I'm regular Far Commander on Windows, and Midnight Commander, also known as mc on Linux/OSX. In fact my "Command-Prompt" on Windows is always FAR (this comes with certain limitations, but I'm so used to it, I can't do my normal work without it). I could never get into the Explorer, and only use it in rare cases.
As for Orthodox File Managers, I'm in the same camp and I could never understand how people can be productive with bare Explorer window. Most operations of files and directories require more work (keystrokes/mouse movements) than in OFMs. Not to mention things like having a quick look into any text file, for example (F3-Esc) as opposed to double clicking - running an external viewer - closing it. Practically everything in OFMs can be done faster.
My only experience with C# is in using the Unity 3D game engine. Now with a console apps ecosystem, cross-platform focus, GUI libraries, machine learning stuff, mobile apps. It's becoming an attractive prospect by the day.
Now with .NET Core embracing cross platform and maturing nicely, it feels like the whole ecosystem can be described as "Java, but better". On Windows, it's already been there for a decade or more, but the label never felt right when hosting on Linux meant using an alternative runtime like Mono.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/xa50x1/ma...
I'm also aware of a couple of companies maintaining systems in Harbour and my parents use a web app written in Pascal -- I could tell by the error messages, which are extremely rare btw; the system is very stable, despite the frequent changes it goes through thanks to the tax-legislation mess we have here.
I started asking people about which type of system they prefer: those old dinosaurs or the good-looking, modern ones? 100% voted for the former. Why? "It's fast", they answer.
Some say it's because "they learned to work on those older systems and now are resisting to change". But this is simply false: even younger professionals, who grew using GUIs and web apps, prefer TUIs when it comes to get stuff done.
Such interfaces are also easier to develop. Then, I believe it would be a win-win if TUIs were widely readopted: happier users, systems cheaper to design, build and test.
But trends are so hard to change...
I once had an interesting experience migrating users from a TUI to a GUI app, ~20 years ago. In that case, after watching them work for a while and asking some questions, the takeaway was that they really wanted the flow to be 100% keyboard-based. Which the GUI apps nominally provided (back then; less so these days), but all too often the correct tab order etc is ignored in practice, making it very difficult to use.
I made sure design the GUI with keyboard in mind, and that common patterns they've learned from TUI would still work. For example, the TUI had a textbox above a listbox, and it was common for users to press arrow-down to navigate from the textbox to the first item in the list, and arrow-up to navigate from the list back into the textbox. This isn't normal behavior for GUI, but I coded it in anyway.
First I thought resizing doesn't work but it seems it's only an issue with kitty, on alacritty it works as expected, in case anyone else is wondering the same.
I wish it also worked with something like xterm.js, a terminal in the browser.
Either by compiling .Net to WASM... Like Client-Side Blazor does, right?
...or using client-server technology... Like Server-Side Blazor does, right?
We're working on it [1]
[1] https://github.com/Blazor-Console/HACC/blob/main/README.md
> A possible BBS with door games like ZMachine and a sea-faring game I'm writing in a private repo, (top secret!) which used to have the only test harness solution containing both the source and test repos.
My hot take would be to implement a lot of LambdaMOO [1]... in C#... because I like the grammar and parser [1], and I like reflection and attributes... and... Well, it's a thing I'd just like to exist.
[1] : https://www.hayseed.net/MOO/manuals/ProgrammersManual.html
Simply mapping Gui -> TUI isn't really a good user experience IME. The terminal should generally be keyboard-first/designed with keyboard-only in mind.
I think console UIs are good for a sweet spot where you need a "just good enough" UI that you can whip up in a few minutes. I hope this meets the sweet spot.
I'd like to write MUDs (Multi-User Dungeon games) in C#...
Way to go, team.
If you want to write code in .NET you will need to install the .NET SDK.
If you just want to run an application written in .NET... it depends. Apps can be shipped with a built-in .NET runtime ("self-contained"), which makes them bigger on disk but they don't need any prerequisites installed. Apps can also be shipped without a .NET runtime ("framework-dependent"), in which case the user needs to have a shared runtime installed to run the app.
Very funny.
If you haven't looked at .NET in a few years, you'd be surprised.
More details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxM8QmyZXtg
