[benjamincburns]

I wasn't alive in the 70s, but I still prefer a terminal.

I can string together a complex series of text-related tasks far more effectively as a shell pipeline than I can by pointing and clicking in a UI. I can scale that sequence of tasks out to operate on every file on the filesystem if I want, or down to a single character in a single file.

Claude Code being a full-featured TUI is also helpful because I can quickly/easily use it remotely via SSH without having to deal with setting up X forwarding, VNC, Parsec, etc. The remote host doesn't even need to have a window manager. Sure, it'd be nice if it also had an elegant multi-page GUI so I could more easily drill into the actions its performing and make better use of my large screen to watch it do multi-agent things, but if I have to choose between the two, I prefer the TUI.

That said, I'd much rather use a GUI to do things that are actually visual/spatial in nature.

[madarco]

can't agree more, I now run my agents in parallel with "agentbox claude", "agentbox opencode" and it teleport my project and settings to an hetzner VPS

For those interested: https://github.com/madarco/agentbox

[pjmlp]

I can do the same in a language REPL, with the advantage it doesn't need to emulate a teletype.

[1718627440]

The terminal is a language REPL, which the advantage, that it is the environment the whole OS runs on.

[pjmlp]

It is an handicapped REPL, not really the same.

Such statements can only be voiced by those that never experienced what using a proper REPL actually feels like.

Not something that emulates a vt100 teletype.

[1718627440]

The "vt100 teletype emulation" only concerns the protocol in which the program describes what to draw on the display. It might be inconvenient for the programmer, but for the user it is kinda irrelevant.

> Such statements can only be voiced by those that never experienced what using a proper REPL actually feels like.

Maybe. What do you mean with proper REPL? SBCL just runs fine in my terminal emulator. As do all other kind of programming languages, like Prolog.

When I interface with the OS, I want to start programs, control the processes, setup communication channels (pipes) and tell to computer to combine multiple programs to filter, combine, split stuff and redirect it to files and other programs. These should be also be able to run several times with slight differences. All of that works just fine in my shell. What are you missing?

[pjmlp]

SBCL REPL cannot do this on xterm, it needs a proper hosting REPL environment like SLIME, which is no wonder, given how Emacs came to be and the interaction with genera.

Inline graphics from 1981,

https://youtu.be/o4-YnLpLgtk?t=376Or

Or using S-PACKAGE used to develop Nintendo 64.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV5obrYaogU

You are missing integration with live debugging, calling anything on the OS during a REPL session, e.g. OS APIs, calling into automation points of the OS,

Can try out directly on the browser, courtesy of WebAssembly and recovery of Xerox PARC software, https://interlisp.org.

Or get either Squeak or Pharo, and see how using the Transcript integrates with the whole platform

Windows, with either PowerShell ISE, or its new VSCode integration, are the closest to these kind of experiences.

To finalise with Xerox PARC view on UNIX, from 1989

"UNIX Needs A True Integrated Environment: CASE Closed"

https://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/CSL-89-...