That’s a question no one has yet been able to answer definitively though both neuroscientists and philosophers are trying.

I’m of the opinion that “I” am a pattern, encoded in the physical interactions of my brain and body. I’m not certain if I have free will or just like to think I do. But I do believe that whatever makes me “me” is fully contained within the dimensions of my physical being.

I love this concept. A purely memetic threat. An idea that could destroy you merely by knowing it…

(If a specific set of improbabilities are true)

You cannot step into the same river twice - Heraclitus, ~550 BC

We are all a series of continuous evolution, alteration and change. “I” am not the same person who began this sentence. The idea that “I” cease to exist overnight and begin anew in the morning is meaningless. There is no one version of me. I live - and to live is to change!

Thank you for responding! I really liked this bit

with a (decently designed) UI, you merely have to remember the path you took to get to wherever you want to go, what buttons to press, what mouse movements to execute.

I think that’s very insightful. I certainly have developed muscle-memory for many of my most-frequent commands in the CLI or editor of choice.

I agree about Visual Studio as a preference. I’ve used (or at least tried) dozens of IDE setups down the years from vi/emacs to JetBrains/VS to more esoteric things like Code Bubbles. I’ve found my personal happy place but I’d never tell someone else their way of working was wrong.

(Except for emacs devs. (Excepting again evil-mode emacs devs - who are merely confused and are approaching the light.)) ;)

I hope you take this in good humor and at least consider a TUI for your next project.

Absolutely. I see what you did there… 😉

But seriously, thank you for your response!

I think your comment about GUIs being better at displaying the current state and context was very insightful. Most CLI work I do is generally about composing a pipeline and shoving some sort of data through it. As a class of work, that’s a common task, but certainly not the only thing I do with my PC.

Multistage operations like, say, Bluetooth pairing I definitely prefer to use the GUI for. I think it is partially because of the state tracking inherent in the process.

Thanks again!

As someone who genuinely loves the command line - I’d like to know more about your perspective. (Genuinely. I solemnly swear not to try to convince you of my perspective.)

What about GUIs appeals to you over a command line?

I like the CLI because it feels like a conversation with the computer. I explain what I want, combining commands as necessary, and the machine responds.

With GUIs I feel like I’m always relearning tools. Even something as straightforward as ‘find and replace’ has different keyboard shortcuts in most of the text-editing apps I use - and regex support is spotty.

Not to say that I think the terminal is best for all things. I do use an IDE and windowing environments. Just that - when there are CLI tools I tend to prefer them over an equivalent GUI tool.

Anyway, I’m interested to hear your perspective- what about GUIs works better for you? What about the CLI is failing you?

Thank you!

Let’s start a patent troll company that exclusively deals in dark pattern bullshit. Then sue every company that implements any of our terrible patents for as much money as possible. Use the proceeds to bribe lobby congress to pass stronger consumer protection laws.