Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Imaginary problems are the root of bad software

cerebralab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 511 posts

Re: Imaginary problems are the root of bad software

#341

Post by mavhc »

whstl wrote: post #208
bombolo wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the controls is mostly because they don't want to pay for Qt (multiplatform toolkit), so instead every company (badly) implements their own controls in HTML to save money. I suspect ultimately they waste much more money than they save.

Qt isn't even in the radar of most companies currently building multi-platform applications in HTML. And it won't be soon, for two main reasons: developers able to use it are expensive, and most Qt applications in the wild still have the "uncanny valley" look and feel about them on every OS but Linux. Not to mention that with SaaS being more profitable than selling unlimited-use licenses, a lot of apps also have HTTP…

According to Microsoft, native look and feel includes tiny tiny dialog boxes with even smaller panes inside that can't be resized, so yeah, not going to bother with that

Re: Imaginary problems are the root of bad software

#342

Post by pydry »

whizzter wrote: post #334
pydry wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can give you an abundance of examples. We were creating a page that was going to use state in a certain way. I was trying to insist that we address the way state will be handled across pages ahead of time. These concerns were dismissed as premature optimization. A few months later we had 5 pages with the state being handled in 5 different ways. The right time to address this was probably a bit at a time after the…

Rule of 3 is often correct, first time just do it, second consider if it'll very likely happen a third time and when the third time happens it's darn well time to do it! HOWEVER, this only works if you have the agency at an organization to allocate time for doing something. Contrary to this when you are in an organization of management that doesn't understand technical debt (or is fine with it because it just means m…

The problem comes from the emotional pressure to finish tickets quickly - this can be external pressure but it can also be internal.

In that case the temptation to close the ticket and skip the refactoring step can be too great.

If you're begging for time to refactor from the PM youre doing it wrong.

Re: Imaginary problems are the root of bad software

#343

Post by heresie-dabord »

chii wrote: post #279
lewisjoe wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a person who started using computers from the early 2000s era: THANK YOU! None of the current SaaS apps I use can come close to the experience of using softwares from that era. Take a simple list view of a typical Windows/Mac software? 1. Command clicking selected multiple objects 2. Shift clicking selected a range. 3. Right clicking brought up selection actions. 4. Double clicking opened an object. This pattern…

The problem isn't really with designers per se (tho they played a role). The problem is with the web as an application delivery platform - it was never designed for this. Windows, or MacOS, both have design guidelines that was produced, and they expected native apps to follow. Most native apps do (the few that doesn't have either good reason, or were unique enough that their customers don't care - think photoshop). W…

> design guidelines that was produced, and they expected native apps to follow.

It almost sounds old-fashioned in 2023 to talk about usability, affordance, and user-experience.

Part of being a native application was/is for the application to look and behave like the rest of the user interface. Standards are important because learning how to use a tool is important. Users are important.

Software has become a way to make users miserable. Oh, and while confusing them, throw some advertising at them too. ^_^

Re: Imaginary problems are the root of bad software

#344

Post by alecco »

zimpenfish wrote: post #327

A drop of anecdata: Once had a several-days argument about deploying a fix involving an SQL query analysing information from our deployed devices because the other developers were convinced it wouldn't work efficiently for 1000+ devices. Client was threatening to withdraw their money and support -- which would have killed the company I was working for -- if we didn't make things work RIGHT DAMN NOW. Reader, we had 25…

L'Enfer c'est les autres programmeurs.

Re: Imaginary problems are the root of bad software

#346

Post by whstl »

jstimpfle wrote: post #320
whstl wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qt isn't even in the radar of most companies currently building multi-platform applications in HTML. And it won't be soon, for two main reasons: developers able to use it are expensive, and most Qt applications in the wild still have the "uncanny valley" look and feel about them on every OS but Linux. Not to mention that with SaaS being more profitable than selling unlimited-use licenses, a lot of apps also have HTTP…

> If you want a "Premium" native look and feel, people gotta go directly to the source: native APIs. I've seen this regurgitated a hundred times, but I don't really know any more what that "native look and feel" is. On Windows, it might be the old Windows 95 controls, but those are quite limited. What system today is made of dropdowns, checkboxes and OK buttons?

Well, yeah. Windows is... special. Even Microsoft stopped using the normal controls. But the problem is that Qt looks like an uncanny valley version of those Windows 95-style apps.

But by Premium I'm talking more about macOS, iOS and Android.

For macOS check apps made by Apple, Panic, Rogue Amoeba, or apps like Pixelmator, Affinity, Pixelmator, TablePlus, FantastiCal, Tower, Dash. Or even "non flashy" apps like Pacifist.

Those all use Cocoa and have a bit more of a slick appearance, even though they're mostly using native controls, with very few special parts here and there.

Re: Imaginary problems are the root of bad software

#348

Post by whstl »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #257
whstl wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qt isn't even in the radar of most companies currently building multi-platform applications in HTML. And it won't be soon, for two main reasons: developers able to use it are expensive, and most Qt applications in the wild still have the "uncanny valley" look and feel about them on every OS but Linux. Not to mention that with SaaS being more profitable than selling unlimited-use licenses, a lot of apps also have HTTP…

All this sounds great from the perspective of retail shrink wrap software. Today, the major use cases for Qt on the desktop are in-house corporate software. And, no one cares about "uncanny valley". Only HN and online nerds care about that stuff. Average, non-technical, corporate users care about functions, not form. Hell, they are happy with a VBA app! Also, lots of in-car and in-seat (aeroplane) entertainment syste…

> Who is doing this in 2023? No one outside my examples above.

For macOS check apps made by Apple (Logic, Final Cut), Panic, Rogue Amoeba, or apps like Pixelmator, Affinity, Pixelmator, TablePlus, Tower, Dash... there's more.

There's even open source ones like IINA providing a premium look+feel.

Re: Imaginary problems are the root of bad software

#350

Post by wasimanitoba »

qaq wrote: post #152
dtagames wrote: post #3

The author hits the nail on the head with his claim that imaginary problems are more fun than real ones. As developers and smart folks in general, we like complicated problems that are big and far away. How many times have I heard in a meeting, "Yeah, but when we have 1M users..." It's great fun to think your product will get to 1M users. It's also very unlikely. It's not nearly as fun to finish and ship and market a…

Now you have a whole bunch of New SQL databases that will scale past whatever number of users you can imagine. So your good old Django or Rails app can scale to 1M or 10M users without you doing anything exotic. That's not "fun" though.

I wonder if you've ever seen this classic video mocking such marketing claims which is called "MongoDB is Web Scale": https://youtu.be/b2F-DItXtZs
Post reply on HN