If you're making software for actual end-users, you HAVE to give it a goddamn GUI, or else you suck, your software sucks, and nobody is going to use your damn software.
If you're making software for actual end-users, you HAVE to give it a goddamn GUI, or else you suck, your software sucks, and nobody is going to use your damn software.
You see this shit SO much more often than you would think. And the infuriating thing is, it seems to be most common among programs that are INCREDIBLY complex and sophisticated.
It'll be like this:
"What does my program do? Glad you asked. It simulates stress patterns in glass and ceramics, after they come out of a kiln. You can specify any melting temperature, adjust the composition of elements in the glass, and the ambient temperature of the cooling and tempering stages."
"Wow, can you show me how it works?"
"Sure! <opens a command line and starts typing commands>"
"O-oh. Do you have any plans to add a graphical user interface?"
"HAHAHAHAHHA, no. That's never happening. And here I thought you were serious about using advanced software, and being an intelligent person."
Obviously, that last part is just kinda implied. But sometimes, when users request a GUI, the goddamn developer will kinda get in their face, like that.
They always fall back on the position of "well, I developed this shit for free, for your ungrateful ass. So you can build your own fucking GUI."
But the thing about that is...no. And fuck you. I shouldn't have to be two-thirds of a fucking developer, in order to use the fucking software.
If you can figure out how to simulate molecules, or draw 3D stereograms, or translate hieroglyphics, or any other RIDICULOUSLY COMPLICATED SHIT, making a graphical user interface should be nothing to you. You should be able to do it in a fucking afternoon.
IT DEFINITELY SHOULD BE THE EASY PART, FOR YOU.
All the rest of us, who aren't programmers? We envy programmers, and their ability to really connect with computers, on that deep logic level.
If we could do that shit, we would. But a lot of us have tried, and we realize it's not a good use of our time. We can do cool stuff with software, but it's just not ever going to be worthwhile for us to struggle through the act of creating software.
Also, I hasten to add that I have put in my time, using command line interfaces. I used DOS, I used BBS systems, I have used modern command-line-only programs. I know how to do it, but I DON'T WANT TO.
I don't want to have to memorize commands. I don't consider a GUI workflow to be some kind of weird luxury. It has been a basic part of modern software, for around 40 years at this point. Literally get with the program, guys.
If you're serious about making software, get your shit together and implement a fucking GUI from the very first release. Nobody ought to be taking you seriously, if you refuse.
Yeah GUI development isn't easy or straightforward. Thats why there are UI/UX engineers whose sole job is to design and create simple and easy to use interfaces. And they get paid big money to do it too.
If those programmers making ultra specialized software were to waste their time making a GUI, they would never finish the project or would require funding of some sort.
Those ultra-specialists are paid to make GOOD GUIs, for software that is going to cost real money.
I just want a fucking window with fucking buttons on it, so that I don't need to refer to a cheat sheet of fucking text commands. I don't care how ugly the UI is.
That makes a HUGE difference, and you know it. There have been libraries, development environments, fully featured frameworks, and templates for basic GUI structures, for almost as long as there have been GUIs.
I mean, for fuck's sake, does anyone remember Visual Basic? I even developed some shitty software in that language, back in the day.
And, more to the point, there are a bunch of solo developers who do make graphical applications. If this conversation has to come down to me saying "well, this is a skill issue. If you want users, you're gonna have to step up your game and learn to play like the big boys do," then so be it. That's my position, then.
Even if I'm getting the software for free, GUI development being oh-so-difficult is not my problem. If you want to develop software, get your shit together and accept that GUI is kinda here to stay, as a concept.
I mean, not for nothing, but phone apps are all GUI based. There are outreach programs that have volunteers teaching random hobos and 11-year-olds to make phone apps. If they can do it, grown-ass nerds can do it. Fucking facts.
This is a really good and entertaining post and thanks for making it
As a guy who burned out super, super, super, super hard to the point that thinking about code--even though I'm good at it--just makes me feel baaaad, I still can't help but chuckle. Like, in my case, providing what I did to the code world was literally all I could do before I stopped being able to contribute because it hurts inside my brain lol.
