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Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#941

Post by oftenwrong »

joconde wrote: post #845
oftenwrong wrote: post #827

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need buildkit for that; you can use multi-stage builds without buildkit to exclude your deb file from the final image.

I don’t find it satisfying: I can copy files from one stage to another, but I can’t install a .deb (or any other package for that matter). Copying a list of paths will break if the package changes, and it can’t easily do anything done by pre-install and post-install scripts (like changing a file, registering a GPG key, etc.) The official excuse from Docker is that “multi-stage builds cover that use”, but that’s not t…

I think I understand your use case, although I don't follow the part about mounting a host dir in the build (how it would help).

I do not really consider this limitation a design flaw of Dockerfiles; this is more of a mismatch between Dockerfile functionality and what you want to do. Dockerfiles are not designed to execute general-purpose programs, so there is an assumption in the design of Dockerfiles that you know (more or less) which files you want to COPY ahead of time. It sounds like you want a mechanism for COPYing all filesystem changes resulting from a RUN instruction without having to know what those changes are ahead of time.

In the future, maybe a buildkit HLB language will provide a macro system that makes this sort of thing straightforward to implement.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#942

Post by timonoko »

spoils19 wrote: post #548
glandium wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More generally, the Japanese bathroom, which allows that bath design (or, most probably, was designed around that).

Perhaps tangential, but it still astounds me how Americans scoff whenever I mention that we have floor drains in Australian bathrooms. "What, is your bathroom a locker room or something? snicker ". Setting aside how it helps with potential flooding* and makes the floor tiles infinitely easier to clean, it also allows things like this. *I've also had comments like "why would your bathroom ever flood???" as if nothing…

Astounds me Australians have only one drain. In Finland TWO drains is now preferred. Especially in student dormitories and such. The reason is that people pass out in shower and block the drain.

In cold climate water damage can be fatal, because of heavy insulation and subsequent mildew bloom in it.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#943

Post by ichydkrsrnae »

pxeger1 wrote: post #868

YouTube's video player (almost the entire rest of the site is beyond crap, don't get me wrong! I'm just talking about the watching experience) (assuming you have an ad-blocker, which you obviously should). Plenty of other video players have some of these features, but YouTube has almost everything. - click to pause - double-click to fullscreen - customisable captions - speed controls - sensible keyboard shortcuts for…

The most aggravating drag-to-seek in the solar system, bar none. Even xvideos is better.

The playback speed options are mega stupid. I want to speed up or down on fine increments around "normal speed", about the mean. I don't want 2x. WTF is that exactly? Let me listen to my audiobook on chipmunk voice speed? I need to be able to listen to The Talking Heads Puzzling Evidence at exactly 1.06 x normal speed. If I try to dance at 1.25x or 2.0x, I'll need hip replacement surgery or put my back out or both.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#945

Post by portpecos »

noir_lord wrote: post #571
indrora wrote: post #564

Four things come to mind: * The AK-47. Love or hate guns, the AK was designed with tolerances that encouraged simultaneously good maintenance patterns and using it as a gorram hammer if the need came to it. * Nalgene bottles. Impact resistant, infinitely screen printable, polycarbonate body, cheap and everything you could want. * The venerable aluminum drinks can: The sheer amount of engineering that has gone into ma…

The AK-47 is an interesting example because while the base design was amazing it also has had numerous design changes over the years that kept it (somewhat) competitive with "state of the art" designs - the original design was so good that it allowed that to be the case. In addition to its linear descendants, it was widely copied and some of the copies where arguably better (the Isreali Galil, the Finn RK62, Vector R…

>the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed

vs

>I think civilian ownership of guns is fine if very heavily regulated and with a purpose

Your heavy regulations is the infringement the 2nd amendment was designed to protect against.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#946

Post by wly_cdgr »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #100
wly_cdgr wrote: post #11

You said things, so I am excluding software (like the original version of the Square web app) JVC Flats GBA SP (the pocket clamshell one) Retro microwave with the original-ipod style single knob controls More generically, forks Grand Prize Winner: wood Staunton chess set - beautiful, durable, affordable, practical. The piece design is exquisitely balanced between representation and abstraction

GBA SP would be great except for the lack of headphone jack. What a bizarre omission.

....Really?! I must have repressed that because it was so traumatizing

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#948

Post by joconde »

oftenwrong wrote: post #941
joconde wrote: post #845

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t find it satisfying: I can copy files from one stage to another, but I can’t install a .deb (or any other package for that matter). Copying a list of paths will break if the package changes, and it can’t easily do anything done by pre-install and post-install scripts (like changing a file, registering a GPG key, etc.) The official excuse from Docker is that “multi-stage builds cover that use”, but that’s not t…

I think I understand your use case, although I don't follow the part about mounting a host dir in the build (how it would help). I do not really consider this limitation a design flaw of Dockerfiles; this is more of a mismatch between Dockerfile functionality and what you want to do. Dockerfiles are not designed to execute general-purpose programs, so there is an assumption in the design of Dockerfiles that you know…

> this is more of a mismatch between Dockerfile functionality and what you want to do. Dockerfiles are not designed to execute general-purpose programs, so there is an assumption in the design of Dockerfiles that you know (more or less) which files you want to COPY ahead of time.

I don't follow that. In a Dockerfile, I want to install software, and software is usually distributed in packages like .deb. Why can I `RUN apt-get install libabc` and have a clean, automatic install of libabc, but not do the same with a libabc.deb file on my host filesystem?

> It sounds like you want a mechanism for COPYing all filesystem changes resulting from a RUN instruction without having to know what those changes are ahead of time.

That's one way of doing it, but it's more complex than the obvious solution:

> I don't follow the part about mounting a host dir in the build (how it would help)

It simply lets me give the build container access to libabc.deb, so I can `RUN apt-get install /mnt/host_folder/libabc.deb`, which will install libabc without putting `libabc.deb` itself in an image layer.

It would have been trivial to add this, but the Docker devs rejected it because "multi-stage builds can do this" (wrong), and it would lead to "non-reproducible builds" (because downloading packages from the network is somehow more reproducible?).

They finally added it as a non-standard option, which means a build process that relies on it won't work with a Docker install that uses the default config. It's the devs making it needlessly hard to use Docker for a perfectly valid use case.

If you're wondering why I want to install that locally-built software via a .deb, it's because we want to distribute it to all our systems, and we want to have only one packaging method to maintain.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#950

Post by GhettoComputers »

fart32 wrote: post #521
GhettoComputers wrote: post #272

Almost android device once they became more powerful and had root, around after 2016 is when only root matters. Full Linux CLI, all the game systems of the 90s playable, all the hardware devices of the 90s emulated but much better (the Pokédex app was very good, TI emulator, etc), OTG docking for wired devices or you can use BT for hardware. They can do 90% of what your current phone can do but everything is a bit sl…

I hate how rooting became pretty much non-viable on Android. Losing OTA updates is a dealbreaker for me and all I really want is having an option to record my calls, which is legal in my country and often comes handy. It sounds like something a smartphone should definitelly be capable of by default.

It can be done through hardware or routing software, Samsung is great with updates. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.callrecorder...

It’s not default because of other countries. It’s still very viable, I never got a better experience than recently. Look up some roms on XDA for your phone!

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