Since upgrading iOS, my iPhone (13) will:
- sometimes fail to open the camera
- make the bottom half of the screen blank when you do email searches
- use more battery
- become unusable if you turn on any transparency effects.
If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
141–150 of 719 posts
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any app should be ready to accept focus. It should never steal focus. When I start an app, and wait for it to launch, I am attempting to give it focus. I can withdraw that intent at any time by doing something else (e.g. switching apps) and the launching app should finish launching and wait in the background.
Your specific example is just repeating what I've said, but your generic point is wrong: let's say you have an important task in an app with unavoidable interruptions, during which you switch to your browser to mindlessly scroll. You most likely want to return to the main task as soon as possible because that scrolling is just a time filler because you can't do anything productive. So you don't need any notification…
> You most likely want to return to the main task as soon as possible
For that it suffices if the window comes to the foreground, but it does not need to steal the focus.
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#143> I opened Slack on macOS, the icon kept bouncing in the dock for a few seconds. I got impatient, switched to Ghostty, and started typing. Just then, the Slack window appeared, stole focus from Ghostty and the git pull command was sent to the group chat. One of my absolute favourite features on KDE Plasma with Wayland is the global setting to control what can steal focus. It works wonderfully, and I always miss it wh…
I think this is less a "macOS lacks the feature to prevent focus stealing" and more they never even imagined the scenario where it takes time for the app to open. Instead of even considering that a user may add inputs while waiting for launch, potentially signaling that they are no longer requesting focus from the program they clicked on, they simply designed for the optimistic case where there never IS time for the user to give these inputs before their intention of opening the program is completed. Not saying it's any less bad from a user's perspective, but I think there's a difference in mindset here.
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that I can speak to a human to refund a $2 item on Amazon proves how wrong you are.
Last year I bought a book from Amazon for over $100 and they sent the wrong book. I contacted Amazon support, they said they will refund it, I don't need to send it back (throw it away if I want), and also give me a $20 credit for the inconvenience. A month later, no refund. I contacted them again, they said unless the book is sent back, no refund. I told them about the previous conversation and they said that the CS…
and now without prime, amazon packages take two weeks to arrive! Total garbage
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#145I agree that software becoming worse (in some sense) but I don't blame AI. My experiences as a user haven't really changed. Streamers fail to cast to TVs. Browsers are devices which reliably and efficiently propagate red console text and 500s from companies to you. I still see bluescreens on public touchscreens. Uncle Bob nailed one reason why the industry isn't getting better: the growth of programmers is exponentia…
> 'Focus on happy path only, for the MVP' is how you build buggy software. Good developers can learn that this will guarantee the need for a rewrite in the future, but POs never will.
And then when the MVP is done, it magically becomes the shippable product. Then just when the team is getting to grips with how to improve the product, management does a reshuffle and moves teams around. "EXCITING NEWS GUYS, congratulation to Jimmy Whatevs for being promoted to SENIOR Director, he will now head-up the cross-functional-operations team which will be folded under the product-support division."
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#146> I opened Slack on macOS, the icon kept bouncing in the dock for a few seconds. I got impatient, switched to Ghostty, and started typing. Just then, the Slack window appeared, stole focus from Ghostty and the git pull command was sent to the group chat. One of my absolute favourite features on KDE Plasma with Wayland is the global setting to control what can steal focus. It works wonderfully, and I always miss it wh…
Yeah the obvious answer to software getting worse is to switch to FOSS. Use Linux/KDE. It's been great for a long time and only ever gets better. It's as if Windows 7 just continued to slowly iterate and add useful polish. NixOS has a longstanding issue where library loading (and therefore program start, particularly GUI programs that load a lot) is n^2, but programs still all start in ~1 second or less on my n100 mi…
It is interesting how Linux and FOSS in general is just providing a better UX these days. I have to think its because without profit motives, people do things for passion and maybe that leads people to write code the right way instead of the "it works" way.
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't really debounce it easily due to how the OS event queue work across processes and windows. One fix could be to not bing the focus to newly open windows (like you could in X11) but that's not what users want.
> but that's not what users want. You don't know that until you ask users. That would be a much more useful question than those boring "tour guide on first login" or "please activate cortana/copilot" or "do you want to sync to onedrive" stuff one gets notified on some major desktops. My preference is focus follow mouse, no focus stealing on new window opening.
Well, I would want the new app to steal focus, but only if I haven't (re-)focused a different app while said app was launching.
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#148> I opened Slack on macOS, the icon kept bouncing in the dock for a few seconds. I got impatient, switched to Ghostty, and started typing. Just then, the Slack window appeared, stole focus from Ghostty and the git pull command was sent to the group chat. One of my absolute favourite features on KDE Plasma with Wayland is the global setting to control what can steal focus. It works wonderfully, and I always miss it wh…
Yeah the obvious answer to software getting worse is to switch to FOSS. Use Linux/KDE. It's been great for a long time and only ever gets better. It's as if Windows 7 just continued to slowly iterate and add useful polish. NixOS has a longstanding issue where library loading (and therefore program start, particularly GUI programs that load a lot) is n^2, but programs still all start in ~1 second or less on my n100 mi…
I've spent 6 months in KDE after years on Windows, and KDE is crap in both UX and number of bugs. I love the idea of open source, but there's a long journey ahead to even match the state of Windows 2000.
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#149> My banking app requires, on average, three FaceID logins before the 3D Secure confirmation view appears.
That's a different, equally big problem. Security mafia at every company will continue to rule everything and everyone. They do not have goals or constraints that are tied to productivity and user experience.
We are heading to a situation where the security teams are causing much more damage compared to the possible attack vectors. While this damage is real and certain, the damage due to attack vectors is only hypothetical.
Ofcourse, we do need security. But currently no one including CEO can dare to define how much security is needed. On top of that, regulators do their own share of damage, piling up regulations. No one takes any risk. They will ask you to tie yourself down until you can't move. Your mobility is not their problem.
Re: If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
#150> My banking app requires, on average, three FaceID logins before the 3D Secure confirmation view appears. That's a different, equally big problem. Security mafia at every company will continue to rule everything and everyone. They do not have goals or constraints that are tied to productivity and user experience. We are heading to a situation where the security teams are causing much more damage compared to the poss…
Perhaps its a slight overcorrection but it's better than the past where an online shop I gave my credit card info to would reply to a forgotten password request with an e-mail with my password in it in plaintext. Security used to be awful and people suffered because of it.