the same time. Much faster and more powerful for me, and I can work from anywhere. Freelance programmer.