But at the same thing the fucking most hilarious part of it is you're right 🤣 People do just not see software as "real" if it involves any reading and typing outside a comment box. Buttons and visualizations are truly everything if one wants to code and be taken seriously by anyone but other hackers. 😭😂 I wonder how much low hanging fruit there is out there of software that people could just make a paid GUI for and make a killing
They always fall back on the position of "well, I developed this shit for free, for your ungrateful ass. So you can build your own fucking GUI."
But the thing about that is...no. And fuck you.
Okay, but consider this: yes.
And fuck you.
People who do things they like for free are called "hobbyists". These hobbyists, unsurprisingly, only do what they want to do. And sometimes they don't want to make a GUI.
The fact that they share the results of their hobby for free at all is just a bonus.
I honestly do get that. And I realize I am overstating my case, in a way that basically makes me an asshole.
I think the problem is often rooted in how projects advertise themselves. The small dev team is like "WE'RE PASSIONATE ABOUT GETTING ________ INTO THE HANDS OF USERS, BECAUSE WE KNOW THE ONLY OTHER SOFTWARE THAT DOES _______ IS A 27-YEAR-OLD APP THAT ONLY WORKS ON A SPECIFIC REVISION OF WINDOWS 95."
But then the damned app is command-line only, and it just feels like it was all a tease.
This raises a point though. A command line tool from '95 will likely recompile and run just fine with maybe a warning or two, while the GUI app is no longer supported because GUI frameworks are notoriously fickle things that go obsolete all the time.
counterpoint: making guis is way more of a pain in the ass than you are giving it credit for, and there are plenty of use cases for software that don't need a gui.
making guis is way more of a pain in the ass than you are giving it credit for
So I'm being told.
there are plenty of use cases for software that don’t need a gui
Maybe so. But forgive me if I'm skeptical, whenever that list of use cases is being drawn up by the people trying to weasel out of developing any GUIs.
I think you have to admit that's a fair point.
Who are these so called people? The command line is the default, a GUI requires extra effort.
If it’s someone’s hobby project then there are no requirements.
If it’s commercial software, then yes if there’s customer demand a GUI is often provided.
They always fall back on the position of "well, I developed this shit for free, for your ungrateful ass. So you can build your own fucking GUI."
But the thing about that is...no. And fuck you. I shouldn't have to be two-thirds of a fucking developer, in order to use the fucking software.
This took it from being "unpopular opinion" to "I'm just a fucking asshole and my opinion doesn't matter."
Or in other words, fuck you, you ungrateful cunt.
The dev making the ceramic stress testing whatchamawhatsit probably has zero skills in making a GUI. The next thing you'd be complaining about is that there's some bug in the GUI, because you're a complete moron and keep doing something stupid. Something the dev didn't ever think someone would do, because they're not a moron, and don't think like one.
They're making the tool because they have a passion for whatever it is they have a passion for. Not because theyre trying to appease your moronic simple mind.
If you're so passionate about GUIs, learn to make a fucking GUI for a command line tool. You fucking tool.
Upvote for solid unpopular opinion post. Also a fairly entertaining rant.
If you can figure out how to simulate molecules, or draw 3D stereograms, or translate hieroglyphics, or any other RIDICULOUSLY COMPLICATED SHIT, making a graphical user interface should be nothing to you. You should be able to do it in a fucking afternoon.
In a word, no. Being able to build an engine doesn't mean you know the first thing about how to design a car. It's a totally different skill set.
I work with PhDs who code all sort of amazing physics engines and then I design the GUI apps around them. That's a full-time job right there (I'm living proof of it), and I wouldn't expect them to understand it any more than they would expect me to understand all the physics.
