5 ms·

Yeah: the kitty developer is definitely the sort who believes that he not only knows better than everyone else how to use a terminal, but that everyone else's o

by saurik 2y ago

Yeah: the kitty developer is definitely the sort who believes that he not only knows better than everyone else how to use a terminal, but that everyone else's opinions are fundamentally invalid. That his terminal fails to correctly render such stalwarts as the Linux "make menuconfig" UI and there are no settings to fix it as he doesn't believe in settings is, to me, telling. I then find reading his posts on issue trackers not just insulting, but even "activating" in a way that is really unhealthy, as it results in me feeling a need to "defend" some random bit of terminal usage with just as much vigor, lest he get away with making everyone else sound like THEY are crazy... it really isn't healthy. I can't know for sure--as we don't live in this reality--but I'd like to think that, even if he and I agreed on literally everything there is to do with terminals, that I'd still have the same mindset that I'd rather write my own terminal than ever use his.

actinium226 2y ago
I guess this is what people mean when they say a piece of software is "opinionated"?
- acedTrex 2y ago
  yep, it is his project. Those that like his opinions will like his software. those that do not will look elsewhere. The beauty of open source
  - richie_adler 2y ago
    Nah, I love Calibre but he has lousy opinions that he has to eat over time (he migrated Calibre to Python 3 after all).
- leblancfg 2y ago
  "opinionated" != "jerk"
  - slightwinder 2y ago
    How is the dev a jerk when they don't want to invest time into patching their app for the quirks of another app? Especially when kitty seems to have tmux-abilities out-of-the-box. I mean, you can like their solution or not, but calling them a jerk for not supporting your way?
- II2II 2y ago
  It depends upon what you mean by opinionated. There is software that expects users to behave in certain ways and there is software where the developer is quite firm about what they will and will not implement. I would say that calibre and kitty fit into the latter category. These applications offer a lot of features and are very configurable, yet they also don't try to be everything to everyone. While I don't know why Goyal takes the approach he does, I would imagine that a lot of demands are placed on him simply because his software is so powerful (and, in the case of calibre, pretty much the only program in its domain that goes beyond serving basic needs).
AdmiralAsshat 2y ago
Remember that this is the guy who said he would personally maintain python 2 because he didn't want to rewrite calibre for python 3 [0]. I try not to knock the guy, given that kitty and calibre in particular are amazing programs, but I still think you've gotta keep that in mind when engaging. FWIW, his conduct on the MobileRead forums where he answers questions from newbies and enhancement requests are far more polite and charitable. His ire seems to be reserved for fellow programmers. [0] https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/1714107 https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/1714107
- abhinavk 2y ago
  > he answers questions from newbies and enhancement requests are far more polite and charitable. His ire seems to be reserved for fellow programmers. Like the old Linus. He also over-reacted but there was atleast some reason behind that.
- gouggoug 2y ago
  > he answers questions from newbies and enhancement requests are far more polite and charitable. His ire seems to be reserved for fellow programmers. Some programmers (like myself) have little patience for people they consider should know better and are wasting their time. These same programmers are far more charitable to newbies because they know newbies are still learning. > Remember that this is the guy who said he would personally maintain python 2 because he didn't want to rewrite calibre for python 3 [0]. I read his "I am perfectly capable of maintaining python 2 myself." as "I am perfectly capable of maintaining [calibre running on] python2 myself", which is completely different. I'm sure some people might also find his answer quite terse and dismissive ("No, it doesn't."), but I read it as a simple statement of facts, using the same tone as the original bug report, which itself is quite terse and imperative "Python 2 is retiring in thirty months. Calibre needs to convert to Python 3."
  - imoverclocked 2y ago
    > Some programmers (like myself) have little patience for people they consider should know better and are wasting their time. These same programmers are far more charitable to newbies because they know newbies are still learning. Some programmers are life-long learners and know a very different subset of things. It’s important to remember that just because something is obvious to you doesn’t make it right and doesn’t make it obvious to others.
pmarreck 2y ago
> he doesn't believe in settings wait... whut? No thanks, I like to customize things
- aumerle 2y ago
  You shouldn't believe things you read in hacker news comments. saurik is lying, probably because he once requested some feature that the kitty maintainer didnt like and refused with good reasons, which made saurik want to curl up into a ball and cry. To say kitty has no configuration options is the exact opposite of the truth. Proof: https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/conf/ https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/conf/
  - saurik 2y ago
    I mean I might be "lying"... or I might be confusing him with the Gnome Terminal developers, with respect to that one specific tiny quote about "not liking settings". (FWIW, the setting in question with respect to make menuconfig is "use bold as bright", where the kitty developer is on a vendetta to refuse the historical precedent. He is very adamant that he knows better than most everyone else on this point.) Either way, I have never claimed to have talked to the kitty developer: I -- as well as multiple others on this thread -- are saying we've read how he handles arguing about terminals, and we don't like it. Regardless, I do happen to be curled into a ball, and I do happen to look like I am crying... but it is merely because I am sick: I use xterm and I am very happy with the software and like the author.
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      > where the kitty developer is on a vendetta to refuse the historical precedent I mean, he's not wrong. Everyone else should update their shit to be proper so that he doesn't have to deal with all this legacy nonsense. It's just annoying as hell for people using it right now.
    - aumerle 2y ago
      OK so you are not lying, you are just wrong. Now that you have reduced the scope of your personal attack from he doesn't like settings to he doesn't agree with me about one thing, perhaps you should exercise your new found honesty a bit more and link to the issue where he refused to implement bold as bright and gave his reasons, which are perfectly sensible, namely that having that option means that the developers of terminal programs cannot rely on having a bold font face. Terminals are already limited to using only a single font size, you want to take away the ability to use bold faces as well. And you are trying to sell this as the kitty developer being unreasonable. Shame on you.

