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points by pronik 4 days ago | 0 comments

That's one of the reasons I avoid Kitty. Calibre's backend is powerful, frontend is a boiling oil level of a hot mess. At some point many years ago I tried looking into the code to maybe separate out the parts I was interested in and had to abort on the first source code page.

Apart from that, Kovid avoids providing proper packaging except for self-extracting installers and tends to create new "standards" like Calibre's web server instead of ODPS and in Kitty's case the whole annoying lot of Kitty-derived and Kitty-standardized features every terminal emulator is now supposed to support, which also break existing compatibility -- with the usual "you are holding it wrong" arguments when someone points it out.

In my opinion, Kovid is the original vibecoder -- extremely productive, extremely functional, extremely successful but despite the code (and UX) quality, not because of it (to be fair, I haven't looked into Kitty's code). I'm glad it works for him, I just wish I could use his products without getting aneurysms while wrapping my head around them.

[–] bita_nidir 4 days ago

Wow. It works for him and it works for me. I'm forever grateful for what he's done and I feel this bashing is totally undeserved. Kitty and Calibre are two of my favorite software thingies ever.

[–] ranger_danger 2 days ago

I don't think it's undeserved at all. If you followed Kovid's interactions with users over the years you would quickly see he has a cosmically inflated ego and a god complex, and can only speak in absolutes while simultaneously mocking you for daring to even ask a question. He publicly berates and abuses people even much more than Torvalds does.

And I specifically avoid all software from both of those people precisely because of their attitudes towards others.

I'm not asking anyone else to do the same, I know it's a wildly unpopular opinion and people will attack me for it.

But boycotts in general wouldn't exist if everyone could separate the art from the artist.

[–] bita_nidir 2 hours ago

Ah, the post I responded to wasn't talking about Kovid's interactions with users.

I agree that he could do a lot better with controlling his emotions. Me and him are on the opposite ends of the tmux debate for example. But I understand his point, he's trying to solve the same problems that tmux solves, with a very different way.

The problem is that Kitty isn't there yet (I wish it was) and his outburst on the topic are quite damaging to his goals.

When you've met and worked with people in real live that are like that, you can just visualize them and have a laugh at their outbursts.

I'm still team Calibre and Kitty any day and tremendously thankful for what he's doing.

[–] demo4567 3 days ago

Also a hostile project admin

[–] DavideNL 3 days ago

How so?

[–] radlad 4 days ago

Have to agree - Calibre is amazing and powerful software, and also incredibly obtuse to actually use. This has always been a massive shame.

As for kitty, it seems some of its new standards have unlocked actually useful features, especially in AI's terminal-powered era. But creating new standards and breaking compatibility ought to be avoided unless necessary.

[–] febed 3 days ago

> it seems some of its new standards have unlocked actually useful features

Like what?

[–] radlad 3 days ago

Graphics in terminals and better modifier sequences.

[–] a-french-anon 3 days ago

sixel works "fine" though.

[–] smohare 4 days ago

The first time I used Calibre it was such a bad experience I thought it was a joke software. Can’t say I’ve consciously used or wanted to use a single kitty feature, either.

The bar is pretty low for some basic UX, and these two projects consistently fall under. But to each their own.

[–] hiyer 3 days ago

> in Kitty's case the whole annoying lot of Kitty-derived and Kitty-standardized features every terminal emulator is now supposed to support,

No terminal is "supposed" to support them. Terminals (like ghostty) choose to do so because they find them to be good and worth supporting.

[–] stryan 3 days ago

> and in Kitty's case the whole annoying lot of Kitty-derived and Kitty-standardized features every terminal emulator is now supposed to support, which also break existing compatibility -- with the usual "you are holding it wrong" arguments when someone points it out.

What an odd complaint; it's not like he's going about to other projects forcing them to add them. I suspect the reason some of Kitty's standardized features are being independently adopted by other terminal emulators is because they are genuinely useful.

[–] ghosty141 3 days ago

> I suspect the reason some of Kitty's standardized features are being independently adopted by other terminal emulators is because they are genuinely useful.

Correct, kitty-keyboard-protocol or kitty-image-protocol are actually useful and thats why Ghostty for example supports them. The alternatives are often worse or only have niche benefits (looking at you sixels)

[–] bbor 3 days ago

Yeah nothing made me more confident in my choice of terminal (after trying quite a few) than seeing that "Kitty" graphics protocols are all over the place for SotA TUIs. Love to see it!

But really Kitty is the GOAT because of the customization ethos. Just top-notch.

[–] krrrh 4 days ago

Ironically a dozen vibecoders just read this and are kicking off rust clones. A few of them will be end up being pretty good.

[–] alt-machine-ref 3 days ago

I am one of them, I just keep adding kitty features to my alacritty fork.