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Comment by rgoulter

2 days ago

Practically? The best keyboard-driven programs are (incidentally) TUIs.

For some reason, expressive keyboard-driven interfaces aren't as popular in GUI interfaces.

My issue with TUIs is the lack of a simple interaction model. Every tool invents its own navigation style like vim bindings, custom key combos, mouse-driven flows and there’s no common fallback. In GUIs, the mouse is always there if nothing else. Even basic things like tabbed navigation can become confusing in TUIs sometimes

  • Sure, for a lowest-common-denominator, GUIs and websites will let you use a mouse. That's great for if you want to use a tool & don't want to take time to get familiar with it.

    There are some things which are inherent to GUI or CLI interfaces.. but, overall, nothing ensures a TUI will be good, and nothing prevents a GUI from providing a good interface. -- The distinctions are generally going to be program specific.

    So e.g. using openlens (GUI) vs k9s (TUI) vs kubectl (CLI).