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Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

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Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#801

Post by yoz-y »

simonask wrote: post #720
reactordev wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ooooo… now we’re talking. Sloppy HTML that closes a tag out of order or just declared out of order? Or rendering bugs when bold is before italic? It’s why XHTML should have been standard. Just dump, error out, make the developer fix it.

But the problem here is that our nice programmer-brained mental model does not match the actual requirements of text. Unless you know about tree structures, it doesn’t make sense to the average person why you would have to stop and then restart a span of formatting options just because an unrelated attribute changed. And that’s why XHTML failed - HTML is human-writable .

IMO a healthy dose of elitism would have helped tools to remain simpler and more secure (i.e.: not need to deal with trying to parse wrong input)

I get that non programmers were writing html before, but these days not even most programmers write it.

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#802

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #702
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any ways that I can make games or something Like I want to make websites about me similar to those in neocities right, those flashy nice (good?) artistic UI I suck at css. I don't know but I never really got a feedback attention loop and heck even AI can make it better than me But I want to show the world what I myself can make as well and not just what I prompt or get back. I want a good feedback loop, can…

Flash is kind of dead now, i don't think the tools to create new Flash software are even released anymore. I would recommend learning Godot to make a game. There's some great tutorials like here - https://www.gdquest.com/library/first_2d_game_godot4_vampire...

Yes I understand but godot wasm takes a genuinely longer time to load a game than as compared to ruffle but yeah I have tinkered with godot, maybe I will play with that. Thank you.

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#803

Post by eszed »

castillar76 wrote: post #784
eszed wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time ICQ was mentioned on HN I could still remember my ICQ number. It's a benchmark for how much my memory has deteriorated in the last five years. I do still remember it fondly, though.

Side note that not remembering it has nothing to do with memory deterioration. Neurons that fire together wire together: if you haven’t used that particular piece of information in a while, your brain gradually clears out links to it to make room for stuff you are currently referencing. So not remembering it is really more a demonstration of how much ICQ use has deteriorated. :)

I know. I probably hadn't thought of that number even once in the preceeding fifteen years, and yet it was still there. I had a stroke in 2020, prior to which random detritus like my ICQ number stuck around, along with genuinely useful things like a dozen or two poems that I love. Some of those I've tried to re-learn, and they no longer stick for very long. It is what it is, and I'm not objectively badly off - I'm still able to do a cognitively-demanding job, for instance - but I miss those little things.

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#804

Post by follower »

Wistar wrote: post #744

I sure liked Aldus Freehand a lot more than Adobe Illustrator although it has been so long that I don’t remember specifics other than I generally understood how to use it a lot better than Illustrator.

I vaguely wondered if FreeHand would make an appearance in this thread. :)

Two features that come to mind as IIRC being unique (as compared to Illustrator) were multi-page documents and multiple page size multi-page documents. Ideal for the complete standard set of company branded print documents: business card, "With Compliments" slip, and letterhead. :D

Adobe's acquisition of Macromedia and subsequent killing of (the IMO superior) FreeHand contributed directly to my subsequent decision to avoid closed source application software--especially for creative tools--even if alternatives were "technically inferior".

(And, indeed, "creative tool killed/hampered for business reasons" is a story which has been repeated elsewhere multiple times in the quarter century[0] since.)

While Inkscape is still missing features compared to FreeHand it is however also still here many years later and is what I've used ever since when I need 2D vector design software. (Although I've also been keeping an eye on Graphite: https://graphite.rs)

----

[0] Oh, weird, apparently it's actually less than 25 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_FreeHand#Adobe_FreeHand Seems I've been holding the grudge for less time than I thought. :D

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#805

Post by timonofathens »

educasean wrote: post #710

Google Stadia. They had built a solid streaming platform for low latency cloud gaming but failed hard on actually having interesting games to play on it. You just can't launch a gaming platform with a handful of games that have been available everywhere and expect it to succeed.

+1 I really loved Stadia

I had a good connection and sometimes I forgot I was streaming a game.

At least the died gracefully, I played for free and also got a chromecast + controller out of the deal

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#806

Post by follower »

lormayna wrote: post #520

* bzr: I always found git too much complex and not really ergonomic. I really liked bzr simplicity * Rethinkdb: I made some small projects with it in the past and it was easy to easy

> bzr

While not perfect, I have some hope that Jujutsu may be a path forward for improved ergonomics in version control: https://github.com/jj-vcs/jj/blob/main/README.md#introductio...

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#807

Post by follower »

teo_zero wrote: post #636

Gitless. I'm a fan of software that allows you to get your feet wet with simple concepts and progressively add complex ones when you feel you're ready. Gitless was my introduction to git.

Just mentioned this in another reply but Jujutsu may be of interest as a maintained alternative to gitless: https://github.com/jj-vcs/jj/blob/main/README.md#introductio...

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#808

Post by troupo »

throw_await wrote: post #756
troupo wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The syntax errors that cause XHTML to stop parsing also cause JSX to stop parsing. If this kind of thing really were a problem, it would have killed React. JSX is processed during the build step, XHTML is processed at runtime, by the browser.

Invalid XHTML woild have been caught in the test suite

Neither you nor the sibling commentator can be serious.

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#809

Post by troupo »

naasking wrote: post #795
troupo wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The syntax errors that cause XHTML to stop parsing also cause JSX to stop parsing. If this kind of thing really were a problem, it would have killed React. JSX is processed during the build step, XHTML is processed at runtime, by the browser.

Yes, which presumably would have actually been tested by someone before it was uploaded.

Neither you nor the sibling commentator can be serious.

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#810

Post by withinboredom »

alex7o wrote: post #213
bdcravens wrote: post #204

RethinkDB. Technically it still exists (under The Linux Foundation), but (IMO) the original company's widening scope (the Horizon BaaS) that eventually led to its demise killed its momentum.

Man I loves the original concept for demos but never build anything real with it. Curious if anyone did?

Still running it today with millions of documents. Runs fine. I still maintain an active php fork of the driver (with actual types) and add new features as they get added to the database. Yes, it still gets new features every few years.
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