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Ask HN: Why are there so many companies trying to reinvent the terminal (badly)?
Every week I see a new terminal app here on HN, and it's always some startup with no good will that's built it on Electron and filled it full of always-online trackers.
Why is this a thing, and why do companies think this is a market worth pursuing?
- aliswe 4y agoI think this was a very bad faith take. Try to spread some positivity!
- warkanlock 4y agopositivism does not make the world a better place neither tools useful
- eatonphil 4y agoI don't think positivity is the solution for bad faith takes. I'd be happy with just good faith takes!
- 0des 4y agoLet's not devolve into the quelling of intellectual discussion as a social issue, "bad faith" etc.
- eurekin 4y agoI haven't noticed them, could someone post links?
- can16358p 4y agoThere is one but I'm scared that the HN Gods will forever curse my account if I post the word "bad" and the name of that terminal here in the same sentence.
- frankjr 4y agoFig https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31222277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31222277 Warp https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30921231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30921231
- str3wer 4y ago
- nindalf 4y agoNo one is cursing anything. I don’t even know who you’re referring to when you say “admins”. There’s one paid moderator that I’m aware of, no admins.
- dredmorbius 4y agoNB: There is in fact a moderator team, though dang is the one public face of that. It's reachable by email: hn@ycombinator.com And highly responsive in my experience.
- str3wer 4y ago
- newswasboring 4y agoBoth of these are not electron apps. And fig doesn't even require you to install a different terminal. These can't be what op was talking about.
- tptacek 4y agoAs someone who doesn't use any of these terminal-modernizing tools: because terminals are archaic and mediate most of the important engineering work done in tech? It doesn't seem complicated. What's weirder is fixity the terminal interface has compared to the rapid evolution of all our other tools, from text editors to database interfaces.
- gigatexal 4y agoIt makes no sense to me as well. Iterm2 + zsh + oh-my-zsh + tmux and you have everything you need. On linux I just use gnome-terminal + zsh + oh-my-zsh and I am perfectly capable. For me, this is a case of "it's not broke so why are you messing with it?"
- eatonphil 4y agoI have the same setup but I can appreciate that not every dev out there has or wants the same setup as me. :)
- gigatexal 4y agoThat's fair... but do we need venture backed terminals like warp.dev?
- eatonphil 4y agoNo one forces you to use their product and given Linux and GNU's raison d'etre and success it's hard to imagine any commercial product ever could become a monopoly in devtools. So after that I'd look at: historically has a venture capital firm ever funded innovation? And I think the answer is yes. So worst case they have a spyware product you don't need to use. Best case they actually innovate. I'm cool with letting that play out. Not that I think this thread on HN or my opinion makes any difference to what these companies do/don't do. :)
- gigatexal 4y agoYou make some fair points. Let's see what happens.
- patatino 4y agoDev tools are hot currently, VCs like it. That could be a reason
- throwaway4good 4y agoWhat is their business model? How could you possibly make money creating a new terminal?
- DrinkWater 4y agoI am always curious to see new approaches to the classical terminals that i've been using for 20+ years now. So i don't mind this trend. What i've seen so far was mostly aesthetics and less "functional" stuff, which makes me wonder: Maybe there isn't that much to improve?
- jhanschoo 4y agoThere's a lot that can be improved in the terminal experience, I think. Discoverability is a huge issue with CLI apps, for instance.
- pmontra 4y agoDiscover the app that does a specific thing or discover the options inside the app? For the former I don't see how to help except studying what's available. For the latter we've been having man and info since at least the 80s.
- jhanschoo 4y agoBoth. GUI interfaces and apps have menus and undo that help with discoverability. To do something equivalent in CLI after not using a tool requires several invocations of man, --help, etc., and checking and rechecking that you hadn't got something wrong that can result in something catastrophic. Stuff like Warp seems like they with that, by interactively displaying most relevant info to help you write the right invocations.
