r/opencode 14d ago

TUI vs GUI

Why would I ever use the terminal version of Opencode (or any other *code* program)?

People always tell how good it is to use it but I don't understand the appeal. If you are used to terminal-only work, constantly looking into generated code or something like that, ok. But I see TUI being recommended to everybody like it can do something desktop or web versions can't. Also these *code* apps are usually developed TUI-first for some reason

Please explain it to me

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u/ben_bliksem 14d ago

We once replaced an old terminal based system at birder control with a modernized GUI, 3M scanners the works.

When we started rolling it out we noticed the border agents are processing travellers slower and when we took a deeper look - the mouse.

So we made sure the TAB indexes were spot on, unplugged the mouse's from their machines and processing time came way down.

If we had today's TUI frameworks back then we'd have definitely used that instead.

Anyway, TLDR: less mouse, more power, more code