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GUI vs CLI programming

You know why GUI-only programs are bad? Not because they're GUI, but because they tend to discourage programming for interface independence. Modern GUI apps tend to assume a maximal set of interface tools (i.e. screen, sound, mouse) which the program itself needn't rely on. These are all dragged in simply by programming on the "GUI" platform. Programming targetted at only the command line is inherently more interface-independent simply because it uses a minimal subset of capabilities. So it is easy to add a GUI to a CLI program, but never the reverse.

Of course, the ideal is to make your application well-factorered and modularized for any interface, but if you're going quick and dirty at least a CLI will have room to grow.