- warkanlock 4y agoit's one of those things that makes me want to quit technology, people get bored out of their minds and try to reinvent the wheel instead of doing something useful
- georgia_peach 4y agoCompared to docker-wrangling, ML grinding, & dodging the latest kick-in-the-nuts from appstores/browsers/search engines/cloud providers, re-inventing the VT-220 sounds pretty sweet!
- georgehill 4y agoWhat is the problem with that ? I've tried both warp.dev and fig.io, except thier annoying telementry events, I love them both. Developers use terminals frequently, and there have been no major improvements in terminal software in the last few years. I'd be happy to see more terminals developed because they are useful. I would rather encourage them than discourage it
- brodo 4y agoI‘d even go as far as to say there have been no major improvements in 30 years.
- Shish2k 4y agoMuch like IRC, I expect the old-timers to keep insisting that this ancient un-extendable mess is “good enough” (Who cares about mobile phones? They’re just a fad, nobody really uses them) - until something like Discord comes along to show what actual user-friendliness looks like, and then a few years after that we’ll get some janky open-source clones...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- franze 4y agomade me think about my NEED of what I have regarding terminals. I think I am using about 2% of the potential of what the terminal is offering me. So my need for a new terminal app would be one which - undisruptive - trains me to unlock more and more power of the terminal. first idea, a panel on the right hand side which explains what I just did, highlights pot improvements (how I could have chained the last 5 tasks) and explains similar or pot. next steps. A beginners terminal. What are your unmet needs in regards of the terminal app?
- pikaynu 4y agoI like the idea of beginners terminal. To make them used to using keyboard instead of hunting for icons and menus. Once they are comfortable, they will find faster alternatives and end right back to the default plain terminal.
- enlyth 4y agoI agree, discoverability has always been a paint point of command line interfaces, and I'm not sure what the best solution is. The most annoying thing for me is having to switch back and forth between some documentation of the commands I'm trying to use and the terminal. Also I hate how clunky the interfaces feel when you're trying to view something which happened prior. It might be there, might not, some command you ran might have cleared the terminal at some point, some overwrite over themselves to do things like progress bars, and god forbid if you resize the terminal at some point because this will reflow everything that was written to it earlier into garbage.
- hansel_der 4y ago> The most annoying thing for me is having to switch back and forth between some documentation of the commands I'm trying to use and the terminal have a look at screen/tmux
- aardshark 4y agoI agree. I always feel like my use of shell scripting and unix tools to perform basic tasks is so much less than it could be. I enjoy the ideas of portability and speed that comes from these tools, but often I just want to get the task done and end up writing something in Python. Things that always get me: - Meaningful whitespace in bash. - Differences between Mac BSD-derived utilities and POSIX utilities. (Perils of using a Mac, I guess, I know I can install the GNU versions of most things but ugh) - Not being able to just use PCRE everywhere - The magic of awk - Differences in parameter/flag placement between different tools - The amount of edge cases that you have to account for, usually to do with various levels of globbing, or special characters or even spaces in file names or utility output. - More, I'm sure, that I can't think of right now. there's just this underlying sense of inconsistency that I have when dealing with these tools that I feel results in me always having to check the man pages or StackOverflow whenever I want to string together more than a couple of operations.
- smitty1e 4y agoDoubtless to show the output of their new text editor and packaging system.
- pikaynu 4y agoThe inflow of new engineers which are not so familiar with traditional tools like a basic terminal and a text editor. That was all which was needed to write software. Most of the software stack was quite flat back then. Today, the way everyone starts is by installing a bunch of tools, frameworks and an IDE to navigate through those tools. Even a simple web page requires to install 100MBs of dependencies. Trying to learn those tools from scratch is not useful because it's all abstracted and is almost never dealt with. These terminals are making the use of those tools simpler using features like autocompletes, suggestions, metadata about the command etc. It's just like how an IDE became necessary for some languages like .NET or Java because it was no longer just the language. For terminals it's now good 'ol coreutils vs a bunch of npm crap. I personally don't like to use pimped up terminals because they are written in electron and are not portable. The whole point of using a minimal terminal is being snappy and portable. Just like engineers today can't write code without autocomplete, new engineers won't be able to navigate the cli without assistance. An analogy would be, vim purists with 0 config vs people who have elaborate configs.
