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Kite is saying farewell and open-sourcing its code

kite.com

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Re: Kite is saying farewell and open-sourcing its code

#141

Post by jrsj »

eloff wrote: post #64
jrpt wrote: post #18

"Our diagnosis is that individual developers do not pay for tools. Their manager might, but engineering managers only want to pay for discrete new capabilities, i.e. making their developers 18% faster when writing code did not resonate strongly enough." I never used Kite, but I've tried Github Copilot twice, and found it marginal at best (and distracting at worst - which is why I turned it off both times). If Kite wa…

My experience with copilot has been very different. It easily pays for itself, and getting my employer (seed stage startup) to spring for it for the entire team was an easy sell. Yeah it's pretty dumb most of the time. But I know that, and I don't use code from it without carefully checking it out and modifying it. But it's still a huge help. Just the time saved writing tests alone pays for it. And I've had a few spo…

Kite has been around for a lot longer, if anything Copilot was Github copying them

Re: Kite is saying farewell and open-sourcing its code

#142

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

jrpt wrote: post #18

"Our diagnosis is that individual developers do not pay for tools. Their manager might, but engineering managers only want to pay for discrete new capabilities, i.e. making their developers 18% faster when writing code did not resonate strongly enough." I never used Kite, but I've tried Github Copilot twice, and found it marginal at best (and distracting at worst - which is why I turned it off both times). If Kite wa…

I think the real reason is that developers are maybe some of the hardest to fool customers on the planet.

Since we literally build all of this our B.S. detection meter is really high.

Kite thought it can go after the up and coming new developers by doing slightly shady things.

However, developers also have an incredible allergy to such tactics and it forever taints your brand.

So overall, developers do pay for tools, just not useless ones with shady growth tactics.

Re: Kite is saying farewell and open-sourcing its code

#143

Post by throwaway675309 »

urthor wrote: post #69
arcturus17 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loads of devs I’ve spoken to, from junior to principal level, absolutely love Github Copilot though. Don’t know who is paying it for them, nor if Kite was significantly worse, but I think that at least Copilot has a brilliant future ahead of it.

It's interesting, the ones I've spoken to are extremely suspicious. "GitHub Copilot blocks your ability to learn." Is a common refrain. I don't see ANY industry-wide consensus on whether GitHub Copilot truly helps developers right now. The only scenario I can get anyone to agree on is generating templates. Aka, JSON or CSS files that you then edit.

It doesn't block your ability to learn any more than any auto suggestion systems. But I guess it depends on what you value in terms of learning, for me, copilot allows me to focus on the larger architectural problems while not having to worry about the exact syntax of certain things (DSL query language, middleware express, typescript def annotations, etc).

Every time I don't have to context switch to look up some technical errata in my browser is a complete win for me.

Re: Kite is saying farewell and open-sourcing its code

#144

Post by jnwatson »

dijit wrote: post #109
joshvm wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Our diagnosis is that individual developers do not pay for tools." I think this is probably true. If you need a tool for your day job, your company ought to be paying for it. Some companies have slush funds for small purchases like books, but subscription costs for services would normally need to be approved. If you're a solo consultant then perhaps you'd pay for tools that make you more productive. But for personal…

If you'll allow me to go on a tangent here; The sheer volume of subscription services I've signed up for as the CTO for a startup is mind-boggling. $8 here, $19 there, $49 for something important, $99 for something essential. Some tools are easily worth it, especially when you see what is charged for other (less valuable) tools. Gitlab, Confluence, Jira, Asana, 1Password, co-pilot, codepen, sentry, jetbrains, gitlab…

The weird thing is that 13% seems high. It is hard to imagine they are less than 13% more efficient with those tools.

It is weird that software engineers are the only engineer-types that are supposed to be able to do their job with just a computer and a built-in editor.

Re: Kite is saying farewell and open-sourcing its code

#145

Post by rch »

> the Kite Engine, which performs all the code analysis and machine learning 100% locally on your computer (no code is sent to a cloud server).

I was never aware they changed the architecture to keep code analysis entirely local. I would have purchased a subscription, had I known.

