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Warp: Fast, Rust-based terminal (waiting list)

warp.dev

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Re: Warp: Fast, Rust-based terminal (waiting list)

#101

Post by dsr_ »

petepete wrote: post #74
nanis wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just tried it: 2021-07-14T17:05:56.423Z WARN window::os::windows::window > EGL init failed with_egl_lib failed: with_egl_lib(libEGL.dll) failed: no compatible EGL configuration was found, atioglxx.dll: LoadLibraryExW failed, fall back to WGL 2021-07-14T17:05:56.500Z ERROR wezterm_gui::frontend > Failed to create window: The OpenGL implementation is too old to work with glium I feel sad when terminals need OpenGL ...…

On the flip side, if you do have OpenGL, why not utilise it for unparalleled terminal performance? I've used Kitty for years for that reason, it's incredibly responsive and smooth, a pleasure to use.

Is kitty the one where it's really difficult to open two of them at once with different sizes and colors because those things can't be specified on the command line?

Re: Warp: Fast, Rust-based terminal (waiting list)

#102

Post by cweagans »

zachlloyd wrote: post #83
kaetemi wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just develop out in the open from the start, instead of dangling an open source carrot? You might even get community contributions.

It's a fair point, but we don't feel ready to accept community contributions yet.

You really don't have to accept contributions if the repo is open. You could simply disable issues and close all PRs with a comment explaining that you're not ready for contributions yet. You could even automate that with a Github Action or similar.

Developing in the open would make it easier to trust that you're not doing something nefarious. When I think about the kind of data that goes through my terminal on a day-to-day basis, I have to _know_ for sure that my terminal can be trusted. That makes Warp a non-starter for me until it's open source, which is really a shame because it looks fantastic.

Re: Warp: Fast, Rust-based terminal (waiting list)

#103

Post by wffurr »

vidarh wrote: post #96
zachlloyd wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We mention Rust primarily because it produces a really high-performance app and to make clear that it's not built using Electron or web tech. We wrote up a pretty detailed technical design if you're interested in checking out how we built and why we made the decisions we made: https://blog.warp.dev/how-warp-works/

But who would expect Electron or web tech for a terminal ? Having written terminal code both in compiled and interpreted languages, and on machines about a thousand times slower than a typical modern machine, speed here is also much more down to algorithm choices - especially for rendering - than language. I find the focus on FPS pretty odd as well, as really high update speeds for a terminal typically only comes int…

I guess you missed the HN posts about another buzzy terminal app that is in fact written with Electron and boasts about extensible web tech as a feature: https://hyper.is/

Re: Warp: Fast, Rust-based terminal (waiting list)

#104

Post by samatman »

donio wrote: post #27

Who cares that it's Rust if it's closed source? Also: "All cloud features are opt-in. Data is encrypted at rest." The fact that this even needs to be stated makes it a hard no, especially for a terminal emulator.

The fact that it needs to be stated means that it has cloud features.

Opt-in and "encrypted at rest" AKA actually encrypted are the correct defaults.

I'm also uninterested unless both the client and the server are made open-source, because terminals are a bread-and-butter program and there's just no way I'm getting locked into someone else's cloud for that.

But the specific sentence you've quoted is a strange thing from which to recoil, from where I'm sitting.

Re: Warp: Fast, Rust-based terminal (waiting list)

#105

Post by alokedesai »

terhechte wrote: post #55
zachlloyd wrote: post #2

Hi HN, I’m Zach, from Warp. Excited to get feedback on what we’ve been working on. Happy to answer any questions!

I'd be curious: Did you use any of the existing Rust UI frameworks? (Druid, Iced, Femtovg, etc) or is it all custom build on something like wgpu? If it is all custom, congratulations the rich text layout looks really, really good (something of a sore spot in the current set of pure rust UI frameworks). Great product! I signed up for the beta, excited to try it out.

Thank you! The UI framework is entirely built in house with the help of Nathan Sobo (co-founder of the Atom text editor). We definitely considered a few of the options on https://www.areweguiyet.com/ but ultimately found none of them supported the requirements we wanted.