- pdimitar 4y ago> I personally don't like to use pimped up terminals because they are written in electron and are not portable. Alacritty, Wezterm and Kitty say hi. Uber-fast native apps that also render all the modern Unicode symbols correctly (well OK, Kitty has some Python). You are also over-exaggerating and coming across as the "get off my lawn" guy. I am 42, I was there when terminals were as bland as non-salted spaghetti in boiling water with nothing else in. Nowadays I like the autocompletes (with context nonetheless -- a huge improvement; you can autocomplete GIT verbs for example), I like the fuzzy finders that I integrate with (a) looking for files, (b) looking in my command history, (c) looking in my OS process list and (d) looking through all modified / untracked GIT files in a repo, I like the colors, I like the icons for separate file types, and I like modern incarnations of coreutils whose output provides you visual aid that objectively reduces the amount of parsing that your eyes must do on the screen. Eye and mind fatigue are real and all visual aid [that's not overdone] helps a ton. There are even scientific studies on it. Want me to go on? Conservatism like yours is not productive. Like with everything in life, there's good and there's bad e.g. I won't ever use the terminals that are written in Electron and phone home -- that gets an immediate "NOPE!" from me -- but there are objectively useful terminals, terminal extensions and CLI tools out there. That you judge all of them by a few hip repos that are making the rounds here on HN only says something non-flattering about your abilities to gauge innovation. Be more open-minded. It helps in an objective manner and with objectively improving metrics to show for it afterwards. At least it did for me and 30+ colleagues.
- di4na 4y agoFor market no idea. For electron, because it is the only reasonable multi platform UI platform out there. I do not like that fact but it is true. For why, because the terminal protocol is atrocious, mix data with control signalling, mix together multiple layers making it really hard to extend it, is stuck emulating an emulator of a physical device from the 70s, is bursting at the seams and is blocking dozens of possibilities in ergonomics that would make our industry kill less people. Is it well done or can it make money ? I doubt it. Is there an obvious need with wide impact? Fuck yes.
- Kelteseth 4y ago> For electron, because it is the only reasonable multi platform UI platform out there. I do not like that fact but it is true. Why do people constantly repeat this? Did we all forget about Qt? Did Qt do such a good job of driving people away from it?
- baisq 4y agoQt costs money and is as native as electron.
- di4na 4y agoYes. Because the experience of building something with QT that looks good and work cross platform is like pulling your own teeth.
- Youden 4y agoI'd substitute "looks good" for "looks like a web application". Taking music players for an example, I prefer the way Amarok (Qt) looks compared to something like Amazon Music or Spotify.
- jamincan 4y agoI don't use Amarok, but looking at screenshots, it looks similar to other Qt applications on Windows that seem to sit in this uncanny valley of coming quite close to looking native, but just different enough to feel strange. I also don't use the Spotify app, but it seems from screenshots to do a better job of appearing like a native Windows 10 application to me.
- lozenge 4y agoWhy do comedians make jokes about hotels and airplane food? Because it's what they live and breathe every day. It doesn't mean that audiences want those jokes. The demand for fancy terminals is unproven, but anybody who's pressed <Tab> in their shell or tried to process files with shell pipelines has thought - this could be better.
- matthewmacleod 4y agoThe thing you’ve described hasn’t happened though. You’re really talking about two recent projects - Fig and Warp - neither of which are Electron and only one of which is a terminal. It’s true however that both of them have been rightly criticised for their frankly offensive telemetry shit.