by saurik 2y ago

actinium226 2y ago

I guess this is what people mean when they say a piece of software is "opinionated"?

acedTrex 2y ago
yep, it is his project. Those that like his opinions will like his software. those that do not will look elsewhere. The beauty of open source
- richie_adler 2y ago
  Nah, I love Calibre but he has lousy opinions that he has to eat over time (he migrated Calibre to Python 3 after all).
leblancfg 2y ago
"opinionated" != "jerk"
- slightwinder 2y ago
  How is the dev a jerk when they don't want to invest time into patching their app for the quirks of another app? Especially when kitty seems to have tmux-abilities out-of-the-box. I mean, you can like their solution or not, but calling them a jerk for not supporting your way?
II2II 2y ago
It depends upon what you mean by opinionated. There is software that expects users to behave in certain ways and there is software where the developer is quite firm about what they will and will not implement. I would say that calibre and kitty fit into the latter category. These applications offer a lot of features and are very configurable, yet they also don't try to be everything to everyone. While I don't know why Goyal takes the approach he does, I would imagine that a lot of demands are placed on him simply because his software is so powerful (and, in the case of calibre, pretty much the only program in its domain that goes beyond serving basic needs).

AdmiralAsshat 2y ago

Remember that this is the guy who said he would personally maintain python 2 because he didn't want to rewrite calibre for python 3 [0]. I try not to knock the guy, given that kitty and calibre in particular are amazing programs, but I still think you've gotta keep that in mind when engaging. FWIW, his conduct on the MobileRead forums where he answers questions from newbies and enhancement requests are far more polite and charitable. His ire seems to be reserved for fellow programmers. [0] https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/1714107 https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/1714107

abhinavk 2y ago
> he answers questions from newbies and enhancement requests are far more polite and charitable. His ire seems to be reserved for fellow programmers. Like the old Linus. He also over-reacted but there was atleast some reason behind that.
gouggoug 2y ago
> he answers questions from newbies and enhancement requests are far more polite and charitable. His ire seems to be reserved for fellow programmers. Some programmers (like myself) have little patience for people they consider should know better and are wasting their time. These same programmers are far more charitable to newbies because they know newbies are still learning. > Remember that this is the guy who said he would personally maintain python 2 because he didn't want to rewrite calibre for python 3 [0]. I read his "I am perfectly capable of maintaining python 2 myself." as "I am perfectly capable of maintaining [calibre running on] python2 myself", which is completely different. I'm sure some people might also find his answer quite terse and dismissive ("No, it doesn't."), but I read it as a simple statement of facts, using the same tone as the original bug report, which itself is quite terse and imperative "Python 2 is retiring in thirty months. Calibre needs to convert to Python 3."
- imoverclocked 2y ago
  > Some programmers (like myself) have little patience for people they consider should know better and are wasting their time. These same programmers are far more charitable to newbies because they know newbies are still learning. Some programmers are life-long learners and know a very different subset of things. It’s important to remember that just because something is obvious to you doesn’t make it right and doesn’t make it obvious to others.

pmarreck 2y ago

> he doesn't believe in settings wait... whut? No thanks, I like to customize things

aumerle 2y ago
You shouldn't believe things you read in hacker news comments. saurik is lying, probably because he once requested some feature that the kitty maintainer didnt like and refused with good reasons, which made saurik want to curl up into a ball and cry. To say kitty has no configuration options is the exact opposite of the truth. Proof: https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/conf/ https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/conf/
- saurik 2y ago
  I mean I might be "lying"... or I might be confusing him with the Gnome Terminal developers, with respect to that one specific tiny quote about "not liking settings". (FWIW, the setting in question with respect to make menuconfig is "use bold as bright", where the kitty developer is on a vendetta to refuse the historical precedent. He is very adamant that he knows better than most everyone else on this point.) Either way, I have never claimed to have talked to the kitty developer: I -- as well as multiple others on this thread -- are saying we've read how he handles arguing about terminals, and we don't like it. Regardless, I do happen to be curled into a ball, and I do happen to look like I am crying... but it is merely because I am sick: I use xterm and I am very happy with the software and like the author.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    > where the kitty developer is on a vendetta to refuse the historical precedent I mean, he's not wrong. Everyone else should update their shit to be proper so that he doesn't have to deal with all this legacy nonsense. It's just annoying as hell for people using it right now.
  - aumerle 2y ago
    OK so you are not lying, you are just wrong. Now that you have reduced the scope of your personal attack from he doesn't like settings to he doesn't agree with me about one thing, perhaps you should exercise your new found honesty a bit more and link to the issue where he refused to implement bold as bright and gave his reasons, which are perfectly sensible, namely that having that option means that the developers of terminal programs cannot rely on having a bold font face. Terminals are already limited to using only a single font size, you want to take away the ability to use bold faces as well. And you are trying to sell this as the kitty developer being unreasonable. Shame on you.