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Things that used to be hard and are now easy

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Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#101

Post by dmitriid »

grishka wrote: post #20
dysoco wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are built by large teams with a lot of backing, and still suffer from many issues (mainly performance; Slack crawls very badly, VSCode and Discord not so much); I think it's gotten easier but still wouldn't call it "easy".

Yeah. Slack and Discord sure have enough resources to build three dedicated native apps for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Slack has been through several full rewrites yet still works terrible. At this point it must be nothing but stubbornness. It's definitely not an informed engineering decision.

> Slack and Discord sure have enough resources to build three dedicated native apps for macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Those "insanely complex apps" are... nothing but virtual lists with text and some images. You know that even first-year comp-sci students are given harder tasks?

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#102

Post by [deleted] »

theden wrote: post #19

Would be interested in also seeing a "things that used to be easy but are now hard list". Feels like basic stuff is harder now: * Privacy online * Google search for niche or exact matches * Browsing without captchas and blockers, especially if you don't adhere to big tech's rules for the internet * Sending emails without worrying about spam filters being way too aggressive * SEO before it got hacked to hell * Barrier…

[deleted]

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#103

Post by mwcampbell »

theden wrote: post #19

Would be interested in also seeing a "things that used to be easy but are now hard list". Feels like basic stuff is harder now: * Privacy online * Google search for niche or exact matches * Browsing without captchas and blockers, especially if you don't adhere to big tech's rules for the internet * Sending emails without worrying about spam filters being way too aggressive * SEO before it got hacked to hell * Barrier…

Our online discourse is already saturated with cynicism and pessimism. Do we need to bring it to this thread as well?

Then again, given the contrarian bias of HN comments, I guess it's natural.

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#104

Post by [deleted] »

jacobmartin wrote: post #4

I've only been using desktop Linux for 15 years, but it is vastly easier to use it as a daily driver than it used to be. It still has its problems--just yesterday I sunk an hour into an elusive bug. But when I was doing that, I remembered that such things used to be nearly constant and aren't any longer.

[deleted]

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#105

Post by FearlessNebula »

theden wrote: post #19

Would be interested in also seeing a "things that used to be easy but are now hard list". Feels like basic stuff is harder now: * Privacy online * Google search for niche or exact matches * Browsing without captchas and blockers, especially if you don't adhere to big tech's rules for the internet * Sending emails without worrying about spam filters being way too aggressive * SEO before it got hacked to hell * Barrier…

I would argue getting a job is easier now. Prior to whiteboarding and take home assignments, if you didn’t go to a top tier target school and have excellent 3.5+ GPA it was really difficult to even get your foot in the door for an interview.

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#106

Post by ignoramous »

skulk wrote: post #56
ignoramous wrote: post #28

> Things that used to be hard and are now easy: > Concurrency, with async/await (in several languages) The number of times I've been bitten by the very specific semantics around async/await in JavaScript makes me wonder if I've hit some kind of a ceiling in trying to grok it. Coming from the world of threads, I've found Kotlin's structured concurrency approach the best of the lot I've used so far, even if it isn't wi…

> The number of times I've been bitten by the very specific semantics around async/await in JavaScript makes me wonder if I've hit some kind of a ceiling in trying to grok it. Got any examples? I've mucked around a fair bit with JS's async and never felt like it got in the way. (Other than the whole function coloring ordeal)

> I've mucked around a fair bit with JS's async and never felt like it got in the way.

When functions return more than one Promise, or when one chains async functions calls, it isn't really clear Errors from which functions are likely to break out and result in an unhandled exception (read also: https://archive.is/ULT7P).

For example, does trapAllErrs() below trap 'em all? Not really. Why? The answer involves understanding the microtask queue and its place in the event loop.

   // traps all errors from a1 and a2, or so we hope
   async function trapAllErrs() {
     try {
       const p = Promise.all([a1(), a2()])
       const results = await p
     } catch (err) {}
   }

   // sync code in a1 never throws
   async function a1() {
     // do something sync
     // ...
     // a3 and a4 may throw errs
     return Promise.any([a3(), a4()])
   }

   // sync code in a2 may throw
   async function a2() {
     // do something sync
     // ...
     // a5 never throws
     const x = await a5()
     // ...
     return ans
   }

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#107

Post by sdoering »

sofixa wrote: post #85
codeflo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all of those. More things that are harder now: * Finding honest product impressions/reviews. * When looking for a configuration setting or tip to use any piece of software, find a one minute article with clear bullet points instead of an 11 minute YouTube video with a personal backstory and a VPN sponsorship. * Finding a cooking recipe that isn’t padded with SEO nonsense. * When finding an online discuss…

> * (Europeans only.) Publish a simple website without worrying that the hosting provider you choose doesn’t perfectly conform to privacy laws that even lawyers won’t explain to you and you’re personally liable for ridiculous damages. I'm sorry but that's just FUD. GDPR fines are only for serious infractions with intent, most violators get off with a warning. Furthermore, access logs are OK because they're a legitima…

Agreed. To add to that I would say that publishing a website (if you yourself don't do tracking, advertising, affiliate and all that) is in no way impacted. A simple web site without cookies and not transferring user data elsewhere but the hosting webserver is not impacted at all.

At least when hosting with an European host.

One needs an imprint and data privacy page. But both is easy (except in specific cases like for MDs that need to add just a little bit of information in the imprint).

I support small businesses with their web activities. It did not get overly complicated through GDPR.

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#108

Post by grishka »

codeflo wrote: post #89
noobermin wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part is when people somehow think all these things necessarily must follow from the things that are easier rather than suggesting we could have the good things without the worse off things.

The “old web” — the one before the rise of the trillion dollar engagement optimizing platforms — is probably completely foreign and unimaginable to those who haven’t experienced it.

I do wonder what they'll think of it when (if) they get to experience it.

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#109

Post by nerdponx »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #21
jacobmartin wrote: post #4

I've only been using desktop Linux for 15 years, but it is vastly easier to use it as a daily driver than it used to be. It still has its problems--just yesterday I sunk an hour into an elusive bug. But when I was doing that, I remembered that such things used to be nearly constant and aren't any longer.

As an i3 user, basically going without a DE, I recently tried to breathe new life into an old core 2 duo laptop that was in very good shape and basically just used to browse the web and play spider solitaire. It was on Windows 7, and I don't think upgrading to 10 would have been worth it with that CPU and 2gb of RAM. I picked Debian, and put the different DEs through its paces. I started with those that should have b…

KDE is amazing, as in I am constantly amazed by how good it is.

Don't forget to donate to free software projects that make your life better!

Re: Things that used to be hard and are now easy

#110

Post by ghaff »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #53
theden wrote: post #19

Would be interested in also seeing a "things that used to be easy but are now hard list". Feels like basic stuff is harder now: * Privacy online * Google search for niche or exact matches * Browsing without captchas and blockers, especially if you don't adhere to big tech's rules for the internet * Sending emails without worrying about spam filters being way too aggressive * SEO before it got hacked to hell * Barrier…

I suggest that "barrier to entry" also includes getting started programming in general. Too much to choose from, large leap in skill level required from text in a terminal to graphics on the screen, etc.

I question if that's really true given all the libraries for languages like Python, online tutorials/projects, and various types of low code environments. Sure, you need to figure out what your options are (or have someone show you) but I question whether it's really more difficult to do something than firing up the BASIC interpreter and typing in code from a magazine.
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