- sofixa 4y agoStrong 'old man yells at cloud' vibes here. First, there's only 2 apps. Second, none of the terminals you're talking about is in Electron, and neither is cross-platform ( partially as a result). Fig isn't really a terminal for that matter. So you're just ranting for ranting's sake without even understanding the subject? As for what the market is, maybe they're trying to emulate Docker's switch to developer tooling and make money off enterprises buying team licenses. It's not the worst business model I've heard of, and could work if they get traction. And funnily that's where we get to the other part of your rant - telemetry. Without that data they have significantly lower chances of making it. I don't particularly trust their promises they'll make it opt-in once they've gained enough traction and data, but i think it's unfair to suggest they're collecting errors and usage patterns to sell that data ( which IMHO doesn't make sense, and they would need to warn users that's the case, thank you GDPR).
- eatonphil 4y agoI figured OP was talking about Fig and Warp.dev so thanks for pointing out that they are not Electron! I'm now curious if these were actually what OP was thinking of.
- this_is_eline 4y agoI believe that this is partially because default shells (mostly bash) are not 'really' beginner friendly, and you usually need to spend some time configuring them to be comfortable working with them. That said, i use fish shell so what do I know :)
- tjpnz 4y agoThese companies are not even trying to re-imagine the shell, just the terminal you use to interact with it.
- this_is_eline 4y agoThey are trying tho? Warp terminal has experimental ai command search that allows you to translate natural language to bash (shell) commands. That means that you could use your terminal without ever learning how to use the shell, effectively replacing not just your terminal but your shell too. Terminal is just the program that shows text. New terminal emulators (not all new terminal emulators, but the ones mentioned in comments, the ones op asked about mostly) are way more than just programs showing text, they are also replacing/re-imagining the shell, or re-imagining the way you interact with the shell; thay are wrappers around the shell (and more).
- summo 4y agoToday, people like to collect data in all possible variations. The data itself can be sold, but equally they show that they can do it. so at best they can secure an order for data storage.
- georgia_peach 4y agoA data probe? One that high value targets will install themselves? Poppycock! How dare you besmirch the industry with such unseemly accusations, sir!? ;-)
- serjester 4y agoCan we acknowledge that just because we don’t have a particular problem, doesn’t mean other people won’t? Will these companies be profitable? I have no idea. No one does. But I don’t understand this sentiment unless you’re being forced to use their product. When you start investing you quickly realize how difficult it is to gauge a “good” idea. The only thing that matters is how the market responds and it seems like these solutions have a small, dedicated and quickly growing user base.
- Brian_K_White 4y agoIt's your choice to read that question as either curiosity or complaint. I don't see anything in the question that exactly says "get this crap off my screen" "these companies should not be allowed to exist". I see a critical opinion but that is entirely allowed. Your critical opinion like the one you just wrote is presumably allowed. But I do see an observance of phenomenon, and I find any phenomenon interesting. This post is a perfectly valid question, just at it's academic face value.
- jrh206 4y agoThe OP is very negative in tone[1], although curious. I think the person you’re responding to provided a solid answer to OP’s question, whilst imbuing their answer with a reasonable response to OP’s tone. [1] "(badly)", "always some startup with no good will", "Electron" (arguably), "filled it full of always-online trackers"
- tjpnz 4y agoI think the more pertinent question is why these startups are receiving funding. A firm funding dev tools must have a few people who'll understand why these products will struggle to find a good market fit.
- ozim 4y agoI can see how this might work. Geeky founders think they are so smart that others should work way they are working. They forget that other geeky developers think the same way and don't care about using someone else tools/workflows because "they" themselves are smarter. For founding people with money - they see hype of development and they don't know most of geeks will think that tool is crap. They might "there are 100k developers we can reach if each pay $10 we have lots of money" - they don't know geeks don't want to pay for anything because they can build their own tools and their own Dropbox. I can totally see how there are people with blind spots why these products won't work.