When you write some sort of procedural tool, you are in complete control of the program flow from start to finish. In a GUI app, the user is in control most of the time. That's awesome if you're the user, but it means a lot more what-if scenarios you have to account for, since users are notoriously unpredictable. And if the task your command line was performing takes an appreciable length of time, you need to spawn it off into separate threads or subprocesses and worry about all the synchronization logic you must get right. This is a programming minefield for anyone who has done it, especially when you need said threads to interact with the GUI, as GUI frameworks are notoriously not thread-safe.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is designing and implementing GUIs is non-trivial, unless maybe you just want something like an installer wizard that runs you through 10 dialogs to gather info for a command line and then runs it.
Conversely, I think that every program should have a way to operate it from the command line and the GUI can just needlessly get in the way a lot of the time `¯_(ツ)_/¯
You write a command once and you can do whatever you want with it, repeatably, forever. It's fantastic! You can then pipe the results into a completely different program all without needing to do much of anything! Want to run it on a schedule? Easy! Want to send the exact parameters you used to someone else? Easy! Want to copy and paste the exact output? Easy! Want to get a daily email with the results? Easy!
Some things are better with a GUI, but, plenty don't need it.
With all that said, I understand why a dev who didn't build their program with CLI in mind wouldn't want to go in afterwards and add it in, especially if they don't use/like CLI interfaces.I've seen similar arguments to yours that every program should have be packaged as an exe, because fuck those fucking programmers thinking I should need to install python to make their shitty programs work. The devs are like "I don't use Windows and wouldn't even know how to package it as an exe and even then, I wouldn't even be able to test that it works, python just works for everyone" and then the guy just continues to go off on a similar rant to yours about how ridiculous this is.
Besides, even if it had a GUI, the complaint would be "why don't they make their software do the things that people want it to do‽‽‽" and then going off about how easy this {insanely complicated thing} would be to add in and EVERYONE {nope, just you} needs this function in order for this software to be useful and the dev is just a POS for not adding it.
Like, I get your point if you're paying for software that doesn't make it clear it doesn't have a GUI, but if you're just on github using someone elses software that they made for themselves and thought other people might like, why are you bitching? Just move on to another piece of software that can do what you want and has a GUI (I'm going to guess you can't/won't because those cost money and you wouldn't be able to belittle and harass the actual software creators and that's half the fun for you).
What if the GUI was just another terminal emulator?
I'd...ummm...feel like I was being trolled?
EDIT: But, like, expertly trolled, obviously.
I upvoted this because it's the point of the sub. Some people like terminal apps, most open source programs are initially created for personal use and then shared to others. GUI can be the hardest, buggiest part of an application and rarely teaches the programmer anything. I think you should try to make one ;)
Like I said to someone else, I actually did make some GUI apps, with Visual Basic, back in the day.
It was, like, ludicrously easy. If the current frameworks that are meant for GUI development have regressed, and it's incredibly hard to make GUIs now, that is something that needs to be solved.
Also, as I said to that person: as an end-user, especially when I'm using free software, I do not need the UI to be pretty, at all.
It can be as ugly as sin on toast, but I just need to have a window with buttons on it, or else I cannot use the damn thing to do real work. My brain just doesn't operate that way. I'll be checking back and forth between the screen and a cheat-sheet of commands that I printed out, and I'll be angry the whole time I'm doing it.
I actually did make some GUI apps, with Visual Basic, back in the day.
A lot has changed in the 20 years since VB was used for GUI application development, especially on the OS side. It's not that GUI development had regressed, it's that everything else has gotten more complicated. It's not about being pretty, it's about complying with all the new security and testing requirements to make a functional application.
If you think that GUI application development should be simple, you could try creating a GUI wrapper around these CLI tools. I'm sure lots of people would be willing to test it for you.
True a UI doesn't have to be pretty but it has to be usable/provide a good experience. To me at least a bad GUI is much worse than a terminal interface. Which is also a UI, just not graphical. I don't write desktop apps with GUIs so I'm not sure how complex it is but it probably depends a lot on the language. If the initial project is using C for example I'd expect adding a GUI to be more of a pain than if it was written in Visual Basic.
