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Comment by aidenn0 | Hacker News Reader

Am I the only one who finds calling curses apps "command-line" to be a stretch? Nobody would have called turbo-pascal a "command-line" program, for example.

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Indeed the (new) correct term would be "TUI": Text-based user interface: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text-based_user_interface .

I think the more important distinction between "command line" and not is wether it can be run without X.

I'd agree for "shell", "terminal", "console", something like that. But to me, the distinction is whether or not it has a text interface. That is, I interact via text, and it responds in kind.

What about a GUI program that uses text to control it? Many GUI programs do have command-line components in them (editors, ides). (not suggesting that makes them command line programs per se, but that the idea of "command-line"-ness transcends X)

Yes, you're the only one.

He's completely correct, though. Most screen-oriented programs, in power and flexibility, are closer to pull-down menus with predefined commands than to proper command lines. ncurses is "GUI without the G", not "CLI".

If you're calling a curses program "command line" just because its physical appearance is close to a shell in a terminal... that's like calling a Gtk application a Windows app.

If you're calling a curses program command line because you don't know the difference, the clue is in the name: command-driven and line-oriented - command line. As opposed to keyboard-driven and screen-oriented.

Among other disadvantages, screen-oriented things have this built-in model of forced interaction.

The technical advantages of being CLI don't matter to a powerpoint, but it's still incorrect call it as such.

No, I'm calling it "command line" because it runs on and takes input from the command line.

I don't know what "runs on the command line" means, but as for taking filename arguments... so does Microsoft Word.

Well, it runs on the terminal. But not on the command line. These are different concepts.

By that logic, Windows up until 98 was also a command line application. Doesn't really add up.

Windows Me also used a DOS bootloader, but it was more discrete than it's predecessors.

I feel it's overly pedantic, regardless of the argument.

Maybe, I dunno. But I'd sooner conflate, say, C and Java (something that would never happen, but anyway) than willingly conflate command-line and screen-oriented - the former are different in degree, but the latter are different in kind, you know what I mean?

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