[gwbas1c]

Just curious: Why would someone do a TUI (text-based user interface) on a modern computer?

Using C# implies that you're running on a device powerful enough for a traditional GUI.

(And you really don't need much to run C#, just enough RAM / Disk for the framework and to handle the overhead of the garbage collector.)

[kbenson]

Very common for server software, where you may not have a GUI environment installed.

You can run SSH as a server on windows boxes easily now, and depending on your needs (or to standardize across a heterogeneous fleet of servers) it might make sense to have some good CLI/TUI utilities available that are cross-platform.

While I imagine most people won't jump to a TUI for Windows, it could also be a secondary interface for an application that's run on both Windows and Linux/BSD. If no GUI (or no Windows GUI) is detected, approximate the same display using a TUI. The guys of the application can be the same, and you don't have to ship two versions (assuming the rest of the internals area already portable).

[gwbas1c]

(Joke)

Then maybe a cool project is an adapter to allow the text-based GUI to work natively when running in a GUI!

[dagmx]

Even on very high end machines, even when I'm running other GUIs, I still do a lot of stuff in the shell especially with regards to working on ssh'd machines.

It's really useful to have things work in the shell directly.

[gwbas1c]

I do a lot in the shell, but not with interactive programs.

[bjoli]

I live in Emacs. It is a program specialized for typing, displaying and navigating text. If whatever I need to do does interaction via text and typing all else is just fluff. Pointing and clicking is just a digression from what I want and what I need to do.

I am not even an old fart. I am barely 30, but I feel completely backwards with regards to all developments in modern computer interaction. I hate smartphones. I hate the modern web. It all feels like one big distraction.

[celticmusic]

I'm 40 and feel the same way most of the time.

GUI's have their place, but damn is i3 + terminal super productive, no matter what the naysayers think.

[cameldrv]

Speed. They usually launch fast and are responsive, because there are no graphical resources that need to load or complex widget hierarchies that need to be constructed. There's no need to switch windows, because the TUI launches in the same window you typed the command into. You don't have to take your fingers off the keyboard because having a mouse is not expected in a TUI.

In principle, all of these things could be done with a GUI, but in practice, they're not, and with the phoneification of software, the keyboard is an afterthought, not the main input mechanism.

[derision]

I still do a ton of stuff in the terminal. More advanced git clients are something I've seen

[rumanator]

> Just curious: Why would someone do a TUI (text-based user interface) on a modern computer?

Because the backbone of the modern computer's infrastructure is comprised of software running on headless systems accessed with remote shells.

[daveslash]

Many Windows Server installations have no GUI or Desktop -- they're command line only.

[McWobbleston]

Personally I use a TUI for Reddit. I prefer the clean interface and keyboard navigation