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Software Updates

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Re: Software Updates

#101

Post by skinnymuch »

Crinus wrote: post #35
chme wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - The new Reddit layout is borderline unusable. They will lose the rest of the core users when they disable the old. subdomain While I agree with you here, there is also a point that it might attract new and younger users with its more 'modern' look. Personally I like sites like HN or the old style wikipedia for its information density and out of the way design. But that might just be the age talking here. People t…

I doubt age has anything to do with it (unless you imply younger people prefer shitty interfaces) since Reddit's new site is awful even on mobile. I always switch to i.reddit.com not only because it is much faster, but also because the new layout just unusable with somehow combining both oversized (even for mobile standards) elements and tiny elements all over the place, needing a ton of taps to just read comments (w…

I have yet to come across a normal friend who doesn’t think HN is a super ugly site which essentially means if they had interest in the site, they prob wouldn’t use it.

All the HN comments here about Reddit are talking about how they feel and their bubble feels. Which I personally agree with. But I’m not representative of every day user.

Re: Software Updates

#102

Post by skinnymuch »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #59
buboard wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

true. and only a few months ago, reddit was trying to force us to the new system by conveniently "forgetting" our saved setting

OK, this is embarrassing (†) but I didn't even realise there was an option other than manually editing the url to "old." :-| Your comment has probably done more for my productivity today than anything else that will happen — thanks! (†) I'd like to put it down to only having tried it during that period of time you're referring to, so I will :)

I enjoy manually putting the old in Reddit url. It’s rare for me to need Reddit for actual productive needs and when I do, it’s usually going to a shorter thread of comments where I’m fine using the bad new interface in a pinch.

Re: Software Updates

#104

Post by matheusmoreira »

arghwhat wrote: post #85
matheusmoreira wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are headsets targeting Windows users that require kernel-mode drivers to work. That's horrifying. What headsets are these? Gaming headsets? I wouldn't trust that industry with kernel mode access to my compurer.

It is indeed horrifying, and the particular products I'm thinking of are indeed from a series of gaming headsets. There are other categories of headsets, speakerphones and the likes that are equally awful, though, which is why I see the problem as universal to products targeting Windows: There is no scrutiny to stop this idiocy, and the average consumer has no idea why this is bad, and no idea that those blue screens…

> There is no scrutiny to stop this idiocy, and the average consumer has no idea why this is bad, and no idea that those blue screens were because of a headset.

Yeah. Microsoft doesn't exercise any control and the result is hardware manufacturers force bogus software down the throats of Windows users. The Linux community can count on Linus Torvalds and the kernel hackers to provide that scrutiny and people trust Linux a lot more as a result.

I always cite capcom.sys as an example of why random companies shouldn't be allowed to write drivers:

https://twitter.com/TheWack0lian/status/779397840762245124/

Re: Software Updates

#105

Post by organsnyder »

rjsw wrote: post #24
s9w wrote: post #17

Software getting worse, just out of my head: - VS2019 removed at least two important features from VS2017 (export of profiler results and the concurrency profiler) - Firefox "new" extension API still means you can't remove the top tab bar from tree style tabs (best FF extension) without hacks - Current Dropbox versions are incredibly invasive. They popup when opening a word document. When pluggin in my Camera. And no…

Your point on phones is the odd one out for me, my fairly new $20 Nokia/HMD phone has really good audio even when making international calls.

Yeah, audio quality has made huge improvements, especially when you're lucky enough to have a wideband connection (which is still limited almost exclusively to calls within a single provider, in my experience). But cell phones did cause us to accept dropped calls, garbled audio, and other issues that we would have never tolerated in a traditional POTS system.

Re: Software Updates

#106

Post by pmontra »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #77
s9w wrote: post #17

Software getting worse, just out of my head: - VS2019 removed at least two important features from VS2017 (export of profiler results and the concurrency profiler) - Firefox "new" extension API still means you can't remove the top tab bar from tree style tabs (best FF extension) without hacks - Current Dropbox versions are incredibly invasive. They popup when opening a word document. When pluggin in my Camera. And no…

Some of these are "power" vs "everyday" user optimizations. The one that jumps out to me is Skype. I had read some case studies of their redesign where they stated that 90%+ of Skype users only have two or three Skype contacts, and they use it to talk to their family members. The redesign optimized for that and as a result you, I and everyone else with hundreds of contacts lost our collective minds. I 100% get that i…

Ok, that could be the reason but I'd had appreciated if they were honest to tell us, the people that (used to) use Skype for work "thank you, we don't want you anymore, go find some other tool."

Re: Software Updates

#108

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #10
hs86 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure if this is good or bad. On the one hand it gives hardware vendors an incentive to contribute their drivers directly into their kernel but on the other hand most Android phones are now restricted to one old kernel version due to the lack of ongoing support from SoC vendors. I assume that the majority of Linux kernels are running on Android phones and due to this lack of stable ABI for drivers these kerne…

> I assume that the majority of Linux kernels are running on Android phones and due to this lack of stable ABI for drivers these kernels are all outdated or even unmaintained. No, it's because the hardware manufacturers won't upstream their drivers. All they have to do is send the code licensed under GPLv2 and it will be updated and maintained. Stable ABI for drivers will result in the Windows situation: hardware ven…

> All they have to do is send the code licensed under GPLv2 and it will be updated and maintained.

That seems like a dubious assertion. I've heard several cases of driver regressions in new kernel versions, and because of the model that means you can't just use the older one.

Re: Software Updates

#109

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

arghwhat wrote: post #19
mehrdadn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stable ABI for drivers will result in the Windows situation: hardware vendors will just release one driver for one Windows version and one processor architecture. Uh, I dare say Windows hardware + driver compatibility is pretty damn good, so this doesn't really resonate with me... at all. Has not being able to install Windows XP on a modern machine left you bitter...? Or have I been living in a bubble?

Windows hardware + driver compatibility is a nightmare fueled by proprietary duct-taped one-off drivers supporting only one or two devices each. One of the reasons for this is that you can get away with anything on Windows, because everything is proprietary. There are headsets targeting Windows users that require kernel-mode drivers to work. Which, of course, is super fragile and will break at some point, rendering y…

Wait, kernel-mode? Really? I was under the impression that sound hardware was all user-mode since Vista.

Re: Software Updates

#110

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

Crinus wrote: post #23
greggman2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many APIs are poorly designed and by design easy to use in insecure and inefficient ways. APIs also can't anticipate the future. APIs need to have a way to be deprecated and eventually discontinued.

...and cause applications using them to stop working.

What's more important here? Nebulous security threats or software that actually works?
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