this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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Ghostty 1.0 is Coming (programming.dev)
submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by CodiUnicorn to c/programming
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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 weeks ago (6 children)

What do the exclamation points mean?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, I’d say Kitty and Alacritty work pretty well on Linux. Makes this comparison table seem like bs

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Kitty on macos is absolutely fine too

[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

That the guy making the table is pulling things out of their arse, basically.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago

Here is the review by a closed beta tester.

https://hanna.lol/p/ghost-in-the-terminal/

Here is the video where he talks about the optimization done in ghostty

https://youtu.be/cPaGkEesw20?t=3021&si=ppZK2tbGktJah9cN

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

They explain it a bit here: https://mitchellh.com/writing/ghostty-and-useful-zig-patterns

Also, calling out the warning signs, my bar for a native platform experience is that the app feels and acts like a purpose-built native app. I don't think this bar is unreasonable. For example, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that Alacritty is kind of not native because new windows create new processes. Or that Kitty is kind of not native because tabs use a non-native widget. And so on (there are many more examples for each).

So nothing wrong with Kitty on MacOS e.g., but the "feel" is not native. Personally don't care too much about that, but the author seems to do.

[–] SuperFola 11 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

This smells like bullshit because it’s just based on things users do not see (processes) or do not care about (the style used for your tabs).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah I agree the table is very odd, but the project looks awesome anyway. Some users may care about things using native widgets when it comes to theming and stuff, though I wouldn't even know what I'd call "native" on Linux. Is GTK native? Qt?

[–] ericjmorey 1 points 4 weeks ago

He seems to target GTK based on his statement:

"On macOS, the main GUI experience is written in Swift using AppKit and SwiftUI. The tabs are native tabs, the splits are native UI components, multi-window works as you'd expect, etc. On Linux, the GUI experience is GTK using real GTK windows and other widgets.

Features such as error messages are not implemented with a specialized terminal view, we actually use real native UI components. The point is, while the terminal surface and core logic is cross-platform, the user interaction is all purpose-built for each operating system for a true native experience."

https://mitchellh.com/writing/ghostty-and-useful-zig-patterns

[–] BlueBockser 4 points 4 weeks ago

✅ but I can't give the competitors too many ✅ so let's go with ⚠️

[–] SuperFola 4 points 4 weeks ago

Unsure, I am using kitty with a very minimal config on MacOS and it works well. Haven’t had any bugs. Seems more like marketing to me (the image)

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

https://mitchellh.com/writing/ghostty-is-coming

It was discussed in details in his presentation (the link is in the article).

[–] SuperFola 12 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Kitty is mentioned once in the article and that’s it. Doesn’t even mention its downside and how ghostty is so much better according to them.

It’s a great project and all, but I’d love if people could stop stomping on others work just to appear better.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] SuperFola 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Only says it’s fast on some specific benchmarks against alacrity. Not talking about why alacrity or kitty would not work on Linux/mac while ghostty does.

Sure, it’s interesting that he managed to optimize so many things. But the claims in the picture are unproven.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Not talking about why alacrity or kitty would not work on Linux/mac while ghostty does.

Does the picture/article claim alacritty or kitty would not work on Linux/mac? Where can I read that?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

It's the misleading exclamation mark. If I see this picture, my impression is that kitty works only with issues on Linux

[–] SuperFola 2 points 4 weeks ago

Also, what does « features » mean? Why does alacrity have none?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 weeks ago

Agree on the misleading table. To make it worse, OP didn't include the Mitchell's article link.

Table alone does not paint the complete picture (and marking Alacritty has no features is too absurd). Alacritty lacks features but exclamation would be better suited (instead of cross).

Some of the features Alacritty does not have

  • ligature
  • tabs
  • split
  • layouts
  • terminal graphics protocol (at least Kitty)