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Ask HN: What are your favorite examples of elegant software?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite examples of elegant software?

#24

Post by m-p-3 »

dhash wrote: post #22

- NXT-G, the coolest (simple) visual programming language - Propellerheads Reason, a sweet DAW - emacs, a text editor so elegant it’s a real OS - Procreate, the nicest iOS drawing app

> NXT-G

On a similar tangent, NodeRED is also an interesting software to build workflow-based automation visually.

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite examples of elegant software?

#25

Post by spacemanmatt »

mikewarot wrote: post #5

Turbo Vision/Turbo Pascal for MS-DOS. Borland put together one of the best instances of an object oriented library that just worked. The follow up with Delphi for Windows was the most productive environment I have ever experienced, until I was priced out of it in their pivot to "Enterprise" customers. Nothing since is anywhere near as productive. Lazarus is ok, but the documentation is horrible, (almost non-existent,…

I cut my teeth on Borland Pascal and later launched my career with Borland C/C++ tools. I love JetBrains these days but not as much as I remember loving Borland!

Re: Ask HN: What are your favorite examples of elegant software?

#26

Post by spacemanmatt »

sidcool wrote: post #4

Unpopular opinion but Microsoft Excel. It's a powerhouse of features.

If the argument is feature:[something else] ratio, then I might be able to consider it, FSVO something else, such as "UI complexity" or "learning cost". Partly in response to sibling posts, the PP definitely makes me think twice about why I'm willing to call PostgreSQL elegant but pause a bit harder to evaluate Excel.
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