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Show HN: Kite, copilot for programmers, available for Python

kite.com

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Re: Show HN: Kite, copilot for programmers, available for Python

#191
Has anyone tried building something like this, but doing the analysis locally and just pulling from a documentation repository like Dash? I don't like the idea of uploading my code to their server, or using a proprietary tool, but I really want documentation lookups in my editor.

Re: Show HN: Kite, copilot for programmers, available for Python

#192

Adam from Kite here. Thanks for all the feedback and encouragement around the launch today. We're excited to be opening up Kite for everyone to download today. When we launched Kite here on hackernews almost a year ago we were blown away by the enthusiasm for our smart copilot vision. Over 65,000 of you signed up for Kite in the first 72 hours, and over the past year we've been working with many of you to deliver tha…

This is tempting, particularly when learning new libraries, but it seems like it could be resolved with an offline database at some point instead of a hosted cloud service. This would probably improve performance a bit (in terms of responsiveness, rather than accuracy).

I can see where you might want to index all of my code to add to your store of information about how frequently various functions are used, because "more is better" in terms of training data, but there are plenty of open-source projects that could be polled instead. For my own code, why not simply analyze my existing projects on my own machine without sending it elsewhere?

It's pretty laughable that when one clicks through to the security page, the very first thing beyond the heading of "Security. Built in." is "Kite is Cloud Powered." as though that were a feature instead of a liability.

While directory whitelisting and a .kiteignore seem like decent ways to prevent code from leaking, it's only one small bug away from disclosing a company's proprietary secret sauce to unknowns entities.

Re: Show HN: Kite, copilot for programmers, available for Python

#193
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oops! That message is a remnant of the distant past and does not correspond in any way to what is actually happening under the hood.

In that case, what exactly is happening under the hood?

Also, 55 character limit? What the fuck did I type in my Delorean this morning?

Re: Show HN: Kite, copilot for programmers, available for Python

#194

Adam from Kite here. Thanks for all the feedback and encouragement around the launch today. We're excited to be opening up Kite for everyone to download today. When we launched Kite here on hackernews almost a year ago we were blown away by the enthusiasm for our smart copilot vision. Over 65,000 of you signed up for Kite in the first 72 hours, and over the past year we've been working with many of you to deliver tha…

Very nice editor add-on. Looking forward to the Enterprise info as more becomes available.

Re: Show HN: Kite, copilot for programmers, available for Python

#195
post #187
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when someone inexperienced pushes their SSH private key to Github? Isn't that same as not specifying a .kiteignore file?

To do that, you have to commit and push. With kite, you might not even realize it uploaded something it shouldn't have.

We're talking about inexperienced users, so it sounds pretty much the same to me. Case in point: go search for API keys on GitHub.

Re: Show HN: Kite, copilot for programmers, available for Python

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reads like "enabled by default, denied only on request"

Another post somewhere here from a kite Dev said that your code is only indexed of you explicitly allow it.

Does installing Kite and clicking "I agree" on a legalese dialog count as explicitly allowing it?

Re: Show HN: Kite, copilot for programmers, available for Python

#198

Since this program uploads code to the cloud, it would be worthy to clarify if it cleans out strings before upload or not. Because if it does not, it is a serious concern as it puts secret keys in code in awful risk. They also run a background process that needs to be manually killed to be able to uninstall. It feels like a quarantine. This is an editor plugin, is there really no simpler way to provide uninstall capa…

To clarify, on Windows the uninstaller is just one step: double click Kite from the Programs & Features section of Control panel. Unfortunately on Mac you have to quit Kite before it can be dragged to the trash. You can do that from the menubar icon or by killing "Kite Engine". (You don't need to quit Kite Helper to drag to the Trash.) See instructions here http://help.kite.com/article/6-how-do-i-uninstall-kite . We'…

Welp - after reading through these comments, seems like privacy and code upload are huge concerns.

Might be worth it for you guys to get ahead of this, and address these issues explicitly on the home page and during installation. It will lower short-term usage & install numbers, but probably won't hurt long-term retention and word of mouth sharing.

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