In the article, "GUI" seems to be used as an opposite to "programming". Analogy would be SQL versus query wizard dialogue.

I think you're right that the author is using "GUI" as the opposite of programming. I think he's correct with respect to nearly every GUI I've ever seen, but incorrect with respect to what a GUI could do in principle.

There's no reason that your wizard dialogue couldn't be exactly as expressive as SQL. In principle you could make a wizard that just built an arbitrary SQL query and ran it.

I said "nearly" before, the reason is graphical programming languages, for example unreal engine's blueprints. These are a "gui", and allow general purpose programming. One could imagine a tool with a similar style of programming, that extends them with inline data visualization and other tools, that would both undoubtedly be a GUI, and have all the nice features of programming.

I think the better compromise is probably something like jupyter notebooks, but that doesn't mean a GUI couldn't do it. And maybe a better GUI exists that I just haven't managed to imagine.

OK, but consider MySQL Workbench. One types SQL in a query. Or loads a saved query. And there's an execute button. But unlike working in terminal, the SQL is still on screen after a failed run. And there's red markup pointing to errors.

That's the advantage of the GUI.

The environment used as an example in the article is RStudio which by your definition of GUI would be a GUI (i.e. if MySQL Workbench is a GUI, so is RStudio). I think you and the author aren't in disagreement per se, you're just using the term differently -- when he talks about a non-GUI, he means a tool which executes code that you type into it, and you mean a terminal.

OK, then call it "menu-driven" or whatever. There's nothing intrinsically GUI about menus.

I would use a Jupyter notebook for data science. I don't think it's a GUI in the sense that the author intended.

In that case, IDEs would also be GUIs.

Well, IDEs are GUIs, though also not in the sense that the author intended. The problem seems to be a lack of a good term to clearly describe the subset of GUIs that the author wants to talk about.

How about a RUI (Restricted User Interface).

Yes but you still for anything non trivial write the SQL, PL/SQl, TSQl or what have you its just easier to do that using a GIU tool than direct on the command line.