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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?

#711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly believe that if Opera had had a cool name, it would have been a real contender. People don't like operas, they're boring and stodgy.

Opera was a paid option. It was doomed from the start.

I paid for Opera (twice) because it was clearly the superior product. People spend money on a better machine, so why not on a clearly better browser? (At that time).

And although browsers are no longer distinctly better than each other, I still donate to Mozilla.

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

#712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the entrypoint to Firefox for millions of people. Unlike today, back then Firefox had a clearly expressive value proposition: Use this! It has tabs! It will change how you browse the web! Now the only value proposition is some wishy-washy privacy stuff that is much harder to sell people on, even if it's in their best interest.

To me, the value proposition is still tabs. I have hundreds open at a time. Once or twice a month I will cleanup hundreds of windows and tabs. I've created habits to open up most everything in new tabs and new "projects" in new windows. I think I do this as a self-remedy for my ADHD, I am likely to allow an interruption to disrupt me but I do need to close the loop on whatever I was working on before an interruption.…

I've long opened everything in a new tab, but would you believe I just realised I need to consciously make the effort to open new "projects" in new windows 2 hours before reading this post? I think the difficulty is working out when that line of a tangent has been crossed.

Tree-style tabs [0] in Firefox help to keep a train of "research" together.

[0]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...

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

#713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opera was the best

Still remember the mouse gestures to zip around the pages. What a fun time.

You don't need to feel deprived.

https://github.com/marklieberman/foxygestures

https://otter-browser.org/ (Tools → Preferences… → Advanced → Mouse → [X] Enable mouse gestures)

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

#714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made my account(s) off invite codes and have "just my last name" at gmail dot com as an address... it's one of my most prized possessions, to this day!

Hanging out in IRC channels in early 2000s was how I wasted my teenage years. But I did get a gmail invite out of it leading to my primary email address to this day: arithmetic@gmail.com

Thats awesome man.

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

#715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only on HN. Otherwise it's the #1 browser by usage by far, which is saying a lot considering it doesn't come preinstalled on Windows or on Macs, so all those users are making a deliberate choice to switch. So still the hero outside of HN.

Google is gas-lighting people into using Chrome… Ever used for example YouTube with an alternative browser? It's buggy, it's slow (and that's on purpose; Google puts regularly quite some engineering effort into using web features that don't work well in the last independent competing browser). But those Google pages have a big banner saying it will work better in Chrome, and asking the users to "try". That strategy w…

> [Youtube is] buggy, it's slow (and that's on purpose; Google puts regularly quite some engineering effort into using web features that don't work well in the last independent competing browser).

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/disable-polymer-you...

Yes, it's a work-around, not a long-term solution and does not help with the underlying problem. Spread the word and enjoy it while it lasts.

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

#716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But think about all the things that you can't do in FoxPro, like build an accessible and beautiful user-experience :)

Ever really built an accessible Web-UI? I mean with all that ARIA stuff, that really works for the blind or other disabled people? An accessible UI that honors the platform specific conventions and integrates into the OS environment? Ever built an user-experience atop ideas like "form follows function" and "don't make me think", that has beautiful design at the same time? I actually question that there are more than…

> Ever really built an accessible Web-UI?

Yes. That's what I currently get paid to do.

> I mean with all that ARIA stuff, that really works for the blind or other disabled people?

Yes. If I didn't do that then we'd be sued by our customers for not being accessible.

> An accessible UI that honors the platform specific conventions and integrates into the OS environment?

Web-applications run in the browser, independent of the host OS. While web-applications do tend to adopt some OS conventions (such as having a "close popup" button in the top-left or top-right corner, web applications on-the-whole don't really ape after Windows or macOS' conventions and the past decade of post-Windows/post-macOS web-applications UX development shows that following desktop UI conventions really isn't necessary.

> Ever built an user-experience atop ideas like "form follows function" and "don't make me think", that has beautiful design at the same time?

Again, yes. (Beauty is subjective, of course - I've been told my work is "gorgeous" by my boss, so I've got at least one endorsement there)

> I actually question that there are more than a handful Web-UIs been built in that way, ever, IF actually any!

Fewer than I'd have liked, I admit. At least with today's "cleaner" look it's easier to visually design something that isn't an eyesore.

I appreciate a huge problem is that since the 2010s the learning-curve for front-end web-work has steepened considerably, and other barriers-to-entry have been introduced with no sign of them going away. Since the 2010s, when SPAs and modern CSS (flexbox, grid, responsive layout) came into being you might have noticed that fewer web dev clients today are making remarks like "my 12yo nephew could have made that!". Not to sound nostalgic, but in the late-1990s through the mid-2000s one could very easily be a very competent web-designer getting-by in Photoshop, Fireworks and Dreamweaver without ever needing to learn HTML and JavaScript (not that there was much to JavaScript back then either) - today it's increasingly essential to have at least an undergraduate CS degree to even understand how to correctly use React.js or Angular - and be comfortable with a command-line terminal. Project requirements for resolution-independent and form-factor-independent ("responsive design" - though I detest the term) web design means that the days of fixed-layout Photoshop-first web-design work and the age-old Image Slicing tool are over: tools originally designed for WYSIWYG print layout and graphic design are insufficiently expressive to allow someone to intuitively visually define how a CSS-driven layout and document-flow should work. In ye olden days it was straightforward for a relative beginner to grok how could be used to make a semi-flexible layout - but explaining how CSS's grid's `auto-fit` works to the same person is impossible. And so on and so on.

Web-design has gone from the approachable place where COBOL was ("write business rules in plain-English!") to being a hallowed and exclusive techno-religious cult. I can't personally complain because I appreciate the job security I now have, but I am concerned it may lead to the web becoming less and less accessible to independent self-publishers who instead flock to much easier-to-use, but proprietary, walled-gardens like Facebook pages - or to web platforms that hide the complexity entirely, like Wix, and SquareSpace.

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

#717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opera was a paid option. It was doomed from the start.

I paid for Opera (twice) because it was clearly the superior product. People spend money on a better machine, so why not on a clearly better browser? (At that time). And although browsers are no longer distinctly better than each other, I still donate to Mozilla.

Because you can’t buy a free machine. But you can download a free browser.

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

#718
post #30
post #27

How about a 10x reduction? Thinking of when "Paste with style" became the default. :P

This makes me mad every time. And every single thing has a different shortcut for "Paste without style", if they even have one.

This is why most of my copy-paste is actually: copy-paste_in_SublimeText-copy-paste.

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

#719
post #465
post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You poor souls running windows... even Linux can do this with mostly no fuss today.

We must have received a very different version of nvidia.ko if yours updates with no fuss.. either that, or you are using intel/amd in which case lucky you :)

No fuss in my experience. Some distros use dkms, some rebuild the driver on the build farm as a package corresponding to each kernel update. Both are quite reliable.
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