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Comment by joshka

As a ratatui library maintainer, NO - please don't stop making TUIs ;)

As a developer outside of that, I love the scratch the itch apps stuff mentioned in here. I have a vibe coded SwiftUI chess repertoire builder app that fits in that same sort of space that I'm currently working on, where I'd probably not have chosen to explore the idea if not for coding agents.

I agree with the article that the terminal is an odd shape which you're fighting against historical specs, etc. The key observation I have though is that the mismatch of terminal apps and libraries to deal with this are all fundamentally built around character cells and cursor movement plus various CSI/OSC/ASC/DEC/xterm/... protocols which are complex and have varying support and interact in weird ways.

To get a good terminal UX, I think the answer to this is probably to throw all that compatibility mess away and redesign a modern terminal protocol that bakes in accessibility, regions, scrolling, selection, proper keyboard, etc.

I know Mitchell Hashimoto has a bit of a different perspective on this, which seems like it's to define some more protocol stuff and continue to build up on things. I think that probably gets to 95% pretty well. But a 100% good is a full replacement.

parent joshka 2 months ago

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