The Monday Morning That Changed My Terminal Life: An Intro to Gum (Part 0)
The Monday Morning That Changed My Terminal Life: An Intro to Gum (Part 0)
Or: How I Discovered That My Terminal Could Be Beautiful
Monday morning. You know the drill, but honestly, I was already awake and pretending to be productive. The plan was simple: crank out a NestJS modules before noon. Reality? I was still in my rented room, making the kind of breakfast that screams “middle class luxury”: two eggs. That’s it. Two eggs and a warm glass of Atay, because who needs coffee when you can sip tea and pretend it is liquid wisdom.
Reen!
My phone buzzed like it had just won a lottery. I glanced at the screen and saw a message from my mentor on his Discord server, “Council of Echoes” (the name alone should tell you this man treats the internet like his personal kingdom). The message said:
“testing discord from Term.”
I stared at it for a good ten seconds, tea halfway to my mouth.
“Term?” I muttered. “Is this some secret cult I wasn’t invited to?”
Now, you need to understand, I have reached the stage in tech where every new word feels like another brick added to my guilt wall of “things I should already know.” So I just sat there, wondering if “Term” was some new programming framework, a package manager, or maybe a vitamin supplement for burned-out devs.
Later that day, curiosity won.
“Hey,” I asked him casually, “what’s Term?”
“Terminal,” he said.
My brain flatlined for exactly 2.3 seconds. Terminal. The thing I literally use every single day. The place where my soul lives (Arch user, by the way, but not really an “Arch guy” since I used archinstall like a coward). And somehow, I could not decode a three-letter abbreviation. Honestly, if overthinking was an Olympic sport, I would have a gold medal.
“Right,” I said, nodding like I totally knew that all along. “Obviously.”
But before I could bury my shame, he dropped another bomb:
“It’s just a test from this tool called discordo.”
He sent me the GitHub link. And suddenly, I was not embarrassed anymore, I was curious. Discordo turned out to be a lightweight Discord client that runs entirely in the terminal. No distracting purple, no dancing emojis, just plain text. It was kind of beautiful.
And then, just as I was processing that, he said the words that changed everything:
“Oh, if you like that, you should check out TUIs.”
“TUIs?” I repeated, trying to look like I was not about to Google it immediately.
Of course, the first thing I did was open my browser with lightning-fast i3 shortcuts and type “TUI.” The result? “TUI.co.uk | Holidays, Flights & Cruises.”
Apparently, my destiny was not terminal interfaces but cheap vacation deals. For a second, I thought TUIs were some kind of dev holiday planning framework, like “press F12 to book your cruise.”
But eventually, I refined my search and found the real meaning: Terminal User Interfaces. And suddenly, everything clicked.
As soon as I understood what TUIs really were, my brain jumped into overdrive.
“Wait… if discordo is just a TUI client for Discord,” I thought, “why couldn’t I try building something like that myself?”
Not a billion-dollar startup version, more like a weekend project, the kind that probably crashes when you send an emoji. But still, the idea of making my own little text-based client for something felt exciting. And honestly, that spark of “I could make this too” is half the reason I even bother learning new tools in the first place.
Plus, I had already dabbled in bash scripting before. Nothing groundbreaking, just the kind of scripts that make your life easier but also make you pray you typed the right path before hitting enter. So the idea of combining that tinkering habit with TUIs felt natural.
That is when my mentor pulled up Gum, and suddenly my hobby idea had a new superpower. Not only could I make a TUI app, but I could make it actually look nice too.
Gum is gorgeous. This little tool takes your ugly, functional bash scripts and gives them a makeover that would put reality TV stylists to shame. Dropdowns, prompts, menus, suddenly it is not just “press enter and pray,” it is actually pleasant to use.
Scrolling through the examples, I felt that little spark again. You know the one: when you find a new framework, or when recursion finally makes sense, or when you automate something so boring it used to make you question your career choices.
“I think,” I said out loud, “I just found my new hobby.”
And that is how a random Monday notification spiraled into my entry point to terminal beautification. One moment I was confused by three letters, the next I was sketching ideas for scripts that would not make people run for the GUI.
So this is Part 0 of the adventure. Next up: me actually trying Gum, probably breaking something, and definitely pretending I knew what I was doing the whole time.
Will I create the world’s most aesthetic deployment script? Will I turn my tea kettle into a TUI? Will I regret not booking that cruise?
Only time will tell. But my bash scripts are about to glow up.
P.S. If you are reading this thinking, “who gets excited about terminal interfaces?” do not worry, you are among your people. We are the ones who call syntax highlighting “art” and mean it.