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You can't script this GUI. You can't use Cron with an interactive GUI. You can't parse stdin/out/err. Each have their pros and cons. I'd say what makes most se

by Fnoord 7y ago

You can't script this GUI. You can't use Cron with an interactive GUI. You can't parse stdin/out/err. Each have their pros and cons. I'd say what makes most sense is a library with frontends (CLI, TUI, GUI, (web)socket, etc) In this case I wouldn't need a GUI with Electron. All I would need is a Firefox extension for youtube-dl (or the hypothetical library). Why keep reinventing wheel? Hence library. One annoying thing with CLI is defaults. You might wanna set defaults (in CLI often used in an alias). So I end up managing a large alias list but what if I use more than 1 shell depending on machine? What if the machine does not use Git to sync such files?

benj111 7y ago
"You can't script this GUI. You can't use Cron with an interactive GUI. You can't parse stdin/out/err" No but you can script the underlying youtube-dl so with the gui front end you get the best of both worlds. Re defaults, that isn't an inherent shortcoming of terminal apps. Theres no reason why 'youtube-dl url' shouldn't just do the 'right thing'. I agree it's a common problem though.
- majewsky 7y ago
  > Theres no reason why 'youtube-dl url' shouldn't just do the 'right thing'. The error in your reasoning is that you assume the existence of a singular right thing. Software that attempts to just do the right thing tends to suffer from what I call Overly Clever Syndrome. I hate waiters or store clerks that second-guess my motivations. Why should I like software that does the same? That said, `youtube-dl $url` will download the pointed-to video in the best available quality, so that's a pretty decent default.
  - benj111 7y ago
    I put 'right thing' in inverted commas because I know how slippery it can be. Gui apps have defaults too, this isn't a problem unique to terminal apps. I'll go further and say GUI apps suffer more because they tend to design around a default and have many fewer non default options, in the name of being easy to use. Terminal apps on the other hand 'suffer' because they don't make enough assumptions about how it is to be used. Suffer is very much in inverted commas though, sometimes you want to do that niche thing, and having something that makes no assumptions about how it will be used is great. On the other hand having to read a manpage for the simplest of things is not so great.

by Fnoord 7y ago

benj111 7y ago

"You can't script this GUI. You can't use Cron with an interactive GUI. You can't parse stdin/out/err" No but you can script the underlying youtube-dl so with the gui front end you get the best of both worlds. Re defaults, that isn't an inherent shortcoming of terminal apps. Theres no reason why 'youtube-dl url' shouldn't just do the 'right thing'. I agree it's a common problem though.

majewsky 7y ago
> Theres no reason why 'youtube-dl url' shouldn't just do the 'right thing'. The error in your reasoning is that you assume the existence of a singular right thing. Software that attempts to just do the right thing tends to suffer from what I call Overly Clever Syndrome. I hate waiters or store clerks that second-guess my motivations. Why should I like software that does the same? That said, `youtube-dl $url` will download the pointed-to video in the best available quality, so that's a pretty decent default.
- benj111 7y ago
  I put 'right thing' in inverted commas because I know how slippery it can be. Gui apps have defaults too, this isn't a problem unique to terminal apps. I'll go further and say GUI apps suffer more because they tend to design around a default and have many fewer non default options, in the name of being easy to use. Terminal apps on the other hand 'suffer' because they don't make enough assumptions about how it is to be used. Suffer is very much in inverted commas though, sometimes you want to do that niche thing, and having something that makes no assumptions about how it will be used is great. On the other hand having to read a manpage for the simplest of things is not so great.