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Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?

#501

Post by abhgh »

Someone1234 wrote: post #35

Microsoft Teams. I am forced to use it (work) and it is missing really basic features that messenger software had in the 1990s like Push-To-Talk, real multi-window (even with the recent "pop-out" functionality), and its UI is all the worst modern trends. You cannot extend it or fix these issues (e.g. plugins, custom CSS styles, etc). Plus it is buggy, I keep not getting calls/messages/etc, and every time my computer…

Tell me about it. We moved from Slack to Teams to cut costs. Common story.

Leaves a LOT to be desired.

1. The UI took the fun out of well, whatever, Slack was/is. For some of the common interest channels at work, I see less people going to them.

2. I'm in a group where we frequently need to share images (mostly plots) among the members. Sometimes they just disappear. Yes. You upload an image during a conversation, come back to it a few min later, its not there, and the person at the either end of the chat hasn't seen it either. Guess what OS I'm on: Windows 10 Pro.

Because of this I've resorted to using the web version of teams occasionally, which doesn't seem to suffer from this issue.

3. This one is actually baffling: when I try to upload an image in 2 different conversations (one after another), the second one complains the file already exists. This is during upload.

4. Inconsistent UI: did you know you could reply to individual messages from the Android app for Teams? Doesn't work on web or the windows desktop client. So when I am catching up on a conversation, I occasionally switch to the mobile app to reply to specific messages.

So that's my workflow: the Teams website opened on my laptop browser for most of the messaging, Teams running on mobile, in case I need to reply to specific messages, and Teams running as an application on my laptop for video/screen sharing calls.

5. You cannot specify a Download folder. Yes that's a thing in 2020. [1]

But, yeah, "costs". I miss Slack.

[1] https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/su...

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?

#502

Post by ForHackernews »

ivalm wrote: post #476
pachico wrote: post #316

Jira is my daily nightmare. I guess the "no CTO was ever fired for choosing SAP" applies to Jira too. It just does the opposite of that it tries to do, which is making development tracking easy (not to mention those silly ideas coming from agile coaches to use Jira to measure wrong things, which makes of it a horrible combo).

So what is like Jira but good? I use jira at work and I like it. But our use case is maybe more limited/liberal. For us it is: 1) list tasks to do and how tasks are linked 2) archive discussion about issues and integrates with butbucket (so in commit it will link to ticket to read about why something was done; similarly from issue discussion I can see the relevant commits; this also goes well with history either by l…

Pivotal Tracker is okay.

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?

#504

Post by pinky1417 »

busyant wrote: post #404

Sorry, but everything listed here is rank amateur stuff when compared to Blackboard Learn ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Learn ). First, the user interface is designed as if the programmers were incentivized to maximize the number of clicks required to get anywhere. Second, it has the responsiveness of continental drift. Third, editing and formatting text is an exercise in torture. When I want to delete t…

I wonder if Blackboard is any better since 2016 when Bill Ballhaus took over as CEO. I met him when I was an intern at SRA International and was beyond impressed in my brief time there. Besides his obviously impressive technical and management credentials, this was a titan of industry who remembered my name and always initiated conversation whenever I ran into him. We also had the same car (a GMC Yukon), although his was older.

I suppose I could just have been subject to his charm and I suppose this could be a ridiculous heuristic, but I definitely have a lot more confidence in a company (and its software) when the CEO drives a practical car and is kind to the interns. Hope Blackboard gets better under him just because it’s so deeply engrained in educational institutions.

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?

#505

Post by cmrdporcupine »

sheinsheish wrote: post #326
puranjay wrote: post #324

One of the worst apps I use regularly has to be Google Play Music. The UI is horrible enough, but it also randomly deletes tracks from my library - including my own tracks that I recorded under my own name. And sometimes the tracks will show up again randomly. The worst is when tracks don't show up in my Songs list, but if I put it on shuffle, these tracks will start playing. I don't know what's the status now, but S…

oh man and the recommandations are so bad

recently gotten worse, it's started giving me a huge list of top 40 stuff that doesn't jive with my tastes

and on the web/desktop version you only get like 4 recommendations, but the mobile gives you a whole fistful.

seems like abandonware mostly. too bad its replacement (youtube music) is complete garbage. the web version can't even cast.

somehow at google we went from "mobile first" to "mobile only" and i guess only old guys like me care? it's just terrible. the new google podcast web interface also does not support casting. i'm not sure how one wing of product managers at google can't talk to the other to make sure their products just support basic standard google media infrastructure?

i tried spotify and it was also terrible. so not sure what to do.