Re: Kite is saying farewell and open-sourcing its code

#147

Post by esperent »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #142
jrpt wrote: post #18

"Our diagnosis is that individual developers do not pay for tools. Their manager might, but engineering managers only want to pay for discrete new capabilities, i.e. making their developers 18% faster when writing code did not resonate strongly enough." I never used Kite, but I've tried Github Copilot twice, and found it marginal at best (and distracting at worst - which is why I turned it off both times). If Kite wa…

I think the real reason is that developers are maybe some of the hardest to fool customers on the planet. Since we literally build all of this our B.S. detection meter is really high. Kite thought it can go after the up and coming new developers by doing slightly shady things. However, developers also have an incredible allergy to such tactics and it forever taints your brand. So overall, developers do pay for tools,…

> Kite thought it can go after the up and coming new developers by doing slightly shady things

I briefly tried Kite a few years ago. I didn't notice anything shady although maybe I just didn't stick around long enough.

What shady tactics are you referring to?

Re: Kite is saying farewell and open-sourcing its code

#148

Post by janoc »

jll29 wrote: post #102

Things I've payed for that I'm still using today: - Sublime - GitHub.com - ACM Digital Library (The latter two are subscriptions.) Things I've payed for in the past that I no longer use: - MS Visual C++ - Omicron Pascal - Application Systems Modula-2 - Atari ST GFA BASIC 2.0 - Berkeley YACC and FLEX port to TOS/GEM - ... Overall, many dev tools are free nowadays, which creates an expectation, perhaps, that it should…

I don't think people have problem paying for tools that are genuinely useful for them, regardless of whether or not there are free tools around.

The problem with Kite seems that their engineered first ("This machine learning AI is so cool, what can we do with it?" "I am a VC, are you doing AI? TAKE MY $$$$!") and only after burning through millions started to look at how to actually make money out of it.

And discovered that:

a) Hobbyist/individual developers rarely want to pay yet another subscription (can't justify it if you aren't making money with it & even $10/month subscriptions do add up!)

b) Corporate developers don't have purchasing authority. Everything must get approved, by both accountants and legal/compliance. Expecting a large company to pay a huge monthly/annual subscription fee for what is essentially a better autocompleter? Good luck with that.

That "Oh but your developers will be 18% faster!" argument is BS. 90% of the corporate developer's time isn't spent on typing code but on debugging, design, maintenance and meetings. Kite (or Copilot) don't help with that.

c) What about copyright/compliance issues? This has been trained on Github repositories - i.e. the same as Github's Copilot. How do I know where does the completed code come from? What about licenses on that code? Can I filter only for permissive/non-contagious (i.e. non-GPL) licenses? What about my code/whatever I type? Does it get sent to your servers? That alone is a complete no-go for companies.

In other words, a classic case where one shouldn't ask whether something could be done but whether it should. Someone outside of their engineering bubble and with a bit of business acumen would have told them that. Or at least told them to do a market research first, before spending all that time and money.

But hey, they had a good ride for the VC's money and are winding it down in an organized manner, without leaving a ton of shattered lives and a mountain of debt behind. So that's a plus.

Re: Kite is saying farewell and open-sourcing its code

#149

Post by BoorishBears »

_cs2017_ wrote: post #79
BoorishBears wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a nuanced understanding of the language, yes, it is. The common definitions have to do with stealing, but an equally valid definition of the word hijack is to: > take over (something) and use it for a different purpose. Taking over a project so you can have it to advertise your service is exactly that.

> take over (something) and use it for a different purpose. You are misleading readers in order to promote your agenda. You clearly speak perfect English, so you know what hijack means. "take over (something) and use it for a different purpose." is not found as a definition of "hijack" in any dictionary. "Hijack" implies "unlawfully" or "without having a right to do so". Of course, every word can be used in a slightl…

You should let Cambridge know: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/hijac...

> to take control of or use something that does not belong to you for your own advantage:

And Encyclopædia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/hijack

>: to take or take control of (something) for your own purposes

And Merriam Webster: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hijack

> : to take or take control of (something) as if by hijacking > often, specifically : to change the topic or focus of (something, such as a conversation) : REDIRECT

It wasn't my statement by the way, I just figure if you're going to nitpick you should at least be correct about the nit.

Re: Kite is saying farewell and open-sourcing its code

#150

Post by yarg »

jrpt wrote: post #18

"Our diagnosis is that individual developers do not pay for tools. Their manager might, but engineering managers only want to pay for discrete new capabilities, i.e. making their developers 18% faster when writing code did not resonate strongly enough." I never used Kite, but I've tried Github Copilot twice, and found it marginal at best (and distracting at worst - which is why I turned it off both times). If Kite wa…

I paid for intellij - damned near the entire architecture team where I worked had a copy, and the company sure as shit wasn't the one paying for it.

(I eventually stopped subscribing, in part because they were too slow distancing themselves from Russia, in part because of their movement away from open source with their newer tooling.)

Developers will pay for software, if the value proposition is there.

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