Comment by wonger_

Flashy TUIs have been around for a few years. Check out the galleries for TUI frameworks:

https://ratatui.rs/showcase/apps/

https://github.com/charmbracelet/bubbletea/tree/main/example...

https://textual.textualize.io/

I've been drafting a blog post about their pros and cons. You're right, text input doesn't feel like a true REPL, probably because they're not using readline. And we see more borders and whitespace because people can afford the screen space.

But there's perks like mouse support, discoverable commands, and color cues. Also, would you prefer someone make a mediocre GUI or a mediocre GUI for your workflows?