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?

#506

Post by ceronman »

Workplace from Facebook.

The company I work for uses this for internal communication. Workplace is basically the same Facebook and Messenger, but tweaked for a private group of people.

The problem is that, because this is basically the same Facebook, it is designed to keep you "engaged". It uses all kinds of patterns to keep you addicted to your timeline and search for attention. Rather keeping you informed with the important topics, it distracts you with a lot of irrelevant stuff. The algorithm will always show you something that keeps you scrolling. Huge time waste.

The motto of this software is "Bring your company together". And it works exactly as Facebook's motto, "Bring the world closer together", in the sense that it does exactly the opposite. The software has all sorts of mechanisms to generate controversy. Because controversy is what ultimately drives more engagement. Reactions, memes, notifications. It makes you fight with your colleagues about silly things, and it makes it really easy to derail any sort of constructive conversation.

Imagine having to try a technical conversation in this platform and then people are allowed to "react" with an angry face or a silly animated GIF. No argumentation required. And those reactions will bring more reactions. And in those rare cases when some meaningful discussion actually happens, then the thread is quickly buried by the constant stream of new things.

If your company is considering this, avoid it like the plague.

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?

#507

Post by literallycancer »

rvz wrote: post #107

Desktop GNU/Linux. Too much of a cost to test for and to set up CIs for the distros I'm targeting. There is little to no paying users there because of the fragmentation. But again, "paid support" will have lots of choices, versions, combinations and edge cases to cover. So I listed it as "unsupported: use at your own risk." Windows and macOS have a much sainer desktop for GUI apps to test against.

Are you using GNOME? Lots of problems just go away if you switch to something else.

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?

#508

Post by ForHackernews »

tootie wrote: post #140
djinnandtonic wrote: post #105

Google Drive. I have no idea how a company with a search background produced software where it is impossible to find something.

Everyone one of these cloud storage services (Dropbox, Box, Drive, iCloud, S3, OneDrive) has adopted the same mental model of file storage that computer systems from the 80s devised to mimic filing cabinets. Namely: folders. I think a folder hierarchy has some value but they should really all be using a tagging system instead. Orgs tend to have multiple hierarchies based or org charts, projects, disciplines, timeline…

S3 is a flat object store. It has no concept of folders or hierarchy.

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?

#509

Post by markus92 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #457
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #315

Microsoft Outlook - decade after decade the icons change but the suckage does not, its 1987 every day when you use Outlook. Microsoft Teams - drains my battery 1% every two minutes Slack - the original “let’s forget everything we’ve learned about communications and try to discover it again”. From the threads feature nobody wants to the inability to silence bots or plugins, Slack never fails to disappoint. They pitch…

For what it's worth, I love threads. Prior to threads, channels would be pure noise, often intertwining multiple conversations at once.

They’re not done well in slack if you’re not looking for them! The default reply in a channel is not in a thread, so you get people replying inside the thread and outside at the same time. Makes them feel pointless.

Re: Ask HN: What's the worst piece of software you use everyday?

#510

Post by Trasmatta »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #457
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #315

Microsoft Outlook - decade after decade the icons change but the suckage does not, its 1987 every day when you use Outlook. Microsoft Teams - drains my battery 1% every two minutes Slack - the original “let’s forget everything we’ve learned about communications and try to discover it again”. From the threads feature nobody wants to the inability to silence bots or plugins, Slack never fails to disappoint. They pitch…

For what it's worth, I love threads. Prior to threads, channels would be pure noise, often intertwining multiple conversations at once.

Threads are good, the Slack implementation is still lacking though. They really need the ability to subscribe to a thread without commenting in it.
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