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by bmitc 54 days ago
The point is, a lot of work went into making that happen. I.e., plain text as it is today is not some inherent property of computing. It is a binary protocol and displaying text through fonts is also not a trivial matter.

So my question is: what are we leaving on the table by over focusing on text? What about graphs and visual elements?
2 comments
vinceguidry 54 days ago
TUIs can include these, see the kitty graphics protocol, implemented by most if not all modern terminals.

https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/graphics-protocol/

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bmitc 53 days ago
I was not very descriptive, but I was referring to the next layer up of building blocks. Instead of text, we could also express things in hybrid ways with text but also visual nodes that can carry more dense information. The usual response is that those things don't work with text-based tools, but that's my point. Text based tools needed invention and decades of refinement, and they're still not all that great.
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ori_b 54 days ago
And what do we gain by leaving things on the table?
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