CLI et TUI vivunt
This is not clickbait, I promise. It is however a very trivial article. The title means that CLIs and TUIs live, in Latin. You might ask yourself if this is yet another article on why CLIs and TUIs are great. Is it though?
For the past month, I’ve been looking into Go. A mate talked a lot about it, in early August. It made me consider of what it would be to go back to it.(bad pun, I know)
As I was stalking his GitHub, there was this repo named deadcli. Its description was simply glorious("The Dead CLI Blog"). It had a single article(article link).
It spoke of his appreciation of the aesthetics of CLIs and TUIs, and how some people simply forget they exist. Shiny buttons dominate consumer software, or how it was written by the author:
“People see them as black boxes that only pro users and sysadmins dare to use ignoring their beauty, simplicity and flexibility.”
It echoes that beautiful short poem of Álvaro de Campos, an heteronym of Fernando Pessoa. The poem goes as follows:
O binómio de Newton é tão belo como a Vénus de Milo.
O binómio de Newton é tão belo como a Vénus de Milo.
O que há é pouca gente para dar por isso.
óóóó — óóóóóóóóó — óóóóóóóóóóóóóóó
(O vento lá fora).
Álvaro de Campos
The rest of the article is the description a blog on CLIs and TUIs. It is apparently a dead project, which I’m going to try revive by annoying him. The objective is noble, and it’s to bring truth and knowledge to the people addicted to shiny buttons.
On CLIs and TUIs, I only disagree about the point their being reborn. They’ll always be there, hidden in the shadows and invisible for the shiny button people.
From ignorance, only idolatry comes by, and more darkness envelops this already very dark world of ours. It makes me wonder of this guy I once met in University, which was demeaning towards a colleague. He couldn’t stop saying he used Arch. God knows, he got humbled a bit, when I asked him to show me his setup, and regretfully had to break his glass ceiling.
Knowledge can come from experience, and experience is painful. I can’t say if it only derives from it. Who knows?
I sure don’t know, but I do like my tools, which I can automate. Got to love them CLIs.