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AMP for email is a terrible idea

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Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#361

Post by IntronExon »

alooPotato wrote: post #150
IntronExon wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your hypothetical element of being pro-user makes it hard, because it requires a great deal of fantasy to support.

The point I was trying to get at with the hypothetical is that its quite possible that a lot of Googlers are good people with good intentions and that they are trying to do good. The hypothetical tries to demonstrate that if Googlers are good, they would behave in a way that is indistinguishable from the behaviour you are seeing and attributing to evil. Basically I find it very hard to believe that Googlers wake up i…

The point I was trying to get at with the hypothetical is that its quite possible that a lot of Googlers are good people with good intentions and that they are trying to do good.

And in turn everyone is trying to explain that individual intentions in the context of a large organization don’t really matter. The only meaningful choice the well intentioned have is to work for a different company. I couldn’t care less if a Google employee has good intentions, but is willing to hang them up for a paycheck.

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#362

Post by hedora »

kuschku wrote: post #184
ComputerGuru wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s just bad design to begin with, replaced by a ln inefficient kitchen sink of a solution. Why should the screensaver be part of this megalith? Edit: to be clear, it’s not about the binary used to run the screensaver, it’s about the fact that it does not need to be a question of “all or nothing” and that a solution for this particular problem could have been adopted without replacing virtually every other compone…

As I wrote in the comment you replied to, the screensaver is NOT part of the init system, nor is logind part of the init system. logind is developed by systemd, but a separate binary. In fact, every systemd project is a separate binary, just developed by the same project. Systemd is as much a monolith as KDE is. Second, this tiny little logind binary is separate from the screensaver. It does not contain the screensav…

Presumably, it is part of a “megalith” because now my screensaver depends on some crazy login manager, which depends on a crazy authenticated ipc scheme that loginctl uses, and probably none of this works if I replace systemd with something else, so it all depends on running some busted dns client with a recent history of remote exploits.

So, instead of wrapping my screensaver in a small program that manages respawns on crash, you’ve arranged to force me to either have the screensaver unlock itself (since you ripped out the old simple wrapper), or have remotely exploitable network holes.

[edit: source: https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/versus-xlock.html ]

Also, due to systemd, the some of the ioctls you need for rootless X are needlessly declared “root only”, so to call them, you have to launder the call through some authentication daemon that has its own (not Unix) security model, and runs as root.

Finnally, I run this mess on a machine that is also an NFS client, and it frequently times out mid login / resume session, so you need to login like three times on a bad day because nfs takes a few seconds to stat something.

It was even worse with systemd aware desktop environments. There, instead of timing out quickly, it would sometimes hang for minutes, with per-user copies of what appeared to he the whole systemd stack running, and no logs anywhere.

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#363

Post by gwbas1c »

In my job, I get a lot of automated emails from Github, our bug tracking system, our wiki system...

(Sometimes the idiots start replying to the automated emails!)

I really wish there was a better way to bridge that gap. I usually turn on conversation view (we use Outlook), to group all of the emails via ticket, pull request, ect. But, what I really want is my email client to just tell me what changed, and use an anchor hyperlink to take me there in the ticket, pull request, ect.

I think it's worth experimenting with viewing these tickets inside of an email client, but I'm not sure if I'd like that or not.

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#364

Post by kuschku »

makomk wrote: post #354
kuschku wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not conflating anything — lockscreens on X11 were always just normal windows. If they crash, they unlock. I suggest you read JWZ's On Toolkits page: (archive link due to referer shenanigans): http://archive.is/BjMfp

Yes you are. The trick that KDE uses is that the screen locking is done by the KDE session manager, and because that is the main process in the X session if it crashes the session terminates so it's not possible to bypass the screen locker that way. None of that requires systemd; it makes use of something that's been true under X11 pretty much forever. The only thing that changed with logind is that instead of trying…

I was aware that KDE handled it that way, but as far as I know to handle it properly like this across X11, Wayland, and other sessions, logind is pretty much required.

Gräßlin wrote a bit about that in his blog.

But you might be right, I’ve not worked on either of these projects, so my knowledge is mostly from hearsay.

