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Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues

kite.com

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Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues

#11

Post by rhizome »

holtalanm wrote: post #6
hendzen wrote: post #2

Guys it's not OK to just hijack open source projects. You need to make (or fork) new plugins specifically for kite, not hire a bunch of developers of popular autocomplete plugins and have them shadily change their plugin to use Kite as a completion engine.

they didn't. they just had them add _support_ for Kite. It was up to the user to enable it. I'm failing to see the issue here. I mean, yes, their UIs needed work, but they admitted to that mistake and have since fixed it (according to the article). Your comment makes me think this is more of an open-source lynch mob rather than someone looking at this objectively. Company needs users. Plugin has users. Plugin does th…

"Lynch mob?" Really?

Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues

#13

Post by holtalanm »

rhizome wrote: post #11
holtalanm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they didn't. they just had them add _support_ for Kite. It was up to the user to enable it. I'm failing to see the issue here. I mean, yes, their UIs needed work, but they admitted to that mistake and have since fixed it (according to the article). Your comment makes me think this is more of an open-source lynch mob rather than someone looking at this objectively. Company needs users. Plugin has users. Plugin does th…

"Lynch mob?" Really?

yes, really.

If you have nothing to actually add to the discussion, please keep your fingers tied.

Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues

#14

Post by avaer »

> Let’s be clear: the absolute last thing we wanted was for someone’s code to get synced to our servers without their knowledge.

I don't buy it. The UX was dark-patterned to enable this very thing, and this reads like damage control when it's clear it wouldn't fly under the radar.

If it were the last thing Kite wanted, there would be a big warning that this option uploads your code to their servers. Or some mention of the upload at all. Or it wouldn't be the foundation of Kite's business.

Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues

#15

Post by holtalanm »

ohyes wrote: post #10
hendzen wrote: post #2

Guys it's not OK to just hijack open source projects. You need to make (or fork) new plugins specifically for kite, not hire a bunch of developers of popular autocomplete plugins and have them shadily change their plugin to use Kite as a completion engine.

On the one hand, I agree with the sentiment. On the other hand, if it is really that shady, it is on the open source developer to say 'no.' As described here, it doesn't seem that shady. There was a choice between Kite and Jedi for the one plugin, and for the other plugin, it was basically an AD. On the gripping hand, I really want open source developers to get paid, this seems like a way for open source developers t…

I'm in that boat as well. Initially, I was thinking this all was done with ill-intent. But now that we have heard Kite's side, it sounds more like just poor execution of a good idea.

Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues

#17

Post by gus_massa »

holtalanm wrote: post #6
hendzen wrote: post #2

Guys it's not OK to just hijack open source projects. You need to make (or fork) new plugins specifically for kite, not hire a bunch of developers of popular autocomplete plugins and have them shadily change their plugin to use Kite as a completion engine.

they didn't. they just had them add _support_ for Kite. It was up to the user to enable it. I'm failing to see the issue here. I mean, yes, their UIs needed work, but they admitted to that mistake and have since fixed it (according to the article). Your comment makes me think this is more of an open-source lynch mob rather than someone looking at this objectively. Company needs users. Plugin has users. Plugin does th…

The problem is that the screen was not clear enough. Users just press Continue, Continue, Agree, OK, Share all my user directory, Install, OK, Close. They never read the small or big letters, they just click the green button. The "Enable local engine" looks like a "Cancel" button.

That's how you get installed an unwanted browser bar, a new amazing search engine, and the Norton security pack for 60 days.

If you see the screenshot carefully, by default they are asking permission to upload to their servers the content of your user directory "Enable access in Users/kite". Go and take a look at all the info you have in the subfolders of your user directory. [1]

My guess is that most people just expected that the current file was uploaded, not all the py files. Perhaps only the current line, not all the file. And many didn't read the dialogs and they just pressed enter.

[1] They only support Phyton, so they uploaded only the .py files, but I guess that in the future they can extend the search types to C and upload the .c, .cpp, .h, .inc, ... files too. Do they have to ask again or the current permissions are enough? What if they extend the search to .doc and .xls? What if they extend the search to images? Go again and take a look at all the info you have in the subfolders of your user directory.

Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues

#18

Post by holtalanm »

gus_massa wrote: post #17
holtalanm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they didn't. they just had them add _support_ for Kite. It was up to the user to enable it. I'm failing to see the issue here. I mean, yes, their UIs needed work, but they admitted to that mistake and have since fixed it (according to the article). Your comment makes me think this is more of an open-source lynch mob rather than someone looking at this objectively. Company needs users. Plugin has users. Plugin does th…

The problem is that the screen was not clear enough. Users just press Continue, Continue, Agree, OK, Share all my user directory, Install, OK, Close. They never read the small or big letters, they just click the green button. The "Enable local engine" looks like a "Cancel" button. That's how you get installed an unwanted browser bar, a new amazing search engine, and the Norton security pack for 60 days. If you see th…

Once again, that sounds more like a fundamental flaw in the service/software and less like malicious intent.

I'm probably not going to use their service any time in the future, but to imply they intentionally put users in the dark is kind of a stretch.

More like, they failed to communicate how their service worked. Also, they failed to provide a clear distinction between the two options for completion engines that described both objectively.

Honestly, it sounds to me like they were just overly-excited to sell their service, and didn't take a step back and say "hey, do you think this wording makes Jedi look a little overly-bad?" They could have done with some user-acceptance testing on this, for sure.

Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues

#19

Post by free_everybody »

holtalanm wrote: post #13
rhizome wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Lynch mob?" Really?

yes, really. If you have nothing to actually add to the discussion, please keep your fingers tied.

If you are going to counter this aggressively, perhaps consider the emotional response you are masking as logical?

Re: Kite Responds to the Minimap and Autocomplete Issues

#20

Post by jdiaz5513 »

At companies like my former employer, developers were given the power and responsibility to vet their own tools. Despite somewhat strict compliance needs we were able to allow junior developers to customize their own IDEs and plugins, since personalization is crucial for productivity. One of those compliance needs was, crucially, that _source code in its full form must not leave the developer's machine except en route to the git repo._

We were comfortable with this posture because the Atom/Sublime/VSCode plugin ecosystem has largely been dominated by honest OSS projects, especially the most popular ones. Thanks, Kite, for ruining that for everyone. I will now personally vet every plugin that my junior devs install from here out thanks to your example.

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