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Why our website looks like an operating system

posthog.com

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Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#51

Post by weird-eye-issue »

rmunn wrote: post #47
Retr0id wrote: post #33

> Legally-required cookie banner > PostHog.com doesn't use third-party cookies, only a single in-house cookie You're legally required to let me opt out of that cookie. Unless it's essential to the site functionality, in which case you don't need the banner at all.

Considering they have a login system, I'm going to guess that the cookie includes your login (probably in JWT form), which automatically makes it essential to site functionality. Which means the banner is there just because if it was absent, someone would say "Hey, where's the cookie banner?" In other words, it's not actually legally required in their case, but it's practically required, because it lets everyone know…

> it's practically required, because it lets everyone know that the absence of the banner is not a violation of the law.

Your "logic" is baffling

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#52

Post by binary132 »

andrenotgiant wrote: post #5

I love the website. It stands out amongst a million vanilla SaaS marketing sites all using the same section stack template. But nobody will actually use it the way they describe in this article. Nobody is going to use the site enough to learn and remember to use your site-specific window management when they need it.

Idk, the UX seems really self-evident to me. Also it’s fun. I usually click away from this kind of product immediately but I stayed on this for provably 5-10 minutes just snooping around to see what it was all about.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#53

Post by em-bee »

boredtofears wrote: post #19
Twey wrote: post #3

I've always thought ‘multi-document interfaces’ as we used to call them are an anti-pattern. I have a perfectly good window manager; why does every app need its own incompatible, usually inferior window manager built in? (Mind you on mobile I very much don't have a perfectly good window manager, and indeed can't even open multiple instances of most apps…)

To throw gasoline on the fire: this how I’ve always felt about tmux. Why use an incomplete in terminal windowing system when I can just have multiple terminal windows open managed by the superior OS window system. (That said I know tmux is sometimes the only option and then it makes sense to me)

because the OS window manager isn't superior. i have two dozen tmux windows in half a dozen sessions locally. i have shortcut keys to switch between sessions and between windows. i can do that while mixing the terminal with other gui apps. i have yet to find a window manager that lets me group so many terminals into sessions all on the same workspace.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#55

Post by em-bee »

o11c wrote: post #42
kurisufag wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tmux (and screen) are incredible assets for remote sessions, both for continuity across dropped shells and multi-shell activities when the connection process is tedious (multiple jumphosts, proxies, etc.)

The continuity benefit is much less than it used to be, now that we have systemd with `enable-linger` so we can make proper daemons.

that's not what tmux provides continuity for. the continuity is for interactive sessions. on my server i have more than 20 tmux windows, each one for one specific purpose. they have been running for several years.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#56

Post by rmunn »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #51
rmunn wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering they have a login system, I'm going to guess that the cookie includes your login (probably in JWT form), which automatically makes it essential to site functionality. Which means the banner is there just because if it was absent, someone would say "Hey, where's the cookie banner?" In other words, it's not actually legally required in their case, but it's practically required, because it lets everyone know…

> it's practically required, because it lets everyone know that the absence of the banner is not a violation of the law. Your "logic" is baffling

What I mean is that if they don't add it, they're going to get threatening emails from regulators saying "Hey, you don't have a cookie banner". Those regulators don't have any way of knowing how their site operates, so the small banner at least manages to inform them and keep Posthog from receiving emails.

That is what I meant by "practically". I mean "in a practical sense" as opposed to in a theoretical sense.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#57

Post by jauntywundrkind »

kurisufag wrote: post #21
boredtofears wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To throw gasoline on the fire: this how I’ve always felt about tmux. Why use an incomplete in terminal windowing system when I can just have multiple terminal windows open managed by the superior OS window system. (That said I know tmux is sometimes the only option and then it makes sense to me)

tmux (and screen) are incredible assets for remote sessions, both for continuity across dropped shells and multi-shell activities when the connection process is tedious (multiple jumphosts, proxies, etc.)

I've fallen out of using it, but for a while I was using dtach to do similar without the virtual terminal multiplexing. Much much more direct.

I'd just run a vim session. If I needed terminals, they were in my vim! Even wrote a short shell-script to automate creating or re-attaching to a project specific vim session. https://github.com/jauntywunderkind/dtachment

Haven't looked into it, but I'm love a deeper nvim + atuin (shell history) integration.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#58

Post by notpushkin »

rmunn wrote: post #56
weird-eye-issue wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's practically required, because it lets everyone know that the absence of the banner is not a violation of the law. Your "logic" is baffling

What I mean is that if they don't add it, they're going to get threatening emails from regulators saying "Hey, you don't have a cookie banner". Those regulators don't have any way of knowing how their site operates, so the small banner at least manages to inform them and keep Posthog from receiving emails. That is what I meant by "practically". I mean "in a practical sense" as opposed to in a theoretical sense.

Those regulators will need to study their own laws better then.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#59

Post by subtlesoftware »

An operating system UI solves a specific problem: presenting all of your files and applications in a GUI that's flexible enough to support a wide range of fundamental activities.

A company landing page basically has two jobs: (1) sell the product and (2) let existing users access the product.

Applying the OS UI to a company landing page applies the wrong tool to the wrong problem.

The author writes:

> You can multitask, open a few articles simultaneously, and move them around as you please.

> You can be reading the latest newsletter from Product for Engineers while watching a demo video in the corner and also playing Hedgehog Mode, the game.

My browser has tabs – I can open multiple blog posts and read them separately. I don't want to read them while playing a random novelty video game on a SaaS company website.

I commend the author of this website because it is cool and well-designed, but this is not an effective product.

The caveat to this is that the design is thought-provoking. So maybe Posthog gets some buzz and leads because of the discussion among technical people about its new website.

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