How I'm still not using GUIs in 2019: A guide to the terminal
&gt; <i>GUIs are bloatware.</i><p>This is only true, firstly, when what you&#x27;re trying to represent can be accurately, completely, and most concisely represented by plain text. That&#x27;s actually a fairly narrow range, unless you&#x27;re a programmer.  And secondly, it&#x27;s only true when you&#x27;re not interested in using common interface conventions to teach your users how to use your program. While that can certainly be done -- the -? and --help parameters spring to mind -- it&#x27;s much easier when there are UI guidelines [0] that everybody sticks to simply by virtue of how GUIs tend to work (i.e., there are existing common libraries to describe the interface in predictable ways).<p>If everything you do deals with text (i.e., you&#x27;re a programmer), and you never or rarely need to use unknown programs, then the terminal is great.<p>Think about it this way. Exactly what have you had to do to learn how to use web pages? Like, since the 90s when Mosaic would still render most websites. You haven&#x27;t. It&#x27;s point, click, scroll, and type. That user interface has worked, essentially unchanged, for nearly 30 years. You&#x27;ve gone to brand new websites, potentially written by people who don&#x27;t speak your language, and you&#x27;ve been able to use the site because there&#x27;s a shared convention that everybody uses. And <i>everybody</i> does use it. There are <i>4.2 billion</i> users of the world wide web [1], and the interface works for essentially everyone. That&#x27;s an extremely impressive feat for interface design.<p>Meanwhile, nearly 50 years after vi was first introduced, it&#x27;s still notoriously difficult to learn -- even the basics. You might argue that programming is more complicated than browsing the web, but realistically, <i>editing a text document</i> is about as basic a task that you can have on a computer.<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;windows&#x2F;desktop&#x2F;appuistart&#x2F;designing-a-user-interface" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;windows&#x2F;desktop&#x2F;appuistart&#x2F;...</a>
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