Somehow this whole ecosystem of tools always gives me a bad vibe, and I can't quite pinpoint why.
All the demos and videos are applications with lots of stacked pop-ups/modal windows, and things moving around continuously. It all reminds me of what we typically see in computers in TV shows or sci-fi films.
It just looks like a chaotic mess of things, and I get this really strong urge to just stay away from it all.
For me its the fact a large chunk of my terminal experience is over limited bandwidth connections to laggy servers with varying feature support. I appreciate the eye candy and what they have achieved but I don't need it, I just want TUIs to work everywhere with low latency.
I've been building a coding agent (https://github.com/abrinsmead/cogent) on the previous version of bubble tea for the past few weeks and it has been nice to work with (though honestly I'm not touching much code).
The biggest blocker I have is that I haven't been able to simultaneously support both mouse wheel scrolling and the ability to select text for copy and paste. I understand that this is a limitation of pretty much all terminals, but we have seen it solved in Claude Code. Maybe this new version has a solution.
man I want to know where their creativity comes from, it's like they've built an entire world with a story... but it's just a (highly regarded) collection of packages
It's intentional design. They picked a strong visual identity early and applied it consistently; the name, the color palette, the retro terminal feel. Every package looks like it belongs to the same family.
Most open source projects never think about this. Charm did from day one.
This has led to a completely overblown design of at least their website. All these cutesy pictures of bubble tea, way too big graphical wrappers, no simple page that is labeled "screenshots", no explanation what "bubbletea" actually is, ... One would think it to be a simple task to mention somewhere that this is a TUI library, where one can see it at the first glance. But apparently not. Instead I am seeing:
Your new coding bestie, now available in your favourite terminal. Your tools, your code, and your workflows, wired into your LLM of choice. This is artificial intelligence made glamourous.
Eh, so something about AI tools? And is "Crush" another tool than "bubbletea"? Why am I seeing something about "Crush" and not about "bubbletea"?
Maybe it's simply not my taste. For a TUI library, I expect serious listings of what it can do, what it supports, what it helps you with. Is it a layer on top of ncurses? Features and use-cases over meaningless authority arguments like "Look who uses this too!".
I also see:
We make the command line glamorous.
I don't want my command line to change! I configured it to be just how I like it. What they mean is, that they make command line applications using their library "glamorous" (whatever that means). I have a suggestion for a better slogan: "Your advanced command line widgets library" or "Library for advanced TUI applications".
From my interactions with younger engineers, this is what "they're looking for". I think we're just used to a different format, so our expectations don't match the reality. Our instincts are different, maybe? Not sure.
I think it's both completely valid to feel this way, and also valid for them to have fun with their design and aesthetic. If you already know what charm does, it makes perfect sense and is cool to see.
Thank you. I kept looking at the page trying to figure out WTF it even was, and was unsuccessful. Damn, I wish I had a cane so I could shake it at these devs.
Please, a simple web page that tells me what this does, and why I should use it. Links to github have never done this for me.
https://github.com/charmbracelet/bubbletea has a couple screencast worth checking out.
Not sure if it's a good comparison (never used both in depth) but think of this a Go version of all the goodies from https://textual.textualize.io/
Somehow this whole ecosystem of tools always gives me a bad vibe, and I can't quite pinpoint why.
All the demos and videos are applications with lots of stacked pop-ups/modal windows, and things moving around continuously. It all reminds me of what we typically see in computers in TV shows or sci-fi films.
It just looks like a chaotic mess of things, and I get this really strong urge to just stay away from it all.
For me its the fact a large chunk of my terminal experience is over limited bandwidth connections to laggy servers with varying feature support. I appreciate the eye candy and what they have achieved but I don't need it, I just want TUIs to work everywhere with low latency.
Yeah. nothing quite like ANSI code dumps at 9600 bps.
Bubbletea is actually pretty cool. I also agree that the website doesn't look so good.
Maybe I’m getting old but I couldn’t tell if this was a joke or not. I think they should explain a little more like what these products actually do?
I've been building a coding agent (https://github.com/abrinsmead/cogent) on the previous version of bubble tea for the past few weeks and it has been nice to work with (though honestly I'm not touching much code).
The biggest blocker I have is that I haven't been able to simultaneously support both mouse wheel scrolling and the ability to select text for copy and paste. I understand that this is a limitation of pretty much all terminals, but we have seen it solved in Claude Code. Maybe this new version has a solution.
man I want to know where their creativity comes from, it's like they've built an entire world with a story... but it's just a (highly regarded) collection of packages
It's intentional design. They picked a strong visual identity early and applied it consistently; the name, the color palette, the retro terminal feel. Every package looks like it belongs to the same family. Most open source projects never think about this. Charm did from day one.
This has led to a completely overblown design of at least their website. All these cutesy pictures of bubble tea, way too big graphical wrappers, no simple page that is labeled "screenshots", no explanation what "bubbletea" actually is, ... One would think it to be a simple task to mention somewhere that this is a TUI library, where one can see it at the first glance. But apparently not. Instead I am seeing:
Eh, so something about AI tools? And is "Crush" another tool than "bubbletea"? Why am I seeing something about "Crush" and not about "bubbletea"?Maybe it's simply not my taste. For a TUI library, I expect serious listings of what it can do, what it supports, what it helps you with. Is it a layer on top of ncurses? Features and use-cases over meaningless authority arguments like "Look who uses this too!".
I also see:
I don't want my command line to change! I configured it to be just how I like it. What they mean is, that they make command line applications using their library "glamorous" (whatever that means). I have a suggestion for a better slogan: "Your advanced command line widgets library" or "Library for advanced TUI applications".Maybe I am nitpicking too much.
From my interactions with younger engineers, this is what "they're looking for". I think we're just used to a different format, so our expectations don't match the reality. Our instincts are different, maybe? Not sure.
You aren't. When your content sounds like slop you drive people away.
Honestly amazes me they'd put that much effort into visual brand and so little effort into copywriting.
You aren't. When your content sounds like slop you drive people away.
Honestly amazes me you'd put so much effort into brand and not do copywriting yourself.
I think it's both completely valid to feel this way, and also valid for them to have fun with their design and aesthetic. If you already know what charm does, it makes perfect sense and is cool to see.
I don't understand what this is but I kinda want it. Is it kinda cool-retro-term + starship?
Go libraries for making terminal UIs
- https://github.com/charmbracelet/bubbletea
- https://github.com/charmbracelet/bubbles
- https://github.com/charmbracelet/lipgloss
But why when Claude can write you a perfectly laggy tui in react?
It may be a coincidence but there has been an increase in thinly veiled humor in HN comments.
Thanks finally some clarity.
I've been using tcell, it's been fine... This just looks like fancy TUI without real benefits but wowing the user at first run...
It's crazy how much this UI design is like future retro 2008 design.
It took me too long to understand that this is just a TUI library for Go
Thank you. I kept looking at the page trying to figure out WTF it even was, and was unsuccessful. Damn, I wish I had a cane so I could shake it at these devs.
Thank you, I was excited for new drinks and flavors and this saved me the read.
I thought there had been a major breakthrough in tapioca-tech