Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I've spent the last two years building a new email client

ivelope.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

571–580 of 608 posts

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#571

Post by RussianCow »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #554
RussianCow wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say it's impossible (I've also done it), but for something that's not a full-time job/project, it's a lot of extra work that could be avoided by simply using Electron, especially if you are already familiar with web development but don't have any experience with any of the native platforms.

But the poster did say this was a full-time project. And I don't believe that only having experience in web development is a good enough excuse for shoehorning web dev things everywhere else.

You're right, I missed the OP saying that. But I still disagree: prior experience with a platform is a great reason for using it. Maybe not for a company with lots of resources, like Slack or Microsoft, but definitely for a small team or individual developer. Any time you would have spent learning a new development platform can instead be spent building new features!

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#573

Post by loceng »

kemiller wrote: post #419
loceng wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike tricks like this too, especially because in the end you're still going to get access to it. If a product is good enough, as you said, then I'll tell everyone about it. I think technical or non-business people see this kind of trick and perhaps don't think of the deeper consequences of it - it's not quite a dark pattern, though it feels manipulative.

What deeper consequences are those?

A portion of people find that kind of tactic/trick to be manipulative, cause discomfort, which will add friction to adoption - why do that to anyone who might become an early adopter when you can avoid it? In another reply I go in a little more detail - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16978849

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#574

Post by lgas »

eevilspock wrote: post #558
mr_overalls wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recommending a product you haven't reviewed is a form of lying. Some of us value our integrity.

Isn’t this true of all advertising, except in the rare cases where the publisher only accepts ads for products they endorsed? How can we ever expect a reliable, non-garbage-dominate internet when it is funded by perverse incentives?

The distinction is that if I see a billboard (or magazine ad, or TV commercial) advertising a product I don't think that I have a relationship with the billboard and they know me pretty well and have my best interests at heart... so I don't think that if this particular billboard that knows me so well is promoting a product to me then it must be a pretty good product for me (especially because this billboard doesn't usually go out of their way to recommend products to me).

But if a friend of mine recommends a product to me, well, I do think all of those things.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#575

Post by dotancohen »

SyneRyder wrote: post #304
dotancohen wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What features of Postbox do you use that are not available in Claws (or derivatives) or Thunderbird? Serious question, I've love a better email experience. In any case Postbox is not available on Linux, but I'd still like to know.

It's so long since I've switched that I'm not sure anymore, but Postbox tried to be more Mac-like and had native integration with macOS Contacts instead of separate address books. I think it had some filter rules Thunderbird didn't have, and faster indexed search. But now, I use the keyboard driven Tagging & Quick Move features [1] a lot. They work a bit like Alfred [2]. To file a message in my Filtered folder, I typ…

Thanks. In fact the time-limits on writing an email is a great idea! I should generalize that into a timer app for writing email, browsing HN, Wikipedia, etc.

Alfred looks interesting. Other than the workflows, almost everything it does is already integrated into KDE. However it looks easy to use and I will definitely check it out if I move to one of the company Macbooks. Thank you!

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#576

Post by tluyben2 »

sametmax wrote: post #168
yani wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

300MB of ram sounds like a lot to me. What are you storing in memory that is that large? If I dont use the app for 1 hour will it stop using the memory?

Thunderbird takes 425mo of my ram right now.

I switched from Thunderbird to Gmail because of that; it was quite bad on my laptop. It often started swapping requiring very long waits or a reboot to get back to work.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#577

Post by tluyben2 »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #513
jchook wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awesome app man. 150-300MB seems more than acceptable for a local email client. A pedantic, vocal minority may be over-represented in this thread (it IS HN after all). IMO Electron apps present significant advantages that justify its negligible cost, eg skinnable with CSS, inspected live with a web inspector, cross platform etc.

Those are all advantages for the developer. I don't see anything that the user gets for the cost.

More features, faster. My gripe is that I pay 1000 euros for a laptop that will be for 50% consumed by 2 (sometimes even just Slack alone, don't worry) 'because it's convenient for the developer' created apps. The amount of money lost here is staggering ofcourse, but why would devs care as they are not on paying for that. I can totally understand it for a one person shop or an understaffed (underfunded) startup, but companies like Slack are just screwing their users here. Then again, if most of them don't mind that, who are we to complain; it seems to be where we are going. I began taking two laptops; a cheapo chromebook with chromeos to run slack, discord etc in the browser and another one to dev on. Works fine and I don't need to grind my teeth every time I look at top (there is no top as I just run chromeos for ease of use).

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#578

Post by lisper »

nobodyaccount wrote: post #488
lisper wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. In a world where publishing is essentially free, reputation is an extremely valuable commodity. The ask here is not trivial.

Yes, it is trivial. You have a warped perspective of importance if you think giving the nod to a new mail app is some holy thing. I tell my friends about new apps, startups, and projects all the time. None of them think I'm staking my reputation when I shitpost about some new thing in Slack.

> Yes, it is trivial.

Then why are you posting anonymously?

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#579

Post by Exuma »

StevenRayOrr wrote: post #426
Exuma wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not a good metric. There's no way I would take part in that even if I were interested. It's just a big turn off.

Your first sentence isn't supported by your second and third. It is incredibly common to track not just interest but level of interest -- and lots of companies find it a valuable metric for marshalling their resources. Is this perhaps not the best way to get that metric? Now that can be a helpful question to ask and a good thing for this dev to think about, rather than outright dismissing the attempt.

I'm more just saying that I don't think people doing/not doing that action is a good indication of their interest level. My interest level could be an 8 out of 10, but there's no way I'm pestering my friends about it.

Re: I've spent the last two years building a new email client

#580

Post by crystaln »

stephenr wrote: post #62
alimbada wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do the same in your browser by opening the developer tools and in fact it comes built in to the browser whereas on a desktop you'd have to install another app like Wireshark/Fiddler to see those requests.

That only tells you what your browser sends to their server. It doesn't tell you what connections their server makes.

Nothing will. The vulnerability of what happens to your data after it is sent to a third party is the same for any app, web or native.

The biggest difference is that it's way easier to see where you're data is being sent in a browser, since it has built in tools. It's very hard to monitor native app traffic that is sent over SSL.

Post reply on HN