Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#301

Post by mamcx » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:19 PM UTC

drinchev wrote: post #11

I’ve been a heavy user of FoxPro [1] back in time. I would really love someone to make a better version of it. Although these days you have Airtable [2] and Ninox [3] they are having different user base than good old FoxPro. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_FoxPro 2: https://airtable.com 3: https://ninoxdb.de/en/

Seconded!

I'm working in a spiritual replacement (http://tablam.org) but with first-class support for mobile.

I'm starting with a relational language, then a bridge to native UI Toolkits. Embed sqlite and good support for others RDBMS and as a larger hope, a custom RDBMS on top of LMDB or WiredTiger.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#302

Post by api » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:20 PM UTC

coleifer wrote: post #283

Old-school visual basic, but maybe powered by python or another modern scripting language.

Agreed. Best visual GUI editor ever made. A modern reboot of similar concepts with modern look and feel would be something I would pay for, especially if you could target both desktop and mobile.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#303

Post by 13of40 » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:20 PM UTC

Hrundi wrote: post #139

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem somewhat paranoid. Might be useful to exclude certain routes with an easy interface, but tremendously harmful by seemingly legitimizing the myth of “no-go” areas that has recently become a favorite talking point of the alt-right in my (perfectly safe) country.

Not only this is not recent, it has nothing to do with politics or ideology, at all. No-go zones have been used all over the world for decades.

Not all over the world. I'm in Seattle and I'd probably have to drive to Chicago or Tijuana to find a place I wouldn't feel safe driving through.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#304

Post by jakear » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

coleifer wrote: post #283

Old-school visual basic, but maybe powered by python or another modern scripting language.

What do you mean by old school? Isn’t it powered by .NET, why would you change that? Genuinely curious, I don’t know much about msft’s developer tools.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#305

Post by lytedev » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

selimthegrim wrote: post #201

Fnoord wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDA Pro

It’s not still a thing?

I think he was recommending it as a modern alternative?

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#306

Post by brassattax » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

LeoPanthera wrote: post #246

HyperCard. It's been decades and I've still never found a better way to make simple GUI applications.

Microsoft's PowerApps is pretty neat and reminded me of Hypercard. It's Office365 cloud-only though.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#307

Post by laaph » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

EamonnMR wrote: post #129

Mostly game engines I enjoyed. The Escape Velocity Engine for one, though clones exist. The Tiberian Sun/Red Alert 2 engine is this crazy mix of voxels, dynamic lighting, height-mapped terrain all in a fundamentally 2d environment which is really cool. I would have loved to read Starcraft's source code, but I imagine that'll never happen now with Remastered.

You should check out Endless Sky for a good open source remake of Escape Velocity.

http://endless-sky.github.io

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#308

Post by zmix » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

marktangotango wrote: post #285

zmix wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> electron eats so much cpu & memory simply because it's > still a web browser, it has to support all those 20 years > of HTML/CSS history and it was designed to do so for 10s > of tabs, so it has a lot of caches and other things. XULRunner does the same thing, includes, in addition, a full XML GUI language and assorted technologies and the full runtime distribution, on my Windows10 system, including debugging, crash…

I often wonder why/how xulrunner has descended into obscurity while electron has blossomed. Anyone have input on that?

If I'd give you an honest answer, I'd be downvoted to hell ;-)

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#309

Post by meredydd » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

coleifer wrote: post #283

Old-school visual basic, but maybe powered by python or another modern scripting language.

May I interest you in something explicitly in that genre?

https://anvil.works is VB6, but for the Web, and in Python. No JS frameworks required! We've had data scientists with no Web experience produce MVPs with it in a couple of weeks.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#310

Post by Mister_Snuggles » Sat, Dec 08, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

cpcallen wrote: post #30

Aperture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture_(software) I would happily pay for an update that fixed outstanding bugs and ensured compatibility with future versions of macOS. It would be nice to have some new features, too, but it is basically "good enough" as it is and I dread the day I can no longer run it. I'm really not sure what I will do. The claim that Photos was going to be a meaningful replacement for Ape…

I'm not a pro and loved Aperture. It made my workflow so easy and it was such a fast program. I haven't found anything that lets me cruise through photos so fast and pare them down. Left/Right arrows, Z to look at details, X to flag as a reject made running through hundreds of photos a breeze.

I'm trying to find an alternative and, quite frankly, everything I've tried is not great. I ended up buying AfterShot Pro, but I'm not terribly satisfied with it. It runs on the Mac, but it's really hurt by the fact that it's not actually a Mac application.

Adobe is out because of the subscription model. I'm willing to buy the software, and I'm even willing to periodically buy new versions when it makes sense, but $10/month forever is hard to stomach.