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I could do that in a weekend (2016)

danluu.com

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Re: I could do that in a weekend (2016)

#81

Post by bzbarsky »

bern4444 wrote: post #77
bzbarsky wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 700px max-width would actually make it quite annoying to read for me (as a lot of content on the web is, unless I switch to reader mode)....

Why? Is it not wide enough for you? or something else?

Yes, it's not wide enough.

Just holding up a book to my screen, 700px is about the width of the text in a mass-market paperback. But the reading distance for a screen is much larger than the reading distance for a book, of course. And hardcovers or trade paperbacks have wider text columns than that, of obviously, and are generally somewhat nicer to read than mass-market paperbacks... though also often get held at slightly larger reading distances.

Re: I could do that in a weekend (2016)

#82

Post by tofuahdude »

ozim wrote: post #69
tofuahdude wrote: post #7

We were just having this discussion around the Postman fundraise - various people saying "its just a GUI around Curl!!!" and being all offended at the raise's price tag. There's so much more that goes into building an actual business.

Well yeah I could do Postman in the weekend. Really I hate Postman and I have it on my todo list. I also try not to use it unless someone sends me his Postman collection. Thing is, I could do that for myself and I would be the only user and I would never turn it into a company. Because what devs usually say they could do that product in the weekend - but usable only for themselves. While turning software package into…

Yeah, I agree.

It's just that many times these comments are on threads about the fundraise itself. "Why is Postman worth $B when I could build that in a weekend?" is completely missing what it takes to build a business.

Re: I could do that in a weekend (2016)

#83

Post by tofuahdude »

jacobr1 wrote: post #60
tofuahdude wrote: post #7

We were just having this discussion around the Postman fundraise - various people saying "its just a GUI around Curl!!!" and being all offended at the raise's price tag. There's so much more that goes into building an actual business.

Also folks making similar comments are missing that funding is about the future of the product/business, not just scaling growth (though you do see with later stage funding). Something like Postman is a bet on enterprise tooling for APIs, both building and integrating with them. Looks like Postman has gone beyond their chrome extension, and leveraged that to add more a bunch more features. But even if all that was ea…

For sure. Valuation of a VC raise !== technical complexity. Easy to conflate from an engineer's seat, I guess.

Re: I could do that in a weekend (2016)

#84

Post by bern4444 »

bzbarsky wrote: post #81
bern4444 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Is it not wide enough for you? or something else?

Yes, it's not wide enough. Just holding up a book to my screen, 700px is about the width of the text in a mass-market paperback. But the reading distance for a screen is much larger than the reading distance for a book, of course. And hardcovers or trade paperbacks have wider text columns than that, of obviously, and are generally somewhat nicer to read than mass-market paperbacks... though also often get held at sli…

Right.

You hold a book closer to your eyes though than your screen.

Both have about the same line length, as you point out, but the book's font is smaller. The website font is much larger - to make up for the greater distance between the screen and your eyes.

I think 700px would be wide enough, 800px would also work.

From what I've read, going wider than about this at around a 14px size font and it becomes increasingly difficult for the eye to track between lines.

On a phone, a max with of 700 or 800 px obviously wouldn't apply since the phone screen is smaller.

On this site, I usually zoom in to 150% to 200% on my computer to make the font size large enough to comfortably read.

Re: I could do that in a weekend (2016)

#85

Post by thehappypm »

nottorp wrote: post #80
thehappypm wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly I mean people still see the thread root, just like if you didn’t use a thread it would see the message, So if the thread is interesting you look at it

I never see those. They get lost in the main channel noise. They should get pinned somewhere obvious to not get lost with the main chat scrolling.

Then you may not be using threads properly — in a fully threaded channel there is no way to get lost, since there isn’t really much scrolling to do. You just need to be diligent that there can’t be lots of messages between threads.

Re: I could do that in a weekend (2016)

#86

Post by bzbarsky »

bern4444 wrote: post #84
bzbarsky wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's not wide enough. Just holding up a book to my screen, 700px is about the width of the text in a mass-market paperback. But the reading distance for a screen is much larger than the reading distance for a book, of course. And hardcovers or trade paperbacks have wider text columns than that, of obviously, and are generally somewhat nicer to read than mass-market paperbacks... though also often get held at sli…

Right. You hold a book closer to your eyes though than your screen. Both have about the same line length, as you point out, but the book's font is smaller. The website font is much larger - to make up for the greater distance between the screen and your eyes. I think 700px would be wide enough, 800px would also work. From what I've read, going wider than about this at around a 14px size font and it becomes increasing…

> but the book's font is smaller.

If the book's font is smaller, but the lines are the same width, that means more words per line in the book, yes?

And each line is taking a larger fraction of the visual field, since the book is closer to my eyes.

Basically, if we assume books are somewhat optimized for ease of reading (and to a large extent they are), websites should be aiming for the same angular sizes as books. The reading distance is larger, so the physical sizes should be larger: larger fonts and wider lines...

Re: I could do that in a weekend (2016)

#87

Post by nottorp »

thehappypm wrote: post #85
nottorp wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never see those. They get lost in the main channel noise. They should get pinned somewhere obvious to not get lost with the main chat scrolling.

Then you may not be using threads properly — in a fully threaded channel there is no way to get lost, since there isn’t really much scrolling to do. You just need to be diligent that there can’t be lots of messages between threads.

What, have a "main thread" for stuff concerning everyone/whoever is able to contribute?

No. It's over complicated. They need a better solution.

Perhaps you only use Slack as a followup to meetings/todo items. We use it for all communication and the workflow is about opposite: someone raises an issue, someone or everyone discusses it, someone takes ownership and it turns into their TODO item.

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