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Launch HN: Fig (YC S20) – Autocomplete for the Terminal

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Re: Launch HN: Fig (YC S20) – Autocomplete for the Terminal

#301

Post by saklani »

mschrage wrote: post #230
zumu wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Less trust in you as a YC startup. What if you fail? What if you sell out? > 3. Requirement of email. > 4. Telemetry and privacy concerns raised by others. Dovetailing on these... Like why is a CLI tool VC backed? Is the business model just selling our data? Is the VC backing for another product and the CLI tool is just a PR thing?

> Is the VC backing for another product and the CLI tool is just a PR thing? Autocomplete is our first product. The bigger vision that Fig can enable an ecosystem of terminal extensions. Here are some early prototypes we built [0] and here is the discussion from when we were posted on HN last summer [1]. > Is the business model just selling our data? We will never sell data. That just isn't the business we want to bu…

The product looks cool at least from the video.

Re: Launch HN: Fig (YC S20) – Autocomplete for the Terminal

#302

Post by hwn65 »

mschrage wrote: post #230
zumu wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Less trust in you as a YC startup. What if you fail? What if you sell out? > 3. Requirement of email. > 4. Telemetry and privacy concerns raised by others. Dovetailing on these... Like why is a CLI tool VC backed? Is the business model just selling our data? Is the VC backing for another product and the CLI tool is just a PR thing?

> Is the VC backing for another product and the CLI tool is just a PR thing? Autocomplete is our first product. The bigger vision that Fig can enable an ecosystem of terminal extensions. Here are some early prototypes we built [0] and here is the discussion from when we were posted on HN last summer [1]. > Is the business model just selling our data? We will never sell data. That just isn't the business we want to bu…

Great. Looking forward to the Terminal App Store and learning why my company should pay you for the arcane knowledge of where bash_completion.d scripts go. Let me guess, a lot of emoji involved?

You are aware any shop with a modicum of competence is already doing what Fig does, right? Usually on a central or bastion server? What kind of TAM did you put in the pitch deck? People who can’t read man pages or pull apart an RPM to see how, for example, git’s completions work?

You’re probably going to price shell autocompletion per seat and you expect people to not think VC has jumped the shark? What’s your exit?

Re: Launch HN: Fig (YC S20) – Autocomplete for the Terminal

#303

Post by azinman2 »

There are some clearly cool parts to this. But it makes me feel like rather than bolting this onto existing terminals and shells, one should be created from the ground up to better integrate UI. Why not have actual abilities to show photos in an interactive way (eg ls giving me a grid of photos I can click and zoom on like Finder), or put in form values rather than just autocomplete like ffmpeg giving me an actual UI to work with that shows frame by frame progress rather than just a % bar?

The CLI seems ripe for total disruption IMHO. Fish shell claims it’s finally the terminal for the 90s… how about the 2020’s?

Re: Launch HN: Fig (YC S20) – Autocomplete for the Terminal

#304

Post by zumu »

mschrage wrote: post #230
zumu wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Less trust in you as a YC startup. What if you fail? What if you sell out? > 3. Requirement of email. > 4. Telemetry and privacy concerns raised by others. Dovetailing on these... Like why is a CLI tool VC backed? Is the business model just selling our data? Is the VC backing for another product and the CLI tool is just a PR thing?

> Is the VC backing for another product and the CLI tool is just a PR thing? Autocomplete is our first product. The bigger vision that Fig can enable an ecosystem of terminal extensions. Here are some early prototypes we built [0] and here is the discussion from when we were posted on HN last summer [1]. > Is the business model just selling our data? We will never sell data. That just isn't the business we want to bu…

> We will never sell data. That just isn't the business we want to build

What about when that is no longer your call (e.g. the VC's want returns, you sell to Facebook, etc.)? Is there anything in place to protect us then?

> We plan to monetize in the short term by offering autocomplete for internal CLI tools and scripts.

I'd love to hear more about this. Sounds like the GHE model?

