nginx/src/core/*Ask HN: What are some examples of beautiful software?
181–190 of 262 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of beautiful software?
#182bspwm [0] + sxhkd [1]
[0] https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm
[1] https://github.com/baskerville/sxhkdRe: Ask HN: What are some examples of beautiful software?
#183There is a few rather universal generalizations about most of these projects people find beautiful - the code has been written after throughout understanding of what one is doing and why - the domain, the first principles, the logic and the representation. And then one returns and refines (refactors) the code several times as long as one's understanding clarifies in the process of writing it down.
Jumping right into IDE to solve a problem is a way to end up with bullshit, like to write down the contents of undeveloped and undisciplined mind.
"My code is my documentation", or auto-generated "documentation" is bullshit for the same reasons.
Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of beautiful software?
#184Look at Laravel, every comments is made on 3 lines that go smaller and smaller. The amount of details in the framework is pretty huge.
Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of beautiful software?
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
> JSON is just this beautiful thing that lets you store data however you want. What if I want to store integers? Not floats. Integers.
Can you provide some more context? > JSON.stringify(1) "1" Stored without a decimal for free, seems like it'd be up to the receiver to interpret it correctly. What if you receive it in JS? JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(1)) > 1 Ok, so it parses an int for free too... thus my confusion. Regardless, you can still override anything it does considering the second argument to both `JSON.parse()` and `JSON.stringify()` allows y…
JSON.stringify(9223372036854775807)
"9223372036854776000"
JSON.stringify(9007199254740993)
"9007199254740992"
JSON doesn't support integers for example on my 64bit system it can't support INT_MAX as a value and anything greater then 9007199254740993 might just come out as wrong.
Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of beautiful software?
#186Why do we assume that software is same as code? I wonder if graphics tools(like photoshop) were't invented as a point and click tool, but something that you would need to code instead, we would have praised some X or Y instead of Z..
Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of beautiful software?
#187Anything by Zach Tellman: https://github.com/ztellman/aleph https://github.com/ztellman/automat In terms of his ideas, watch "Always be composing": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oQTSP4FngY And he offers some great thoughts about queues and backpressure in "Everything will flow": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bNOO3xxMc0
> "Always be composing"
the ideas were stolen from the Wizards talk
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput...
Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of beautiful software?
#188My vote is for SQLite. It is very well written, incredibly well tested, and one of the simplest and most flexible tools out there. My favorite part is the extensive documentation explaining the architecture decisions they made.
is this more a case of 'well-engineered'?
I agree the quality of SQLite is very high, but is it just devotion to details or aesthetic?
Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of beautiful software?
#189For me it's Blender. - Starts in a sec. - API is the program, the GUI just an interface. - Free but very professional - Shortcuts are ergonomic.
Blender is great, but the UI is very non-standard (for little benefit). A good program can be used by domain experts without reading the manual, something that's not possible with Blender. 3D Max, 4D Studio, and CAD apps like CATIA have a much more intuitive UI.
Yes. I've dabbled with blender a couple of times, and it's infuriating how hard it is to do simple things like rearranging palettes. Blender is different than any other software I've used, and is unique in requiring a tutorial just to understand basic stuff like how to open and save files...
Re: Ask HN: What are some examples of beautiful software?
#190I'm seeing a lot of meanings to "beautiful" here, please, let's define what we're talking about.
Does "beautiful" means "the code is clean"? If so, the Quake source code is "beautiful", while Duke3D Build engine is "ugly".
Does "beaufitul" means "the code is clever"? If so, gcc, ffmpeg and ODE are "beautiful", and Google's Ninja is "tasteless".
Does "beautiful" means "the code is modular" (I mean "open-closed" here)? If so, VLC is "beautiful", and everything monolithic is "ugly" (gcc, Linux, systemd, LLVM, ...).
Does "beautiful" means "the software performs flawlessly"? If so, the Duke3D Build engine, Quake's engine, and Portal's physics engine are "beautiful", while VLC is "ugly".
Does "beautiful" means "the software embodies a clever concept"? If so, "grep" and "xargs" are "beautiful", and the Windows Batch interpreter is "ugly".
Does "beautiful" means "the software is easy to use"? If so, the Windows calculator is "beautiful", while Mathematica and vim are "ugly".
Does "beautiful" means "the software can be twisted in lots of interesting ways"? If so, dynamic language interpreters are "beautiful", while static language compilers are "ugly".
My point is, any piece of software can be seen as "beautiful" or "ugly".
We have meaningful objective attributes at our disposal, like "simple", "clever", "fit", "robust", "fast", "small", "user friendly"... let's use them!