5 ms·

GUIs are more accessible so if we're playing this game, sure GUIs are "antisocial" in the sense that interactions can not be shared but on the other hand, GUIs

GUIs are more accessible so if we're playing this game, sure GUIs are "antisocial" in the sense that interactions can not be shared but on the other hand, GUIs are democratic since even the technically unwashed are afforded utility.

yawpitch 2y ago
On what basis do we believe GUIs are more accessible? Merely because that’s the default that’s been demonstrated to us? Thinking broadly about accessibility (so including those with sight issues and mechanical impediments like, for example, Hawking had) I’m not sure we’ve got any solid reason to believe a GUI is inherently more accessible. I’m also not sure that a less social but more democratic system beats a less democratic but more social one, given that we can train people to script CLIs, giving them the socially sourced empowering the piece is speaking to, but we can’t train people to automate and scale up their GUI work in the same manner.
- temporarely 2y ago
  In my view CLI is "inherently" more abstract and requires a relatively deeper understanding of the system that is being interacted with. I honestly find it strange one needs to elaborate on this manifest fact: see all the unwashed happily tapping away on their smart phones. Also we're not discussing "systems" rather interfaces. The system is invariant. Take OS X. I know few normies who even know what "terminal" is or what it means and on the other extreme, most of my fellow techies mainly interact with it via a terminal. It's the same system. Training also indicates specialization. Arguably any endeavor requiring specialization is already anti-social, if we consider society in its widest sense.
  - yawpitch 2y ago
    Give me five minutes and I can get most of the unwashed to see that a Terminal window is not much different than a Finder window, for the tasks most of the unwashed are doing (browsing, finding, opening, maybe deleting, maybe moving). Sure, it’ll take me longer to get them up to speed on all the extra facilities the Terminal provides, but the mental model required for a Finder window and that required for a Terminal cwd aren’t a heck of a lot different, except that the latter can optionally do things outside its context. Also training doesn’t have to be specialization… just like we do basic arithmetic and literacy and (mostly useless and often curated by people with agendas) history we could do basic directory navigation and associated operations, side by side, just to get everyone on the same page, going forward. Now suddenly everyone has access to the social value of sharing their interactions with machines. Arguably this is what little value LLMs might actually provide, assuming we ever get to the point we can talk one into reliably performing some interaction with the OS for us, then capture that as an output we can share as well.
- eternityforest 2y ago
  Nearly all existing CLIs are much harder to use than GUIs, regardless of what technical possibilities exist. They will delete your stuff instead of trash it. You can run commands on the wrong folder or even the wrong machine easily, since you're not directly clicking on objects. The context of where you are and what you're doing has to be all in your head. Even with autocomplete there's a lot of typing involved. If you're not a touch typist, it's a real slog to type that much literally all day, and can even make your eyes and neck tired from glancing back and forth to the keyboard so many times. If you customize any of this behavior, it doesn't look any different, you can't tell at a glance what's in bashrc. It's great for scripting, if you do anything that needs to be scripted and also doesn't already exist as a prepackaged workflow in a gui, but there's a lot of stuff where it's rather difficult. GUIs also could be perfectly well scriptable, we could have some futuristic UI where everything was an auto generated UI around drag and drop script blocks or something.
  - yawpitch 2y ago