Congrats on the true unpopular opinion lol.
I'll add one thing that I don't think has been said, adding gui adds a lot to the dependencies and complexity of maintaining a program. Keeping it in the cli keeps the size of the program down, and ensures it will work longer and on more devices since it's dependent on less libraries that could change.
Because of that, if a cli program gets a gui it's usually a separate project, like how yt-dlp has front-ends like this.
I asked another person this, but I'll ask you, too:
Why is all of this SO INCREDIBLY DIFFERENT when it's a game being developed, instead of a program that does non-game stuff?
When you go to learn game development, every student is being taught to use an engine to manipulate graphical elements in, like, the second hour of study. Why not use engines (even the same game engines) for non-game applications?
Is there some real reason not to do this, especially for small projects? Am I missing something fundamental?
Games are already doing a lot of complex things, and pretty much all games are inherited graphical (other than text adventures I guess).
And a game engine is useful since it helps you do a lot, but it's also a huge dependency with a lot of moving parts. This can be a problem even for games, but games do so many things that having an engine often outweighs the downsides.
Using ytdlp as an example again, that just has to connect to the Internet, and write to a file. Using a game engine for that would be major overkill and make the project way bigger then it has to be, as well as increasing the barrier to entry for developers who want to contribute. Python can do all those things but is lighter, smaller, more flexible, and has a much larger userbase.
GUIs are way more complicated than you imagine, and require a completely different set of skills than developing the sort of program you mentioned.
If you want a nice, easy to use and well supported software, then pay for it and hold whoever you're paying accountable for making it user-friendly. If whatever you are using is free open source software, then that's literally !choosingbeggarsIf you really think it's something that can be built in an afternoon, feel free to commission a freelancer to make the GUI for you or see if the repository owner is accepting any sort of bounties/commissions. How expensive could an afternoon's worth of work be?
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected]
You make good points. Also, people have informed me of just how much things have changed, since the Visual Basic days.
One question, though: why are things so different in the game development space, versus productivity or specilized-use-case software?
Game developers use game engines to develop graphical environments VERY QUICKLY. There are game jam contests that involve people creating graphical applications in literal hours. Also, every tutorial and course for game development involves drawing characters and interactable elements on the screen, in the second hour of study.
Why can this not be done for non-game software? Are engines frowned upon, outside of the gamedev space? For that matter, why not use actual game engines, like Unity (or Godot, as a free alternative) to easily establish GUIs for non-game software, instead of reinventing the GUI wheel, from scratch?
I realize these may be naïve questions, but I'm asking sincerely.
Game devs specialize in writing code that gets displayed on a GUI. They also have to learn how to do scripting and some decision tree stuff for AI, but from day 1, they're writing for a GUI. Plus, game engines contain a tremendous amount of code that makes it very fast to make GUI. That game engine is huge and complicated and you have to spend a bunch of timing learning how the hell it all works. Software devs outside of the games industry haven't done that, and it would increase the size of a small and simple script from 200 lines of code and a few kilobytes to thousands of lines of code and multiple megabytes or gigabytes.
Game engines have their own tools and languages, which can be very different from non-game software, and needless to say require a completely different skill set from your average software without a GUI.
Most of the time, they cannot easily interoperate with the languages people use for other things. When you are building a game, you will be using the engine's tools and language from the very start, but porting an existing software to work inside of a game engine is unrealistic, and building normal software inside of a game engine would be completely absurd for most cases, both for performance reasons and also for developer convenience.
In theory you might be able to pack the original program on its own with no changes and just make the GUI interact with the actual program, but at that point it's already a completely separate project from the original software - a project that the original developer likely has no interest in, assuming that the original program already fulfills their own needs.
In other words: While it is possible to use Godot and alike to create a GUI, for most cases you would have to either do some extremely complex things to run the original program inside of the engine or (re)write the entire program from scratch inside of the engine, and odds are the engine will not have direct equivalents of third-party tools the program relies on.
