3 ms·

Lots of scepticism here, but I think this may really take off. After 25 years of heavy CLI use, lately I've found myself using codex (in terminal) for terminal

Lots of scepticism here, but I think this may really take off. After 25 years of heavy CLI use, lately I've found myself using codex (in terminal) for terminal tasks I've previously done using CLI commands. If someone manages to make a robust GUI version of this for normies, people will lap it up. People don't want to juggle applications, we want computers to do what we want/need them to do.

jmathai 6mo ago
After 25 years of writing code in vim, I've found myself managing a bunch of terminal sessions and trying to spot issues in pull requests. I wouldn't have thought this could be the case and it took me actually embracing it before I was fully sold. Maybe not a popular opinion but I really do believe... - code quality as we previously understood will not be a thing in 3-5 years - IDEs will face a very sharp decline in use
- flux3125 6mo ago
  Code quality and IDEs aren't going anywhere, especially in complex enterprise systems. AI has improved a lot, but we're still far from a "forget about code" world.
  - menaerus 6mo ago
    I don't think we are. We will not be able to keep the peace with code production velocity and I anticipate that focus will be moved strongly to testing and validation
  - jampekka 6mo ago
    > Code quality and IDEs aren't going anywhere, especially in complex enterprise systems. Was code quality ever there in complex enterprise systems?
    - grey-area 6mo ago
      Yes it was there (not in all of course, but in some), in fact that is where the concept came from - it's necessary when maintaining large systems to keep the code consistent and clear.
- p1necone 6mo ago
  > code quality as we previously understood will not be a thing in 3-5 years Idk - I feel like the exact same quality, maintainability, readability stuff that makes developers more effective at writing code manually also accelerates LLM driven development. It's just less immediately obvious that your codebase being a spaghetti mess is slowing down the LLM because you're not the one having to deal with it directly anymore. LLMs also have the same tendency to just make the additive changes needed to build each feature - you need to prompt them to refactor first instead if it's going to be beneficial in the long run.
  - jampekka 6mo ago
    I've found that models have improved here significantly in past few months. They have the tendency to pile on ad-hoc solutions by default, but are capable of doing better architectural decisions too if asked. A better design can be made somewhat default by AGENTS.md instructions, but they can still make a mess unless on a short leash.
ogig 6mo ago
I agree. As a long time linux user, coding assistants as interface to the OS has been a delight to discover. The cryptic totality of commands, parameters, config files, logs has been simplified into natural language: "Claude, I want to test monokai color scheme on my sway environment" and possibly hours of tweaking done in seconds. My setup has never been so customized, because there is no friction now. I love it and I predict this will increase, even if slightly, the real user base of linux desktops.
- nielsole 6mo ago
  I recently accidentally broke my GUI / Wayland and was delighted to realize that I can have codex/claude fix it for me.
- vunderba 6mo ago
  Heavily agreed - LLMs are also really good at diagnosing crash logs, and sifting through what would otherwise be inscrutably large core dumps.
  - culopatin 6mo ago
    Do you think this will continue growing if we stop struggling and posting our findings on forums?
    - vunderba 6mo ago
      Yeah, I think that's a legitimate concern. It's hard to know, even with sufficient training data, how far these systems can actually generalize their problem-solving abilities when they become data starved in the future either because of scarcity or that any potential new training data is contaminated by LLM radiation. Too bad we don’t have a portal gun to access an infinite number of parallel universes where large language models were never invented for sources of unlimited fresh training data and unlimited palpatine power.
      - briHass 6mo ago
zozbot234 6mo ago
> lately I've found myself using codex (in terminal) for terminal tasks I've previously done by CLI commands. This is the real "computer use". We will always need GUI-level interaction for proprietary apps and websites that aren't made available in machine-readable form, but everything else you do with a computer should just be mapped to simple CLI commands that are comparatively trivial for a text-based AI.
- jampekka 6mo ago
  I think websites via DOM are gonna be quite easy for the models.
Havoc 6mo ago
>terminal tasks I've previously done using CLI commands. Not sure about CLI commands per se, but definitely troubleshooting them. Docker-compose files in particular..."here's the error, here's the compose, help" is just magic
einpoklum 6mo ago
> tasks I've previously done using CLI commands. Great, now you perform those tasks more slowly, using up a lot more computing power, with your activities and possibly data recorded by some remote party of questionable repute.
- Paradigma11 6mo ago
  He is using a lot less computing power where it counts, his own.
zee_builds 6mo ago
[dead]
dewey 6mo ago
After setting up a new computer recently I wanted to play around with nix. I would've never done that without LLMs. Some people get joy out of configuring and tweaking their config files, but I don't. Being able to just let the LLM deal with that is great.