    Knowing where you are in the file browser window is still in your head, it’s just because you’ve clicked from the desktop to the folder to the sub-folder that you’re aware of the current context… sure, it might be configured to display the cwd in a status line or title bar or what have you, but so does a well configured CLI. And sure, a CLI app can just delete stuff without interaction, but so could a GUI, it’s just that one’s be kept default unsafe and the other default safe because of the expected average user… if everyone was always going to be introduced to CLI/TUI first then those default safety features would be there too. What the GUI can never do well is work with things outside the CWD, and while GUIs could be scriptable, they almost never are. I wish they were, I would love to see GUIs be as inherently capable of the social effects the post is speaking to as CLIs, with a shareable artifact of your interaction, but there seem to be incentives that keep that from happening. Honestly I don’t see there’s any reason we don’t introduce both modes to every user. Where they want to be able to do repeatable and shareable they should have that option, and where they want to click around they should have that… but until GUI frameworks are scriptable by default, with some embedded scripting language (don’t care which) that’s ubiquitously present in every window even if the writer of the app knows nothing about it, then we should be empowering users by showing them the things CLIs are inherently better at. My guess is the work necessary to make CLIs more ergonomic is smaller than the work needed to make GUIs more scriptable, but I could be wrong.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
Except that before GUIs became popular amongst programmers, the "technically unwashed" all used the command line. Someone may try to claim there were no "technically unwashed" people using computers back then. That would be false. The "technically unwashed" never asked for GUIs. Programmers forced them to use GUIs the same way they previously forced them to use the command line. And in each case the "technically unwashed" proved they could use computers when they needed to use them. CLI or GUI. It did not matter. Only programmers debate merits of one versus the other, not the "technically unwashed". HN commenters believe they can speak on behalf of the "technically unwashed". Of course they cannot. In any event, this submission is not focused on programmmer opinions about which is easier to use. We know what Microsoft thinks about GUIs vs command line. We know Steve Jobs thought. But neither Microsoft nor Jobs is "the technically unwashed". Instead the submission is focused the notion of easier to _share_ (cf. use). It also mentions creativity. GUIs limit choices in a way that the command line does not. Decisions are made for the "technically unwashed" through the design of the GUI. For example, programmer thinks/believes "User will want to do ____." Then he adds a button for ____. Unfortunately this can lead to abuse as the programmer can also _prevent_ the user from doing things. Authors of GUI programs try to predict (dictate) how computer owners will use them. The programs are generally inflexible and do not work well with other GUI programs. There is no concept of "pipes" that allows users to be creative. GUI programs can give programmers the ability to express _their_ creativity while at the same denying such creativity to the "technically unwashed" computer user. The later is not consulted in the design of the GUI. All decisions rest with the programmer. The GUI represents the programmer's preferences and aesthetics, not those of the "technically unwashed" user. A recent comment on HN was someone complaining about how he could not file a claim on statefarm.com because some programmer had to indulge their love of some Javascript framework. For the programmer, no doubt their work was a thing of "beauty" or some such. For the computer user, it was not. It was an impediment to getting something done.
- temporarely 2y ago
  > Except that before GUIs became popular amongst programmers, the "technically unwashed" all used the command line. Not even remotely factual. Technically unwashed before GUIs is before PC so that means mainframes. And mainframes did indeed have 'terminals' but the interface 'drawn' on these terminals were basically ascii-art GUIs.

