Every few weeks Pi hits #1 here and I quietly grumble "mine does that too, but with lovely graphics.", so I'm saying it out loud: <a href="https://github.com/juggler-ai/juggler" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/juggler-ai/juggler
Like Pi, it's plugins all the way down, provider-agnostic, minimal system prompts, threaded sub-agents, code-mode, multi-client remote sessions, worktrees, a context window you can actually see and edit, etc etc
Where Pi is way ahead is the plugin ecosystem, and that takes people, which is hard to get amid the current deluge of agent action. So if there's any spare oxygen trailing off this thread, I'd love any Pi-heads who fancy a bit of GUI action to come and kick the tyres..
My personal quiet grumbling is that everyone got on the TUI bandwagon without any rational reason. I find it borderline psychotic. Or maybe humans are much more like sheep than we care to admit: we just follow the flock into the (UI) ravine. So your GUI is a nice escape.
Or maybe people genuinely like TUIs? Most folks came of age after the TUI had already lost popularity to the eye candy and only recently learned the merits of the terminal. I personally have always loved a good TUI and enjoy the terminal. I can’t count the number of people who worked in a TUI and were pushed to a modern GUI say (usually in the 00’s) how much more productive they were in the TUI version.
What would you say are the merits of the terminal that a TUI encapsulates?
My opinion is that TUI is just a GUI with less fidelity. Being composed of text characters provides no additional benefit other than a retro style. The benefits of the terminal are outside of TUIs - composing scripts, piping data, bash etc.
Text interfaces can offer precision and breadth of tooling that guis don't.
I do a fair amount of CAD so I'll use that example. Nobody who uses CAD professionally is clicking all the little buttons for tools. They're using commands, shortcuts, scripts, etc.
A GUI is slow and clunky. A textual interface, once learned, has way more degrees of freedom.
I don't think anyone referring to GUI means 'no commands/shortcuts/scripts', like, all of those that all CAD programs are GUIs that have commands, shortcuts, etc.
My two cents is that having all of your text be monospaced is not really ideal for agentic workflows where you do in fact read a lot of prose and in the future may want diagrams, rendered from a full browser's capabilities, etc.
I think I like the aesthetic of using a TUI because it makes me feel more like whatever 'real programmer' means to me... but I recognize its also cope.
julesrms · · focus · HN ↗
Like Pi, it's plugins all the way down, provider-agnostic, minimal system prompts, threaded sub-agents, code-mode, multi-client remote sessions, worktrees, a context window you can actually see and edit, etc etc
Where Pi is way ahead is the plugin ecosystem, and that takes people, which is hard to get amid the current deluge of agent action. So if there's any spare oxygen trailing off this thread, I'd love any Pi-heads who fancy a bit of GUI action to come and kick the tyres..
jonenst · · focus · HN ↗
grosswait · · focus · HN ↗
almostarockstar · · focus · HN ↗
My opinion is that TUI is just a GUI with less fidelity. Being composed of text characters provides no additional benefit other than a retro style. The benefits of the terminal are outside of TUIs - composing scripts, piping data, bash etc.
idiotsecant · · focus · HN ↗
I do a fair amount of CAD so I'll use that example. Nobody who uses CAD professionally is clicking all the little buttons for tools. They're using commands, shortcuts, scripts, etc.
A GUI is slow and clunky. A textual interface, once learned, has way more degrees of freedom.
kaibee · · focus · HN ↗
My two cents is that having all of your text be monospaced is not really ideal for agentic workflows where you do in fact read a lot of prose and in the future may want diagrams, rendered from a full browser's capabilities, etc.
I think I like the aesthetic of using a TUI because it makes me feel more like whatever 'real programmer' means to me... but I recognize its also cope.