Stop Making TUIs

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Text-based user interfaces (TUIs) are being reevaluated as large language models make it easier to “vibe code” native graphical apps, especially on platforms like macOS. Commenters argue over whether TUIs’ strengths — speed, low resource use, SSH-friendliness, keyboard-centric workflows, stability and portability across systems — outweigh their drawbacks such as poor accessibility, weaker OS integration, and limited interaction patterns compared to modern GUIs and web apps. Many conclude the choice should be driven by audience and context: TUIs for developers and remote/server workflows, GUIs or web apps for most end‑user tasks, with both benefiting from better tooling and design discipline.

Overall sentiment on TUIs vs GUIs

  • Many commenters strongly like TUIs; others argue they’re primitive, buggy, and inferior to modern GUIs.
  • Several say “use the right tool”: dev tools and power-user workflows benefit from CLI/TUI; end‑user apps should usually be GUI.

Perceived strengths of TUIs

  • Work well over SSH, in tmux/screen, and on headless or remote machines; easy to resume sessions across devices.
  • Low resource use, high responsiveness, and often no animation or visual clutter.
  • Keyboard-centric, information-dense UIs that fit terminal workflows; easy to automate by sending keypresses.
  • Extremely stable platform: terminals and libraries like curses/ncurses have lasted decades; TUIs often need little maintenance.
  • Cross‑platform by default; same TUI can run on Linux, macOS, servers, and sometimes minimal hardware.
  • Easier to make “good enough” interfaces compared to designing high-quality GUIs; constraints simplify design.

Critiques and limitations of TUIs

  • Accessibility is often poor; little support for OS accessibility APIs.
  • Weak integration with GUI desktops (drag‑and‑drop, file associations, system search, document icons, standard shortcuts).
  • Harder to do rich visual tasks (maps, image editing, complex multi-pane documents); fixed character grid and limited widgets.
  • Many TUIs lack scriptability compared to plain CLIs and can’t be piped easily unless explicitly designed for dual CLI/TUI use.
  • Terminal conventions clash with GUI ones (e.g., Ctrl‑C behavior, shortcut inconsistencies).

GUI and web perspectives

  • Some say native GUIs remain stable (Qt, GTK, Cocoa, WinForms/WPF/WinUI) and can be fast and information-dense when well designed.
  • Others complain modern GUIs/web apps favor touch, animations, and whitespace, reducing efficiency and keyboard usability.
  • A faction argues native apps are increasingly anachronistic: use web apps for graphics, TUIs for text.

LLMs and “vibe-coded” UIs

  • Several note that LLMs make it easier to “vibe code” SwiftUI and other GUIs, encouraging personal, disposable native apps.
  • Some criticize the article as an incoherent, clickbaity showcase of such projects; others find it coherent and inspiring.

Terminal & TUI ecosystem

  • New TUI frameworks (Ratatui, Textual, BubbleTea, etc.) are praised; some call for a modern terminal protocol with built‑in accessibility and richer semantics.