yawpitch 2y ago

On what basis do we believe GUIs are more accessible? Merely because that’s the default that’s been demonstrated to us? Thinking broadly about accessibility (so including those with sight issues and mechanical impediments like, for example, Hawking had) I’m not sure we’ve got any solid reason to believe a GUI is inherently more accessible. I’m also not sure that a less social but more democratic system beats a less democratic but more social one, given that we can train people to script CLIs, giving them the socially sourced empowering the piece is speaking to, but we can’t train people to automate and scale up their GUI work in the same manner.

temporarely 2y ago
In my view CLI is "inherently" more abstract and requires a relatively deeper understanding of the system that is being interacted with. I honestly find it strange one needs to elaborate on this manifest fact: see all the unwashed happily tapping away on their smart phones. Also we're not discussing "systems" rather interfaces. The system is invariant. Take OS X. I know few normies who even know what "terminal" is or what it means and on the other extreme, most of my fellow techies mainly interact with it via a terminal. It's the same system. Training also indicates specialization. Arguably any endeavor requiring specialization is already anti-social, if we consider society in its widest sense.
- yawpitch 2y ago
  Give me five minutes and I can get most of the unwashed to see that a Terminal window is not much different than a Finder window, for the tasks most of the unwashed are doing (browsing, finding, opening, maybe deleting, maybe moving). Sure, it’ll take me longer to get them up to speed on all the extra facilities the Terminal provides, but the mental model required for a Finder window and that required for a Terminal cwd aren’t a heck of a lot different, except that the latter can optionally do things outside its context. Also training doesn’t have to be specialization… just like we do basic arithmetic and literacy and (mostly useless and often curated by people with agendas) history we could do basic directory navigation and associated operations, side by side, just to get everyone on the same page, going forward. Now suddenly everyone has access to the social value of sharing their interactions with machines. Arguably this is what little value LLMs might actually provide, assuming we ever get to the point we can talk one into reliably performing some interaction with the OS for us, then capture that as an output we can share as well.
eternityforest 2y ago
Nearly all existing CLIs are much harder to use than GUIs, regardless of what technical possibilities exist. They will delete your stuff instead of trash it. You can run commands on the wrong folder or even the wrong machine easily, since you're not directly clicking on objects. The context of where you are and what you're doing has to be all in your head. Even with autocomplete there's a lot of typing involved. If you're not a touch typist, it's a real slog to type that much literally all day, and can even make your eyes and neck tired from glancing back and forth to the keyboard so many times. If you customize any of this behavior, it doesn't look any different, you can't tell at a glance what's in bashrc. It's great for scripting, if you do anything that needs to be scripted and also doesn't already exist as a prepackaged workflow in a gui, but there's a lot of stuff where it's rather difficult. GUIs also could be perfectly well scriptable, we could have some futuristic UI where everything was an auto generated UI around drag and drop script blocks or something.
- yawpitch 2y ago
  Knowing where you are in the file browser window is still in your head, it’s just because you’ve clicked from the desktop to the folder to the sub-folder that you’re aware of the current context… sure, it might be configured to display the cwd in a status line or title bar or what have you, but so does a well configured CLI. And sure, a CLI app can just delete stuff without interaction, but so could a GUI, it’s just that one’s be kept default unsafe and the other default safe because of the expected average user… if everyone was always going to be introduced to CLI/TUI first then those default safety features would be there too. What the GUI can never do well is work with things outside the CWD, and while GUIs could be scriptable, they almost never are. I wish they were, I would love to see GUIs be as inherently capable of the social effects the post is speaking to as CLIs, with a shareable artifact of your interaction, but there seem to be incentives that keep that from happening. Honestly I don’t see there’s any reason we don’t introduce both modes to every user. Where they want to be able to do repeatable and shareable they should have that option, and where they want to click around they should have that… but until GUI frameworks are scriptable by default, with some embedded scripting language (don’t care which) that’s ubiquitously present in every window even if the writer of the app knows nothing about it, then we should be empowering users by showing them the things CLIs are inherently better at. My guess is the work necessary to make CLIs more ergonomic is smaller than the work needed to make GUIs more scriptable, but I could be wrong.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

Except that before GUIs became popular amongst programmers, the "technically unwashed" all used the command line. Someone may try to claim there were no "technically unwashed" people using computers back then. That would be false. The "technically unwashed" never asked for GUIs. Programmers forced them to use GUIs the same way they previously forced them to use the command line. And in each case the "technically unwashed" proved they could use computers when they needed to use them. CLI or GUI. It did not matter. Only programmers debate merits of one versus the other, not the "technically unwashed". HN commenters believe they can speak on behalf of the "technically unwashed". Of course they cannot. In any event, this submission is not focused on programmmer opinions about which is easier to use. We know what Microsoft thinks about GUIs vs command line. We know Steve Jobs thought. But neither Microsoft nor Jobs is "the technically unwashed". Instead the submission is focused the notion of easier to _share_ (cf. use). It also mentions creativity. GUIs limit choices in a way that the command line does not. Decisions are made for the "technically unwashed" through the design of the GUI. For example, programmer thinks/believes "User will want to do ____." Then he adds a button for ____. Unfortunately this can lead to abuse as the programmer can also _prevent_ the user from doing things. Authors of GUI programs try to predict (dictate) how computer owners will use them. The programs are generally inflexible and do not work well with other GUI programs. There is no concept of "pipes" that allows users to be creative. GUI programs can give programmers the ability to express _their_ creativity while at the same denying such creativity to the "technically unwashed" computer user. The later is not consulted in the design of the GUI. All decisions rest with the programmer. The GUI represents the programmer's preferences and aesthetics, not those of the "technically unwashed" user. A recent comment on HN was someone complaining about how he could not file a claim on statefarm.com because some programmer had to indulge their love of some Javascript framework. For the programmer, no doubt their work was a thing of "beauty" or some such. For the computer user, it was not. It was an impediment to getting something done.

temporarely 2y ago
> Except that before GUIs became popular amongst programmers, the "technically unwashed" all used the command line. Not even remotely factual. Technically unwashed before GUIs is before PC so that means mainframes. And mainframes did indeed have 'terminals' but the interface 'drawn' on these terminals were basically ascii-art GUIs.