- trevormcneal 4y agoSame with "MLOps" tools... same with every niche, bunch of useless tools just trying to grab some market. But this is not a recent thing, every time the current thing gets flooded with crap ideas competing for some market share (ie longtail theory). Sometimes the old ideas are just rebuilt, nocode is just RAD with different branding, event sourcing is just ESB, microservices is basically SOA... What is scary that actually very little is being created, and a huge amount of crap just resuscitates from old tech, or is a skewed version of some working technology which tries to make it different so it doesn't look like a complete ripoff. I love terminals, but honestly there isn't much to improve there IMHO is already good, I admire those who try and honest people who try to get a good idea into the market, I despise completely people trying to push any random hello world as a product which is basically a spyware full of trackers.
- texasbigdata 4y agoI don’t know, what about snowflake (for example). Before they launched you could argue it’s not needed; now, it’s got customers and is publicly traded. Hard to tell.
- raghavbali 4y agoI like the part " _microservices is basically SOA_ " , want to say that loud so many times myself :)
- toastal 4y agoI'd like to know more of this *microservice band that is basically SoaD
- jen20 4y ago> event sourcing is just ESB, microservices is basically SOA... Event sourcing is a persistence model, an ESB is about distribution. Microservices are an implementation of the 4+1 architectural view model where at least three of the views are identical. You’re not wrong about spyware though.
- hestefisk 4y agoThose who do not understand Unix are doomed to reinvent it…
- nnoitra 4y agoUnix is shite. Typing arcane commands in the terminal only illustrates the IQ (low) of those that wrote it!
- KSPAtlas 4y agoWhat about plan9? If the guys at Bell Labs didn't understand UNIX I'd be worried...
- georgia_peach 4y agoI wouldn't call that a re-invention UNIX as much as a serendipitous streamlining of it. At the rate features are being added to Linux, I wonder how long before it collapses under its own weight, and these passion projects like plan9, serenity os, redox, etc. take center-stage to pick up the pieces.
- vcnts 4y agoI think it points to a lack of creativity, plus the modern surveillance economy. Try to sell someone what they already have, but with stalking built in, so you can skim off a profit for doing basically fuck all.
- junon 4y agoI think it's in large part due to Hyper's original successes (that's Vercel's (fml. ZEIT) Electron-based terminal emulator, one of - if not THE - first of its kind). There was a lot of hype built around it at the time, and a lot of people that used and believed in it. I think a lot of people saw that and thought "I could market that".
- m0llusk 4y agoOne thing is that terminals are a kind of magic. While the rest of the graphical interface gets bogged down with drawer pull animations and blinking buttons it can be possible to run a whole series of commands with reasonable responsiveness. Systems are drowning in response choking complexity. Did an app just start a download in the background? There is probably an app that will tell you, but even a bad terminal can probably tell you faster. It is a one size fits all immediate gratification head above the churning waves maneuver in an accessible package.
- password4321 4y ago> why do companies think this is a market worth pursuing Maybe because the terminal is one of the last frontiers in computing where potential users with deep pockets still have their privacy?
- cyberprunes 4y agoI like the interest in modernizing the terminal as an interface. There's still room for innovation and improvement. That's probably the big reason. Unfortunately this push is mired in app culture yak shaving bloatware bullshit (with a few exceptions). I'm surprised the market hasn't been flooded with Web3 DAPP terminal apps that will "revolutionize the terminal somehow, bro". Anyway, I love the enthusiasm but I'm not using a 100MB+ terminal app that requires a cloud account. I'll keep on BASHING like its 1989, thank you.
- mamcx 4y agoIs even worse. Is the same old, bad, ancient, archaic, obsolete, terminal thingy with a small improvement (https://github.com/nushell/nushell https://github.com/nushell/nushell is the only I see that are half-there). And it existed MUCH better tools for interactive programming (of the past) to copy instead.
- cosmotic 4y agoHuman centered design research established long ago that GUI applications are easier to learn and easier to use. Terminals are a good 'lowest common denominator' due to their simple design and low cost implementation. People want the benefits of GUI with the portability of terminal applications which has resulted in ASCII-art boxes, menus, progress bars, trees, etc. These fancy new terminal emulators further enable these high-end-for-a-terminal-though-low-end-for-a-GUI features.