jmathai 6mo ago

After 25 years of writing code in vim, I've found myself managing a bunch of terminal sessions and trying to spot issues in pull requests. I wouldn't have thought this could be the case and it took me actually embracing it before I was fully sold. Maybe not a popular opinion but I really do believe... - code quality as we previously understood will not be a thing in 3-5 years - IDEs will face a very sharp decline in use

flux3125 6mo ago
Code quality and IDEs aren't going anywhere, especially in complex enterprise systems. AI has improved a lot, but we're still far from a "forget about code" world.
- menaerus 6mo ago
  I don't think we are. We will not be able to keep the peace with code production velocity and I anticipate that focus will be moved strongly to testing and validation
- jampekka 6mo ago
  > Code quality and IDEs aren't going anywhere, especially in complex enterprise systems. Was code quality ever there in complex enterprise systems?
  - grey-area 6mo ago
    Yes it was there (not in all of course, but in some), in fact that is where the concept came from - it's necessary when maintaining large systems to keep the code consistent and clear.
p1necone 6mo ago
> code quality as we previously understood will not be a thing in 3-5 years Idk - I feel like the exact same quality, maintainability, readability stuff that makes developers more effective at writing code manually also accelerates LLM driven development. It's just less immediately obvious that your codebase being a spaghetti mess is slowing down the LLM because you're not the one having to deal with it directly anymore. LLMs also have the same tendency to just make the additive changes needed to build each feature - you need to prompt them to refactor first instead if it's going to be beneficial in the long run.
- jampekka 6mo ago
  I've found that models have improved here significantly in past few months. They have the tendency to pile on ad-hoc solutions by default, but are capable of doing better architectural decisions too if asked. A better design can be made somewhat default by AGENTS.md instructions, but they can still make a mess unless on a short leash.

ogig 6mo ago

I agree. As a long time linux user, coding assistants as interface to the OS has been a delight to discover. The cryptic totality of commands, parameters, config files, logs has been simplified into natural language: "Claude, I want to test monokai color scheme on my sway environment" and possibly hours of tweaking done in seconds. My setup has never been so customized, because there is no friction now. I love it and I predict this will increase, even if slightly, the real user base of linux desktops.

nielsole 6mo ago
I recently accidentally broke my GUI / Wayland and was delighted to realize that I can have codex/claude fix it for me.
vunderba 6mo ago
Heavily agreed - LLMs are also really good at diagnosing crash logs, and sifting through what would otherwise be inscrutably large core dumps.
- culopatin 6mo ago
  Do you think this will continue growing if we stop struggling and posting our findings on forums?
  - vunderba 6mo ago
    Yeah, I think that's a legitimate concern. It's hard to know, even with sufficient training data, how far these systems can actually generalize their problem-solving abilities when they become data starved in the future either because of scarcity or that any potential new training data is contaminated by LLM radiation. Too bad we don’t have a portal gun to access an infinite number of parallel universes where large language models were never invented for sources of unlimited fresh training data and unlimited palpatine power.
    - briHass 6mo ago

zozbot234 6mo ago

> lately I've found myself using codex (in terminal) for terminal tasks I've previously done by CLI commands. This is the real "computer use". We will always need GUI-level interaction for proprietary apps and websites that aren't made available in machine-readable form, but everything else you do with a computer should just be mapped to simple CLI commands that are comparatively trivial for a text-based AI.

jampekka 6mo ago
I think websites via DOM are gonna be quite easy for the models.

Havoc 6mo ago

>terminal tasks I've previously done using CLI commands. Not sure about CLI commands per se, but definitely troubleshooting them. Docker-compose files in particular..."here's the error, here's the compose, help" is just magic

einpoklum 6mo ago

> tasks I've previously done using CLI commands. Great, now you perform those tasks more slowly, using up a lot more computing power, with your activities and possibly data recorded by some remote party of questionable repute.

Paradigma11 6mo ago
He is using a lot less computing power where it counts, his own.

zee_builds 6mo ago

[dead]

dewey 6mo ago

After setting up a new computer recently I wanted to play around with nix. I would've never done that without LLMs. Some people get joy out of configuring and tweaking their config files, but I don't. Being able to just let the LLM deal with that is great.