9 ms·

Worth watching Casey Muratori's series of videos on terminals, and how to implement them, where he often makes specific comparison to Windows Terminal. He has s

Worth watching Casey Muratori's series of videos on terminals, and how to implement them, where he often makes specific comparison to Windows Terminal. He has some specific criticisms that are easy to disagree with, but the vast majority are well warranted. His broader series of videos on the topic are even worthwhile from a purely "software engineering education" standpoint. https://youtu.be/hxM8QmyZXtg https://youtu.be/hxM8QmyZXtg I feel a bit bad about posting comments about it relatively frequently on HN, but it's just so very very good, and snark aside, his perspective is extremely valuable.

markus_zhang 4y ago
I hope someone can take his demo and implement the idea for Windows Terminal. This would prove that such performance boost is indeed doable for a real world production level terminal.
- naikrovek 4y ago
  The Terminal team is very aware of this code, and are not able to use it due to how Casey licensed it. They aren't even allowed to look at it. Casey deliberately licensed it as GPL so that Microsoft could not use it, actually. That's his choice, of course. The Terminal team have a path forward to implement strong performance improvements based on techniques like those Casey described, and are working on those improvements now, I'm told. Microsoft haters will continue to say all kinds of stuff no matter what Microsoft does, so Microsoft isn't doing this to appease anyone; it's just performance work that they didn't understand was as easily reached as it is, and they built the Terminal in wrong ways the first time around. Anyway, it's being fixed. I've never worked at Microsoft but I've worked with a lot of MS employees throughout my career and I wish I could convey just how much the goals of the individual employees line up with people like us. The developers at Microsoft are people like us. Extremely and intentionally caustic feedback on Microsoft stuff does nothing but give those employees good reason to stop working on the projects they love, but which also get the most attention, like Terminal. This necessarily produces a worse outcome for the project. I wish I could make the extremely vocal and vitriolic people understand that their vitriol is counterproductive in the extreme, and makes everything worse.
  - tresqotheq 4y ago
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    Microsoft the business creates those caustic relationships. I’ve managed 9-figure relationships with different software companies. Microsoft plays dirty, both with their own people, who have unachievable goals that encourage douche behavior, and with the customer. I feel for the folks on the ground. The engineers crank out amazing work. But part of working for a company that essentially taxes every global business and government is having a thick skin.
    - naikrovek 4y ago
      > part of working for a company that essentially taxes every global business and government is having a thick skin. no. people are people, and if the human race is going to survive its own actions, the actions must change. no part of any job should require that harassment be tolerated, and it's not feasible to ask for that.
  - markus_zhang 4y ago
    Just to clarify, I do not hate MSFT. I just don't have the ability to implement such things and just curious whether it is feasible (in reasonable time) or not. If the actual code is not available maybe someone can fork the Terminal code? Or if that does not get around the legal stuffs, maybe take the idea and go from there?
    - forgotpwd16 4y ago
      You cannot use Casey's code (GPL) in Terminal (MIT). But he has explained his model. Issue is iirc what he proposed and how Terminal works significantly differ.
      - dundarious 4y ago
        Yes, I’m skeptical that WT will incorporate his design, as it is a big design change. There’s no way to just “plug it in” somewhere, without replacing the beating heart of WT. It would be great if they did that though, and I’d applaud them for it.
turing_complete 4y ago
You say it's easy to disagree with him, but I've yet to see a well-thought-out argument where he is wrong in this video series. I hope Microsoft will award him an honorary PhD though.
- dundarious 4y ago
  No, I say there are some specific parts that I find easy to disagree with. I strongly agree with the majority of his points, and on I think all the important stuff. Ha, yes, his impromptu "PhD research project" went quite well.

markus_zhang 4y ago

I hope someone can take his demo and implement the idea for Windows Terminal. This would prove that such performance boost is indeed doable for a real world production level terminal.

naikrovek 4y ago
The Terminal team is very aware of this code, and are not able to use it due to how Casey licensed it. They aren't even allowed to look at it. Casey deliberately licensed it as GPL so that Microsoft could not use it, actually. That's his choice, of course. The Terminal team have a path forward to implement strong performance improvements based on techniques like those Casey described, and are working on those improvements now, I'm told. Microsoft haters will continue to say all kinds of stuff no matter what Microsoft does, so Microsoft isn't doing this to appease anyone; it's just performance work that they didn't understand was as easily reached as it is, and they built the Terminal in wrong ways the first time around. Anyway, it's being fixed. I've never worked at Microsoft but I've worked with a lot of MS employees throughout my career and I wish I could convey just how much the goals of the individual employees line up with people like us. The developers at Microsoft are people like us. Extremely and intentionally caustic feedback on Microsoft stuff does nothing but give those employees good reason to stop working on the projects they love, but which also get the most attention, like Terminal. This necessarily produces a worse outcome for the project. I wish I could make the extremely vocal and vitriolic people understand that their vitriol is counterproductive in the extreme, and makes everything worse.
- tresqotheq 4y ago
- Spooky23 4y ago
  Microsoft the business creates those caustic relationships. I’ve managed 9-figure relationships with different software companies. Microsoft plays dirty, both with their own people, who have unachievable goals that encourage douche behavior, and with the customer. I feel for the folks on the ground. The engineers crank out amazing work. But part of working for a company that essentially taxes every global business and government is having a thick skin.
  - naikrovek 4y ago
    > part of working for a company that essentially taxes every global business and government is having a thick skin. no. people are people, and if the human race is going to survive its own actions, the actions must change. no part of any job should require that harassment be tolerated, and it's not feasible to ask for that.
- markus_zhang 4y ago
  Just to clarify, I do not hate MSFT. I just don't have the ability to implement such things and just curious whether it is feasible (in reasonable time) or not. If the actual code is not available maybe someone can fork the Terminal code? Or if that does not get around the legal stuffs, maybe take the idea and go from there?
  - forgotpwd16 4y ago
    You cannot use Casey's code (GPL) in Terminal (MIT). But he has explained his model. Issue is iirc what he proposed and how Terminal works significantly differ.
    - dundarious 4y ago
      Yes, I’m skeptical that WT will incorporate his design, as it is a big design change. There’s no way to just “plug it in” somewhere, without replacing the beating heart of WT. It would be great if they did that though, and I’d applaud them for it.

turing_complete 4y ago

You say it's easy to disagree with him, but I've yet to see a well-thought-out argument where he is wrong in this video series. I hope Microsoft will award him an honorary PhD though.

dundarious 4y ago
No, I say there are some specific parts that I find easy to disagree with. I strongly agree with the majority of his points, and on I think all the important stuff. Ha, yes, his impromptu "PhD research project" went quite well.