
Ask HN: How do I distinguish the fourth from the third of these? - ErotemeObelus
There are (at least) four types of interfaces that occur in programming.<p>Type #1. Command line. &quot;foo --bar --baz&quot;. You step into the program, and then step out of it.<p>Type #2. REPL. You step into a program, do something, then it does something back in a sequential manner. You exit it when you want to.<p>Type #3. Word processor. The same as Type #2 except the REPL happens in real time instead of sequentially.<p>Type #4. GUI.<p>How do I distinguish the fourth from the third of these?
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ksaj
I believe "word processor" refers less to wysiwyg and more to the technologies
behind Siri and whatever other real-time voice input technologies are out
there. No GUI needed.

GUIs usually have things you point and click, and by definition need a screen
monitor of some type. The other, you simply talk to.

The list skips autonomous sensor, but I think they are common enough to
warrant inclusion. We recently saw two Boeing disasters in a row resulting
from autonomous sensor failures.

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keyle
GUI stands for Graphical User Interface, emphasis on Graphical.

If it's in a text buffer it's a TUI, text user interface.

I mean you could get pedantic about these things, but basically if it's
rendered with a graphic framework, it's a GUI, whether it's CPU, deferred or
immediate, or GPU rendered.

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ErotemeObelus
So GUI is a REPL but with graphical components instead of text buffer. This is
what I suspected, but I wanted to make sure.

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ksaj
Its a multiply-persistent repl. For example, clisp is a lispy repl. Scratch is
a lispy gui.

Both repls and guis have text buffers. But guis are an order of magnitude
separated by their presentation layer.

