2026-08-21 16:07 UTCOriginal source1 min readUpdated: 2026-08-21 17:08 UTC

Stop Making TUIs

<a href="https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2026/08/20/stop-making-tuis/">Stop Making TUIs</a> Thomas Ptacek advocates for building real native user interfaces for even the smallest of personal tools, because coding agents have reduced the cost of getting a usable-enough GUI up and running to almost nothing. I wrote about my vibe-coded bandwidth and GPU monitoring macOS task bar apps <a href="https://simonwillison.net/2026/Mar/27/vibe-coding-swiftui/">back in March</a>, and I'm still using both of those on a daily basis. I'm not habitually knocking out real UIs for my other projects yet, but I'm running out of excuses! Thomas: <blockquote> If you haven’t tried your hand at turning one of your 500 throwaway CLIs into a native app, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Go build a native UI. It’ll probably change the way you think. </blockquote> Tags: <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/thomas-ptacek">thomas-ptacek</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai">ai</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/generative-ai">generative-ai</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/llms">llms</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/vibe-coding">vibe-coding</a>, <a href="https://simonwillison.net/tags/coding-agents">coding-agents</a>

SourceSimon Willison's Weblog

Stop Making TUIs

Simon Willison’s Weblog

21st August 2026 - Link Blog

Stop Making TUIs. Thomas Ptacek advocates for building real native user interfaces for even the smallest of personal tools, because coding agents have reduced the cost of getting a usable-enough GUI up and running to almost nothing.

I wrote about my vibe-coded bandwidth and GPU monitoring macOS task bar apps back in March, and I'm still using both of those on a daily basis.

I'm not habitually knocking out real UIs for my other projects yet, but I'm running out of excuses!

Thomas:

If you haven’t tried your hand at turning one of your 500 throwaway CLIs into a native app, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Go build a native UI. It’ll probably change the way you think.