You can find more details about why we decided to build our own UI framework in the "How Warp Works" blog post we wrote here: https://blog.warp.dev/how-warp-works/

Re: Warp: Fast, Rust-based terminal (waiting list)

#106

Post by stouset »

barbazoo wrote: post #22

Somehow it feels odd that an implementation detail like the programming language it's implemented in is so prominent in the project's description. I have no idea what bash is written in and frankly I don't care much about it. It's a tool that enables me do be more productive. Could it be faster? Probably, but does anyone even notice that in the context of all the other things that we do _with_ it? Are there any benef…

I have dug into the bash source on two separate occasions. Once in response to the absolutely crushing CVE-2014-6271[1] and once to add what should have been a trivial logging feature.

What this experience (and others like it) have taught me is that far more people should care, and that we as an industry should be investing dramatically more effort into completely rewriting low-level C projects that were designed and developed thirty or more years ago. Little of the code I saw would pass modern code review for a variety of reasons.

Software engineering tools and practices have improved dramatically in those thirty years, but our foundations are built on frankly completely shoddy infrastructure that’s barely held together with duct tape and fishing line. Our industry profits almost exclusively off of building more and more on top of what’s already been built, but I’m convinced it’s becoming increasingly important to spend more of our collective effort on fixing, replacing, and repairing the stuff that lies below.

None of this is meant to malign the efforts of the developers of `bash` or any of the other venerable yet aging tools at the bottom of our stacks. There’s no blame to be had for building a tool with the knowledge and best practices of the time and for being hesitant to “fix what ain’t broke” in the thirty years since. But frankly, these things are a lot more broke and waiting to fail than most of us realize.

Further, none of this is to say that things are on the dire verge of collapse or that any one program is going to be the thing that dooms us all. Simply that our foundations are suspect and are increasing need of repair, particularly as we build ever-higher on them. Community efforts like those to improve OpenSSL in the wake of severe exploits have been invaluable and we need so much more of it. Preferably before exploits are discovered.

So I for one applaud efforts to rewrite and rethink these programs, and especially to develop them in modern languages with stronger protections, infinitely fewer footguns, and better testing infrastructure.

[1]: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2014-6271

Re: Warp: Fast, Rust-based terminal (waiting list)

#107

Post by Zarel »

chawyehsu wrote: post #86
donio wrote: post #27

Who cares that it's Rust if it's closed source? Also: "All cloud features are opt-in. Data is encrypted at rest." The fact that this even needs to be stated makes it a hard no, especially for a terminal emulator.

> The fact that this even needs to be stated makes it a hard no, especially for a terminal emulator. True. And a terminal that requires an e-mail login? I doubt they are going to build a social product, then users can co-op or date in the terminal.

They're definitely planning to build a social product:

https://assets-global.website-files.com/60352b1db5736ada4741...

Re: Warp: Fast, Rust-based terminal (waiting list)

#109

Post by zhengt »

Llamanator3830 wrote: post #53
mrweasel wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we care even if it open source? The use of Rust is an implementation detail and shouldn’t really matter.

Alacritty is open-source and written in Rust with great performance. I don't see a reason to use Warp yet.

Alacritty is a different approach: they're building a traditional terminal. Warp is hoping to push the boundaries and build something different.

Warp is a fork of Alacritty, their team was very gracious in collaborating and reviewing Warp's initial designs.

Re: Warp: Fast, Rust-based terminal (waiting list)

#110

Post by samatman »

charlespierce wrote: post #44
barbazoo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just looking at that! It seems that I'm also conflating "terminal" and "shell" here possibly. Is Warp both in this case?

Warp is a terminal, we still rely on the underlying shell to do the interpretation / execution of the commands. At the moment, we support using bash, zsh, or fish as the shell.

...huh.

Writing a tty which has to support specific shells isn't confidence inducing.

How did you paint yourself into that specific corner exactly?

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