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#365

Post by lakechfoma »

"Were people complaining that clicking “yes” on an RSVP email took them to the invitation site? Were they asking to have a video chat window open inside the email with the link? No. No one cares."

I don't want this new feature and am glad I moved away from gmail, but I think the author is mistaken if they think people don't want this. Some people don't want to leave their gmail app to click one box on a now slowly loading web page full of content/ads they don't care about. I procrastinate on some mail because I don't immediately feel like dealing with the context switch. Then the mail gets buried by others and I forget. I'm ok with that mode of operation and I can also see a lot of people not being ok with and being delighted by AMP in gmail.

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#366

Post by mediaserf »

birksherty wrote: post #210
ChuckMcM wrote: post #141

Because they didn't internalize the feedback from Wave well enough I guess. /s I agree with the article, email is email. But it points out something which is fundamentally a problem for the industry. Some software is done as in doesn't need to change any more. That is a scary place since all those Gmail engineers need to do something so if it isn't adding new things to Gmail what will they do? Interesting parallel in…

That's exactly what I thought about new Youtube web interface. It's slow to load and consumes more CPU. Previous design worked great everywhere. There was no need for the UI change. But, people can't just do nothing and get paid. So, they will create the need. And now spend months to make it, fix it, get busy again.

Yes! This "over-engineering" is happening all over Google products. Chrome is another example. It is not all bad, however, some Google Apps really needed attention, like the new Calendar is a step up (IMO).

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#367

Post by josteink »

justaguyhere wrote: post #328
mankash666 wrote: post #207

I'll get down voted for saying this, but the HN crowd's hypocrisy is baffling. 1. Gmail is a channel that Google has under monetized for a decade. This is an opportunity for them to extract value from the said channel. If you're allergic to Google offering free services that use your data for advertising, go pay for email. Google isn't a charity and you aren't entitled to a Gmail of your choosing. 2. Apple is a prime…

"you're allergic to Google offering free services that use your data for advertising, go pay for email" Yes, email is such an important tool that it would make sense for all of us to pay for it. That said, the big internet companies trained millions of users to expect everything for free on the internet (intentionally or not). Many people seriously think "if it is on the internet, it should be free - I am paying for…

Indeed. If I try to offer non-gmail email options to people, even here on HN, people will go “Oh. But they cost money”, as if that’s something deeply unnatural.

Me, I’m happy to pay, because it means that I know I’m a customer, not a product.

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#368

Post by corobo »

cdubzzz wrote: post #264
madeofpalk wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that's missing here is the email _client_ story. I really like Google's Inbox and there's no amount of money I can pay anyone else for a similar experience.

Honest question: do you think you really like it or are you really used to it? When Google made the move to Inbox, I switched because I wanted to be using their newest interface. Over time I came to absolutely hate it and that drove me away from Gmail. My wife still uses it so I occasionally find myself in the Inbox app on our tablet. Just a few days ago, actually, I read something in her inbox and for the life of me…

> do you think you really like it or are you really used to it?

Chiming in with a "both" - I tried switching away from Inbox for a bit but I love me them bundles. I don't want to switch between a bunch of folders, I just want mail in those folders to appear grouped in my inbox

Edit: and Snooze. I don't think I'll ever like using a client that can't snooze an email anymore

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#369

Post by vntok »

jacquesm wrote: post #305
Qwertious wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also point this out whenever someone mentions the frog analogy on reddit. So, also on reddit.

Maybe you should try to contribute to the discussion instead of trying to derail it with trivia? Especially if that's something you do repeatedly.

Maybe you should have selected a better analogy instead of a flawed one?

Re: AMP for email is a terrible idea

#370

Post by PuffinBlue »

satish-setty wrote: post #262
jacquesm wrote: post #105

Poor frogs. The water temp just got upped a couple of degrees. Too late to jump out or not just yet? Some relief for frogs that make it out of the pot: https://mailinabox.email/ https://redmail.com/ https://protonmail.com/ https://www.fastmail.com/

Also, https://mail.zoho.com . They have a 5GB free-tier if you've got a custom domain. I've been a customer for years and very happy overall.

Seconded. I've used them for years to and i currently have paid accounts. I administer accounts for others to and i find the interface more intuitive than gsuite.
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