Unironically a good idea. Graphics have always been a mistake - most engineers would agree that if we stuck with very basic output, our software would be in a much better place than today (and more usable, too!)
once you become an engineer you cant unsee it very easily, your user vision is now tainted by a higher understanding of problems, rather than feeling frustrated at {FOO = FAIL} bugs and submitting a complaint comment.
It may be worth evaluating why we need to explore this space through computing in the first place? Pen and paper have never failed us before, nor has actually traveling to the space in question.
generally speaking, computers are faster at performing calculations than humans. this can be beneficial for humans, as if they are able to convert a problem (for example, mapping the densities of functions over a 2D space) into a purely mathematical one, humans are able to save significant time and effort.
i both agree and disagree with this. on one hand, it’s true that having everything run in CLI mode would probably make programs truly cross platform. for example, recently I had to use namebenchmark to find the best DNS for my needs. on the M1 mac, the program cannot be run since it’s 32 bit. but i managed to simply run it in a terminal instead by calling its python script (used version 2.7). now i get to run this app on any platform since python is also cross platform. but the GUI version would not be easily ported to linux, windows, etc.
on the other hand, most users are not like me. they want something they can interact with using a mouse, and they often use keyboard only to enter words, not commands or shortcuts. so GUI has definitely a place in today’s world.
Unironically a good idea. Graphics have always been a mistake - most engineers would agree that if we stuck with very basic output, our software would be in a much better place than today (and more usable, too!)