By all means, provide a GUI.
But being able to do it all from the command line means you can pipe the output of another program directly into your program, and then take that output and feed it into yet another.
The program you describe could be slotted into the control systems of the kiln, cooling, and tempering ovens.
GUIs break that connection. As soon as you start using a GUI, the ability to automatically pipe outputs to inputs is broken. The user is now the link between the programs, manually transferring data between them that could be performed automatically.
All the rest of us, who aren't programmers? We envy programmers, and their ability to really connect with computers, on that deep logic level.
A good GUI will leave the command line visible, and interact able, so that the user can see the program's input and output syntax, and gain that sense of "connection". A good GUI will teach the command line, so that by merely using two programs, the user learns what they need to connect them together.
I actually kinda agree with this.
Even if a commandline tool has more power, utility and flexibility than a gui tool, guis let you drill down into the core workflow of what your software is meant to do. At a minimum, it lets you segment what your regular users are expected to do from what your power users could use your software to do.
Additionally, if you intend for your software to be used by non-software adjacent users, a commandline interface is just asking for people to get lost/confused.
At work, we use ROS on some of our systems and while the commandline tools are simple to someone who works in the ecosystem, knowing what to look at when things go wrong is tricky.
Even a simple gui in tkinter that shows statuses or shows a list of topics and lets you print them out is leagues above the commandline when it comes to how much I need to be involved in other peoples' problems.
It is a luxury to be knowledgeable in software concepts and I think software devs/power users forget that often.
I mentioned VisiCalc to a couple of people, in this discussion, and I think it REALLY needs to be remembered more often, and more clearly.
I keep seeing a lot of people replying to various parts of this discussion, with varying degrees of this opinion:
"Anything you can do with a GUI can be done without a GUI. You basically just THINK you need a GUI, because you're a lazy non-software person. You just need to get used to using CLI, and when you do, you'll thank me, because you'll be able to do even more powerful things than you ever could, with your GUI crutch."
Well, spreadsheets blow that entire argument out of the water, instantly.
The whole thing about spreadsheets is the fact that they are a GUI. The original VisiCalc spreadsheet application BARELY had a GUI. It was all text characters. It was barely running in realtime. But it was a realtime GUI, and that was the entire reason that it was useful.
Note that you could make a command-line-only spreadsheet program. As in, an entirely hidden spreadsheet, where you use commands to define the fields, enter the data, and then use other commands to do operations and query for the results. But that's entirely destroying the whole point of the spreadsheet, as a tool. With VisiCalc (and all modern spreadsheet programs), you can see all the fields at once, change them in any order, and watch as any other relevant fields are affected by the different numbers.
As many people have said about the spreadsheet revolution, it allowed people to "play around with the numbers." For most users, that was what elevated the microcomputer from a mere calculator to a game-changing, paradigm-shifting, universally necessary tool, for anyone who did any kind of business.
Before VisiCalc, you might as well just use a digital calculator, to help you with your business stuff. Just using command-line programs to do calculations wasn't really any faster than a desktop calculator. And those desktop calculators usually had hard-copy printers built into them, so that you wouldn't ever have to re-list the queries you'd made, to refresh your memory.
But, again, the realtime GUI spreadsheet blasted all that apart, and gave users life-altering tools. It wasn't just a matter of "oh, look. We dumbed down the interface, so that stupid Bob the Business Major can finally use software." It was a real step beyond what command-line tools can do.
Now, think about my example of a molecular simulation program for melting, cooling, and tempering ceramics. Isn't that process even more complex than doing sum and division operations on some dollar values, rounded to two digits after the zero? Doesn't it logically follow that you'd want a GUI for a molecular simulation tool, so that you could PLAY AROUND WITH THE NUMBERS, in the same way that you would, with your business expense sheets?
