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>(now here is where we could put some Alan Kay quotes, I'll start with his exasperation at our lack of a real CAD system for programming)

CAD is the worst example, maybe. It requires precision in order to not crush down a bridge and typing commands with numbers gives you that in a much better way than a pure GUI.

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Good point, but I think he uses the CAD example more in the context of simulation than as defending the GUI.

I spent a few years in Architectural CAD software and afterwards went to Computer Science and I was surprised in retrospect how often I was already doing commandline-like things before I knew the first thing about a shell or repl. It seems you have that experience too, I have not heard or read too many people making that observation before.

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