Re: Launch HN: Fig (YC S20) – Autocomplete for the Terminal

#305

Post by mschrage »

renewiltord wrote: post #224

Cool tool. I like this sort of thing. Some feedback: * Telemetry page is scary, man. I disabled everything instantly. This "we send a ping every time you" is too much. It's not even the content. It's the fact that I fear some sort of limp CLI because of slow Internet. I have to admit I am glad you made a clear telemetry page but I am sad you chose to put all that stuff into it. I'm generally a high-telemetry guy so I…

Thanks for the feedback :)

If you run into bugs or gave any suggestions, run `fig issue` to quickly create a new Github issue!

Re: Launch HN: Fig (YC S20) – Autocomplete for the Terminal

#306

Post by simias »

12ian34 wrote: post #80

Nice website, but I wouldn't switch to this from Fish/Zsh on account of: 1. Cannot identify any killer features above what I already have with forever free tools with much larger support communities. 2. Less trust in you as a YC startup. What if you fail? What if you sell out? 3. Requirement of email. 4. Telemetry and privacy concerns raised by others. 5. Not available for Linux, and I get the feeling that Linux woul…

I agree with all of your points and I probably would never use this product. That being said regarding Linux support, given the fact that Fig effectively needs to hook into your terminal emulator and your shell to drive a custom overlay, it seems like it would be a huge headache to add support for Linux given how heterogeneous the terminal setups can be on the platform. Imagine having to support urxvt running zsh on X11 and the gnome terminal running bash on Wayland or xterm running tcsh or...

I think on Linux it would make more sense to directly modify one of the many existing terminal emulators to add this functionality or you'll have to severely limit the supported configurations.

Re: Launch HN: Fig (YC S20) – Autocomplete for the Terminal

#307

Post by sidlls »

rabidrat wrote: post #257
smoldesu wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So wait a second, the text I type into the terminal never leaves my device, but the commands I invoke do? What's the difference?

Yeah just don't accidentally paste your password into a terminal and press Enter.

I don't know if that's a fair reading of the functionality. It seems likely your mistakenly pasted password will generate an autocomplete and the (mis-)matched "spec" command will be sent as the telemetry, e.g., pasting "gi)#(RCS23!_)(U" into your terminal might result in "git" telemetry, not the password itself.

It's one of those things that is just trivial to introduce breaking changes to, though, intentionally or otherwise. And as-is the functionality does share what amounts to the terminal activity in normal cases.

Re: Launch HN: Fig (YC S20) – Autocomplete for the Terminal

#308

Post by simias »

shaicoleman wrote: post #185
mwcampbell wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think it's incumbent on us developers to be more willing to pay for things. We know now that free doesn't really work.

I'm willing to pay if it's on hacker friendly terms, e.g. something similar to the Sublime Text model: * No sign in/email required * Works offline * No subscription * Updates for 3 years included in price * Perpetual license for older versions * License per user, unlimited devices and operating systems, including home/work devices * License is just a matter of copying a file * No telemetry/phoning home without explic…

I'm on the same boat, although I have an additional requirement that disqualifies Sublime Text: I want the software to be source-available. Not necessarily FLOSS, but I want to know that if push comes to shove I can hack the code and recompile the software.

I don't want to have to rely on the devs if I want to tweak something that's not meant to be configurable, or if I need to run the software on some unsupported configuration and it breaks.

Re: Launch HN: Fig (YC S20) – Autocomplete for the Terminal

#310

Post by mschrage »

azinman2 wrote: post #303

There are some clearly cool parts to this. But it makes me feel like rather than bolting this onto existing terminals and shells, one should be created from the ground up to better integrate UI. Why not have actual abilities to show photos in an interactive way (eg ls giving me a grid of photos I can click and zoom on like Finder), or put in form values rather than just autocomplete like ffmpeg giving me an actual UI…

We totally agree! This is exactly where we want to take Fig.

The autocomplete product is built using an API that extends terminals with visual apps and shortcuts. Using the same API, you can build an app that interactively displays photos or wraps a common ffmpeg workflow.

We prototyped[0] a bunch of ideas like this during YC last summer, before deciding to start with autocomplete.

[0] https://fig.io/videos/old-sizzle-reel.mp4

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