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Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?

#481

Post by juliend2 »

antipaul wrote: post #428

`dplyr`, the data manipulation library in R. Some prefer base R or data table, or python pandas, but for me, dplyr is essentially a _perfect_ data manipulation library for small to medium data, and nothing comes close. Given that for a data scientist, data cleaning is “80% of the work”, and in a world where science is increasingly data science, means that dplyr has done a LOT of good. Honorable mention goes to ggplot…

I use OpenRefine for that (I don't use R though). How comparable is it according to you, apart from the fact one is a lib for a language and the other is a GUI?

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?

#482

Post by xeromal »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #478
xeromal wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember using Avant browser to have tabs back in the day before I discovered FF. I think it was just an IE wrapper

Wasn't Avant a reference browser to check standards compliance? I recall toying with it. Then switched to a Firefox plugin which used an HTML linter.

I was a teen so I'm not sure what it was. It just had the magic of tabs. Haha

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?

#484

Post by BrissyCoder »

deckard1 wrote: post #141

Firebug. Every developer from around 2006-2008 knows what I'm talking about. Debugging JS in IE6 was like trying to build a house blindfolded with both arms tied behind your back. Firebug is when JS went from just a web augmentation toy that could silently fail and your web page would still mostly function to becoming a critical function for a web page (many will see this as all a big mistake).

> Every developer from around 2006-2008 knows what I'm talking about.

Have been a professional developer since 1999 - no idead what you're talking about.

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?

#485

Post by mcculley »

apohn wrote: post #63
deliriousferret wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was Gmail really 10x better than Hotmail?

Gmail was 100x Hotmail, if not even more than that. I think anybody who was on Yahoo Mail/Hotmail (or even something like Roundcube) who switched to Gmail probably realized how much these other companies had been holding stuff back. I've never cared for invite only stuff, but Gmail really was a total revolution when it came out.

I thought the “invite only” approach was clever. It throttled growth so they could maintain a good user experience and limited automated use by spammers.

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?

#487

Post by tau255 »

1. Automatic driver installation and device discovery. IIRC Windows Me could install my first flash drive without resorting to fumbling with mini cd drive disc.

2. Steam Proton, most of my library of games just works and it is in easy and convenient format.

3. Norton/Midnight Commander style of file managers.

4. Live CD distributions.

5. Password managers (Keepass)

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?

#488

Post by abandonliberty »

GiveOver wrote: post #471
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Without no-cd cracks, you were required to leave a CD / DVD in your drive Speaking of which, prior to Steam, I'd definitely consider "Making an ISO of your favorite game and mounting it as a virtual drive using DaemonTools" to be a 10x innovation.

Still have all my ISOs backed up somewhere, and a .txt file with the serial codes in. You never know!

Is there an OS these games run on that can run on modern hardware or be emulated now, with good enough support for 3d drivers, etc.?

Re: Ask HN: What are some “10x” software product innovations you have experienced?

#490

Post by guiambros »

Here's my top 10. Each of them was an "oh sh*t" moment.

1. Pong

2. First BBS connection (on a 300bps modem)

3. Mosaic

4. Altavista

5. Napster

6. Gmail

7. Google Maps

8. iPhone 1 (followed by the first homebrew apps, a full year before AppStore launched on iOS)

9. Patreon (ok, this one is not sw related)

10. Bitcoin

Bonus (both sw and hw): Oculus Quest 2. 10x compared to DK2 or other early VR prototypes I tested in the past decade.

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