Hacker News Reader

I agree. As a simple exercise, look at all software tools that’s GUI only. They become a large walled garden unable to be penetrated by LLM.

Tools that are mostly text or have text interfaces? Greatly improved by LLM.

So all of those rich multimedia and their players/editors really need to add text representations.

View on HN

People make fun of it, but I think the fact that Unixey stuff can use tools that have existed since the 70's [1] can be attributed to the fact that they're text based. Every OS has its own philosophy on how to do GUI stuff and as such GUI programs have to do a lot of bullshit to migrate, but every OS can handle text in one form or another.

When I first started using Linux I used to make fun of people who were stuck on the command line, but now pretty much everything I do is a command line program (using NeoVim and tmux).

[1] Yes, obviously with updates but the point more or less still stands.

And when everything is a text file you have (optimally) a human readable single source of truth on things... Very important when things get complicated and layered. In GUI stuff your only option is often to start anew, make the same movements as the first time and hope you end with what you want.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com