Free software scares normal people

Handbrake's UI is in the uncanny valley for me -- too complicated for use by laymen, and way too limiting for use by people who know what they're doing...

My dad, a total layman, was able to use handbrake as a step in digitizing old family video tapes.

I think in the context of this thread, we shouldn't overgeneralize or underestimate "normal people".

ffmpeg with disposable or llm backed dnd interfaces.

for certain types of tooling UIs should be cheap, disposable and task/worlflow specific.

A "normal person" is just someone whose time and mental energy are focused on something other than the niche task your app is aiming to solve. With enough time and focus, anyone can figure out any interface. But for many, something which requires a smaller investment to achieve the results they need is preferrable.

Actually I think this is a killer use case for local LLMs. We could finally get back to asking the computer to do something without having to learn how to string 14 different commands together to do it.

The last thing we want for a user-friendly interface is nondeterminism. Some procedure that works today must work tomorrow if it looks like you can repeat it. LLMs can't be the answer to this. And if you go to the lengths of making the llm deterministic, with tests and all, you might as well code the thing once and for all and not ship the local llm to the end user at all.

I’ve been computer touching since the mid eighties.

Exactly what golden era of computing are you harking back to, and what are you doing that requires 14 different commands?

Also, even the most arcane and convoluted interfaces become usable with repetition. Normal people learn the most bureaucratic business workflows and fly through them if that is their job. Then if you dare to "improve" any aspect of it you will hear them complain that you "broke" their system.

Sorry, I see how my post lacked sufficient clarity.

The idea behind a cheap UI is not constant change, but that you have a shared engine and "app" per activity.

The particular workflow/ui doesn't need to ever change, it's more of a app/brand per activity for non-power users.

This is similar to how some apps historically (very roughly lotus notes springs to mind) are a single app but have an email interface/icon to click, or contacts, or calendar, all one underlying app but different ui entry points.

Was he able to use it correctly though to be able to digitize video with exacltly the correct setttings so that no notable loss of quality was introduced? How long did it take him to randomly test settings?

Well yes you force them to find other workarounds because their current workaround are no longer relevant. Because no system will ever fit everyones usecase.

Linux shells, and that was an exaggeration. The shell is about as general purpose as it gets, but it’s hard to know a priori how to do a certain use case. But if you can explain it in plain language the LLM can do that for you. And at that point maybe you don’t need a gui except to present and manipulate visual output of the shell.