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Software in 2014

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221–230 of 265 posts

Re: Software in 2014

#221
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does suck, indeed, is when people try to use tools that were meant to make HTML docs look nice to build an office suite. They inevitably end up with an office suite that sucks, but that's not the browser's fault. Yet, because it runs in the browser and is available everywhere, that's why I use Google's Docs. And GMail's web interface is better than any email client I tried until now. > Browsers are fine as lon…

> Yet, because it runs in the browser and is available everywhere, that's why I use Google's Docs. And GMail's web interface is better than any email client I tried until now. IMHO, this is a case of solving a problem at a wrong level. I also find that matches provide neither a sufficiently long-lasting, nor a sufficiently intense fire to cook. Longer and thicker matches would obviously be a solution to this, and it…

> The "mobile" part ceases being true when their battery is only sufficient to allow them to be mobile for the duration of an entry-level delayed road trip.

Not that this is more than a patch for poor battery life, but even if you have a long-lived battery but sometimes forget to charge your phone until it's dead, it's worth being able to charge your phone on the road. GPS drains the battery significantly faster, so you can be doubly-screwed if you're using your phone for driving directions and the battery runs out -- no directions, and no way to call for help!

It's pretty easy to find a cigarette lighter plug with a USB port, fortunately.

Re: Software in 2014

#222

Oddly, he mentions three client-side areas: Web, iOS and Android. Did anyone else notice that he didn't mention "THE DESKTOP" or any native applications? I don't know about you but I tend to use native applications every day and use the web for getting data and info. I don't use "apps" that sit in a browser all day. If he thought that the Web/iOS/Android system was bad, he should have actually put Web / iOS / Android…

I've recently discovered node-webkit (https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit) which I've been liking a lot. It's more or less chrome, packaged as a one-off app, that only runs the code you give it.

Converting the app (web/browser extension) I'm working on to use it has so far been extremely favorable. On top of this, it embeds node.js in the browser runtime. So not only do you get all of chromium's HTML5 features, but you get a whole hell of a lot of native libraries for free via node.js. It also has a good amount of UI helpers built in so you can keep the OS-specific code to a minimum.

This lets you hit both web and desktop (Windows, Linux, Mac) with a very similar/same codebase. Then all that's left is mobile =].

Worth checking out.

Re: Software in 2014

#223
What, did desktop GUI application development suddenly disappear? There's many classes of software, especially line of business ones, where desktop is pretty dominant.

Re: Software in 2014

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the battery lasts the whole day In my pocket, maybe. I get to practically watch my battery indicator drain before my eyes trying to do any sort intensive activity, or (god forbid) watch video.

Well, compare apples to apples though. Were you watching much 720/1080p video on those old featurephones the guy yearns for?

Of course not, but I'm pretty sure the battery lasted longer.

Re: Software in 2014

#226
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be wrong, but COBOL isn't being actively developed as a language anymore .. PHP however is still solving problems and under constant development and improving all the time.

> PHP however is still solving problems But is it solving more problems than it creates?

[deleted]

Re: Software in 2014

#227
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is precisely what Tim is saying. He happens to work mostly with the new tool named Go but he does recognize that there are others like Rust and Dart that are also trying to do things better. But we need to actually move away from using bad tools (and this has happened with PERL) and start using the newer, better tools more often. Every software developer should learn some Erlang (or Elixir), some Clojure, so…

I might be wrong, but COBOL isn't being actively developed as a language anymore .. PHP however is still solving problems and under constant development and improving all the time.

[deleted]

Re: Software in 2014

#228
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is precisely what Tim is saying. He happens to work mostly with the new tool named Go but he does recognize that there are others like Rust and Dart that are also trying to do things better. But we need to actually move away from using bad tools (and this has happened with PERL) and start using the newer, better tools more often. Every software developer should learn some Erlang (or Elixir), some Clojure, so…

I might be wrong, but COBOL isn't being actively developed as a language anymore .. PHP however is still solving problems and under constant development and improving all the time.

PHP is great for developers and firms because they are always required to stay and make sure things blow up. Most of the PHP I've worked with was also very hard to decipher by anyone except the original developer.

Re: Software in 2014

#229
post #11

It’s a pity some people still build important apps in PHP... I wonder how that could be. It's almost like people chose to use PHP and it works for them. Like they made an informed decision and actually ended up going with PHP. Maybe they are just too dumb for their own good. Or maybe PHP is actually a perfectly sane choice for lots of cases outside of your FP ivory tower.

FP Ivory tower? There are plenty of imperative only programmers who believe PHP isn't a sane choice.

Re: Software in 2014

#230
post #62

I think this paints a rather meagre picture of software development in 2014: > More or less everything is expected to talk HTTP, and it’s really easy to make things talk HTTP. A lot of things that shouldn't talk HTTP are expected to just because there's an army of programmers who don't know better. Also, it's actually hard to make things talk HTTP, partly due to HTTP itself. However, much of this complexity is hidden…

HTTP is used since it won't be firewalled.
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