That's the whole point of the software doing simulations, right? On the one level, it's simply easier to poke around at finite-state machines that model known physical and chemical properties than it is to do a bunch of experiments in a real kiln. That's the first stage of why simulation is good for progress. But it really does go beyond that. I would argue that a GUI in a simulation lets you see things from angles that you would never have thought of, before you started tinkering.
If you have to think about how you're going to query the system, on a command line, then read out the data afterward, you're going to run up against the limitations of the human imagination. Some users will think of every query they ought to make, without any prompting, and with less trial and error. Others will never think of certain aspects of the simulation, unless and until they can SEE the parameters laid out in front of them, in a graphical, preferably realtime fashion.
Obviously, not everything can be realtime. But graphical interfaces always allow better viewing of simultaneous and parallel functions.
It's not just a matter of "we'll throw some of these non-techie users a bone, and make this stuff easier for their lazy asses." There ARE fundamental advantages to a GUI, which truly to go beyond simple "user friendliness." Succinctly, a GUI user is not the opposite of a power user.
This software is not for you. It's for the author. It's in furtherance of their research, or their career, or their interests. It is only incidentally available to you.
That's it, that's the whole story. You get a GUI if the authors wanted there to be a GUI.
If you join a community around the product - which would require being nice, willing to engage, understand, not make demands - you might be able to give feedback and occasionally help steer the direction of the product.
I know. Its like these foundation guys. Learn to build the whole fucking house if your serious about being in construction!!!
Rebuttal: "I know I said I could build you a house, but walls are hard. Like, you don't even understand how complicated modern walls are. It's not like walls were, 20 years ago. You're gonna have to suck it up, with this carport structure, with just the roof and the floor."
But nobody said they’d build a house. They said they’d setup the plumbing and then you expected the walls all on your own.
GUI components aren't (usually) interoperable, with other programs, they aren't flexible, and they aren't scriptable at scale. They are good for new people and laypeople, but they are hard to write (lots of requirements for input validation) and you have to prescribe a specific workflow. I would argue after being on both ends of the discussion that the one guy you DEFINITELY don't want to write a UI for a complex scientific program is the guy who wrote the program: it means to use it he expects you to think like him.
I would suggest the other perspective: any academic or research tool that DOESNT have CLI parity available alongside a GUI (if it has one) shouldn't be taken seriously.
Nope, don't agree. I definitely write software, but the UI for the end user is (usually) exactly one button. What would I need an GUI for?
I don't have experience to add to the discussion, but it seems like this is a genuinely unpopular opinion from the comments, so it gets my upvote
I'm a senior software dev and have built a shitload of tools and scripts that are command line only. I've been told that I'm a really great developer, and I have a knack for figuring things out, even when there's no documentation.
For the life of me, I absolutely cannot wrap my head around frontend shit. Like, I can do markdown just fine. HTML? CSS? Any of the popular frontend UI frameworks? I just seem to have some sort of conceptual and motivational block that prevents me from figuring out how to make those accursed fucking frontends.
It's such a different form of software development. I wish I could wrap my head around it, but I've accept that I'm not ever going to be a frontend dev. I just write server side stuff and scripts. I apologize if you ever have to use my software :(
I appreciate your perspective. I'll also fire off a question at you, which I've also posed to some of the other participants in this discussion:
Why is all of this so different, when you shift the frame to game development? Modern game engines are built to allow EXTREMELY fast implementation of realtime GUI elements. When you go to study gamedev, you're tying GUI elements to backend code in literally the second hour of the coursework.
So why aren't game engines used for productivity and specialized-use-case software?
Not all end-users are the same though. Clearly, you are not in the target user group for this software. If a GUI was that sought after, someone could create that as a standalone project. Upvoted for the genuine unpopular opinion
Idk man. Neofetch is pretty good and that doesn't use a GUI.
Eventually AI will just generate a GUI for you. In the meantime, ShellGPT will write the shell commands for you. But for the most part, GUIs are a weird luxury and you should just learn some bash, it’ll make you feel better!
If you mod Skyrim or Fallout: chances are you use the Script Extender... Which runs in a cmdline window without a GUI.