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Windows Terminal Source Code

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Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#31

Post by donmcronald »

mftb wrote: post #28
Lammy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some pretty detailed comments on many of them if you click through to their call sites, and more can be inferred from the file names of the callers. Let's take a look at `windowio.cpp` for example. This most-generic event fires every time you type any input character on the keyboard: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/blob/57c3953aca49f68ac... It also has more-specific events for several different ways o…

Thanks for doing this. Looking over some of the actual call sites and there commentary was interesting. For all the folks who say it's all totally innocuous (or even beneficial). Even if it is, I can tell you, I have no interest in my computer doing this while I'm using it.

I've always wondered what the performance impact is. Windows 10 feels so slow compared to Windows 7 and earlier that I'm constantly wondering how much of my life is being allocated to telemetry.

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#32

Post by meowkit »

Lammy wrote: post #30
Guillaume86 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just glancing through them it looks like perfectly reasonable telemetry collection, not sure why you call that spying.

spy (/spaɪ/) v., 1 : [intransitive] to collect secret information about another country, organization or person

Is your runtime data “secret”?

I think some people will have a hard time with this concept, but the idea of data being “private” or “secret”, by default, is disappearing. And it won’t be coming back if the world continues to digitize.

If you want those attributes for your data, you’ll have to take measures. That means reading user agreements, verifying open source, using encryption intentionally.

Vacuuming up data is not spying. Especially if you essentially agree to it when you accept the Windows terms of service (ethical issues of this aside).

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#33

Post by aneutron »

Bostonian wrote: post #3

Just wondering -- why would Microsoft release the source code for this component of Windows?

There's an excellent blog post by the product manager I believe that explains the history of the CMD command, how terminal emulation works in Windows, and the work they were doing.

The way I understand this project is essentially "an interface" to the new ConPTY they developed (which IIRC is closed source, naturally).

That doesn't make it any lesser. I've used it since a build was available, 4 years ago or something. I love it.

EDIT: Found it ! https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/windows-command-l...

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#34

Post by eecc »

Lammy wrote: post #21
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok, what do those do?

There are some pretty detailed comments on many of them if you click through to their call sites, and more can be inferred from the file names of the callers. Let's take a look at `windowio.cpp` for example. This most-generic event fires every time you type any input character on the keyboard: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/blob/57c3953aca49f68ac... It also has more-specific events for several different ways o…

I’m frankly shocked for the level of triviality of this code: and endless series of if/else while I’ve been stressing about reactive, typeclasses and whatnot for the past 5 years. And I frankly prefer the latter

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#35

Post by mftb »

donmcronald wrote: post #31
mftb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for doing this. Looking over some of the actual call sites and there commentary was interesting. For all the folks who say it's all totally innocuous (or even beneficial). Even if it is, I can tell you, I have no interest in my computer doing this while I'm using it.

I've always wondered what the performance impact is. Windows 10 feels so slow compared to Windows 7 and earlier that I'm constantly wondering how much of my life is being allocated to telemetry.

Not sure but it's a reasonable question. I'm willing to give MS the benefit of the doubt and guess that they have generally implemented it in as light a way as possible, but that said sometimes it probably causes dire performance problems to outright breakage. For me it's largely academic at this point, but it's another reason to be happy I moved my main workstation off Windows.

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#36

Post by tjoff »

Guillaume86 wrote: post #29
Lammy wrote: post #6

Here are all the ways it spies on you: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/search?q=Telemetry%3A%... https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/blob/main/src/host/tel...

Just glancing through them it looks like perfectly reasonable telemetry collection, not sure why you call that spying.

Just glancing through them it looks like it wouldn't produce much meaningful data, begs the question - why have it in the first place? Since everyone involved must have known the reactions to it.

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#37

Post by sirsinsalot »

mftb wrote: post #35
donmcronald wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered what the performance impact is. Windows 10 feels so slow compared to Windows 7 and earlier that I'm constantly wondering how much of my life is being allocated to telemetry.

Not sure but it's a reasonable question. I'm willing to give MS the benefit of the doubt and guess that they have generally implemented it in as light a way as possible, but that said sometimes it probably causes dire performance problems to outright breakage. For me it's largely academic at this point, but it's another reason to be happy I moved my main workstation off Windows.

You're willing to give MS the benefit of the doubt? I remember the bad old days and they no longer have this luxury from me.

Re: Windows Terminal Source Code

#38

Post by rbanffy »

tambourine_man wrote: post #26

Apple should follow MS's example and open source its Terminal.app It's a decent terminal emulator, but could use several enhancements and the community could help. For some reason I haven't changed to iTerm yet, even though it's been objectively better in every way for years. Even the minor gripe I had with font rendering is fixed. There's something about using default apps as much as possible that appeals to me. But…

> It's a decent terminal emulator, but could use several enhancements and the community could help.

It's the only modern terminal that passes the VT torture test. It supports double width and double height characters (great for terminal error messages).

It doesn't support overline (which is awesome for status lines at the bottom of the screen) and requires font support for line drawing and block graphics (Unicode 13 introduced 2x3 blocks and the next one will introduce 2x4s).

> There's something about using default apps as much as possible that appeals to me

For me it's one less thing to distract my distraction-prone brain.

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