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We are rebuilding Monica

monicahq.com

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Re: We are rebuilding Monica

#91

Post by SoftTalker »

jdboyd wrote: post #82
SoftTalker wrote: post #33

It's always interesting to me when I see someone build a complete personal system around functionality that to me would just be a text file, or maybe an org-mode file.

So far that does work super well with mobile, at least not for me.

I assume you meant that would NOT work super-well with mobile, to which I would agree. I think there are some apps for org-mode files but I've never tried one, but there are plenty of apps for managing notes. I do as little as possible with mobile, which probably makes me an outlier. I rarely use my phone for more than texting or maps/navigation.

I also don't keep dossiers on all my friends, so for me the entire premise is just academic.

Re: We are rebuilding Monica

#92

Post by what »

HaloZero wrote: post #36

Will they finally integrate automated recording of interactions? It’s such a pain to record everything which is why I never used it

How would it even be possible? How could it automatically know you met in person and what you did? Or you had a phone call with someone (at least on iOS, access to call logs is not allowed)? Or any other interaction?

Re: We are rebuilding Monica

#93

Post by away0g »

stronglikedan wrote: post #87
artisinal wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not. I’m optimizing my code for artisanal development.

It's okay to remain on the brink of starvation as long as you're doing what you love! Is that gonna be a new Etsy category?

Home-made code, just like grandma used to vibe

Re: We are rebuilding Monica

#94

Post by hinkley »

paimapi wrote: post #60
hinkley wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a rule of thumb that goes something like, if you want to get people to use something 2x as much you need to make it 4x more reliable. The reliability becomes a enticement, and you will often underestimate how much more popular it will get, so if you aim for 2x you will likely see 3x and still have a lower incident rate per week than you experienced with lower traffic. None of your users or managers think about…

right, that was always the most surprising thing I saw when I made the career leap into tech for all of it's vaunted 'big data' and 'metrics-driven outcomes' and whatnot, as soon as a single medium-to-large user starts complaining about an obscure component or wanting new features it was all hands on deck, roadmaps be damned, data out the window, who cares about CVEs/tech debt/fixing MVPs, let's do it MVP (again) ins…

Yeah the number of times displeasure with our lack of progress turned out to be some customer yelling at a manager who forgot to prioritize work for that customer and I later discovered was just letting the shit roll downhill was too damned high. I'm getting shit because you're incapable of uttering the phrase, "I messed up." Fuck that and fuck you.

As someone once put it, we should learn from the noble mule, who when beaten is more likely to stubbornly sit down and refuse to move than to get on with the work at hand.

Re: We are rebuilding Monica

#95

Post by Lord_Zero »

Ariarule wrote: post #18
joewils wrote: post #8

I'll take "things you should never do" for $1000 Alex. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

Joel Spolsky wrote that about "large scale commercial applications", which Monica definitely is not.

Why is a large non-commercial app somehow immune from the concepts Joel speaks of?

Re: We are rebuilding Monica

#96

Post by Lord_Zero »

jvanderbot wrote: post #30

I loved Monica for a while. Paid for subscription/hosting and all that, largely to support development. For me the problem was the interface. Logging in to keep notes was a pain, I'm not that diligent. Instead I now can keep a local db with claude. It's sad, but this is precisely one example of software I can now do without due to LLMs. If this matters to the devs, then MCP is a good feature to add, encpasulating all…

Can you describe what your local DB looks like and how you interact with it with Claude? This seems interesting, a skill or something with clear rules becomes the app logic and Claude the interface?

Re: We are rebuilding Monica

#97

Post by jvanderbot »

Lord_Zero wrote: post #96
jvanderbot wrote: post #30

I loved Monica for a while. Paid for subscription/hosting and all that, largely to support development. For me the problem was the interface. Logging in to keep notes was a pain, I'm not that diligent. Instead I now can keep a local db with claude. It's sad, but this is precisely one example of software I can now do without due to LLMs. If this matters to the devs, then MCP is a good feature to add, encpasulating all…

Can you describe what your local DB looks like and how you interact with it with Claude? This seems interesting, a skill or something with clear rules becomes the app logic and Claude the interface?

I've found skills/rules etc become cumbersome.

I built a few workflows around a notes db in aws, a telegram bot to send quick notes w/o keeping claude up, zotero connectors for literature tracking, etc.

Nothing really beats just "organize this folder and keep track of notes that I share". It'll invent some markdown + tags and that's good enough. Easy to overthink a list of names + maybe .jsonl entries of encounters + maybe a list of factoids. If you need phone access, /rc works fine

Re: We are rebuilding Monica

#98

Post by fmajid »

hinkley wrote: post #54
ameliaquining wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs have meaningfully decreased the cost of rewrites, such that many rewrites that wouldn't previously have made sense now do. They are still significantly costly and often a bad idea.

They also remove the secret menu item of rewrites which is to have some peace from management because you’re not delivering anything for a long time while you do the rewrite. I predict AI will cause the number of rewrites people ask for to go down. AI is better at doing Ship of Theseus rewrites too, and those are the superior option because they leave the system available for hotfixes at all times.

I've heard it referred to as the Strangler Fig pattern.

Re: We are rebuilding Monica

#99

Post by tonymet »

wpietri wrote: post #89
tonymet wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say no impact, but a trailing impact. They understood the cultural changes demanding new ways for people to status signal and maintain connections with friends & family. That's what I mean about reversing cause and effect. There are larger causes (see my other comment below) that Facebook was innovative to take advantage of.

I thoroughly disagree. Did Facebook take advantage of existing issues? Yes. Did they magnify those issues while creating new ones? Absolutely yes.

fair enough, but among the movement between around 1970-2020 -- what were the top 3 factors in degradation of communities? would facebook be in the top 3?

Re: We are rebuilding Monica

#100

Post by aitchnyu »

justinsaccount wrote: post #17
theplatman wrote: post #12

why aren't mentioning their failed rewrite from 3 years ago? https://www.monicahq.com/en/blog/chandler-is-in-beta/

and that Chandler is different from this Chandler? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_(software)

Good ol days. I bought the book about the project's failure in 2012. They mentioned Python-Wx wrapper they created and I used it for a Python project.
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