Love this. I recently started working on two apps with this same mindset: I just want to create an app for myself (todo with limits, group chats with content limits). It feels great and is enjoyable even if it doesnt get a million users.
An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
111–120 of 296 posts
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#112[deleted]
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#113Does anyone have a tip for "some kind of modern, flexible HyperCard"?
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#114This is the way, for those of us who have the ability and inclination. Software you create for your own use, and the use of your friends and family, is software that is customized for your particular needs and software that you can trust.
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#115> In our actual world, I built it in about a week, and roughly half of that time was spent wrestling with different flavors of code-signing and identity provisioning and I don’t even know what. I burned some incense and threw some stones and the gods of Xcode allowed me to pass. This resonated with me. This is a major source of friction to "scratching your own itch" in modern software development. Makes it extremely…
Indeed. The #1 thing I need from my platforms is that I don't need to get anyone else's permission to develop and install any programs on it that I wish. That basically rules out Apple and Microsoft.
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It feels like cooking now requires commercial quality equipment only available to the Michelin star restaurants. Why does AI make you feel this way? It feels the opposite to me — like meals that formerly required a master chef to make, but soon anyone can make for themselves at an acceptable level of quality with meal prep kits
My feeling is that only big tech can now create any good apps since they all require massive compute now. Yes writing a todo list app is now faster with copilot and stuff but thats now what i meant.
> since they all require massive compute now.
They do? How so? I can only think of a small subset of applications that require large amounts of compute.
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you be open to sharing screenshots? I'm curious about the mental-sanity claim, do you not have your email + calendar setup on your phone?
Not OP, but how often do you have an app that is exactly how you want it? You might just shrug off the small annoyances, but you could fix them and make the app something that becomes second nature. The UI won't suddenly change, so you won't have to relearn how to use the app, just like you don't have to relearn physical interfaces.
I've used some horrendous software in the past and it's nice that - even though I can't fix that software - I can write my own software and make it behave exactly how I want it to.
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#118> I burned some incense and threw some stones and the gods of Xcode allowed me to pass. Gave an audible chuckle at this one. I've done many a battle with those gods; they be beasts.
Lovely article but this made me sad/mad. How did we get to the point where this is acceptable? MAGA (Microsoft Apple Google Amazon) have a stultifying effect in our software sharing lives now.
>How did we get to the point where this is acceptable?
IMO, bad actors.
40 years ago we didn't need much in the name of cyber security, restrictions, controls, etc. You most likely personally knew the vast majority of other people that had any kind of access to your systems, or that you exchanged any kind of electronic data with.
As the aperture of users and developers has opened, risks have increased. There is probably some analogy here similar to how the value of network increases exponentially with the number of connected devices, the risk factor increases exponentially with the number of users and potential software developers for an ecosystem.
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What if you have never cooked at home but all the time in a commercial kitchen? That's the reality for most of us here so it is a bit difficult to relate to this article. Really? I'd hazard a guess that the majority here (> 50%) have never worked at a commercial kitchen! I'm honestly curious to understand why you think most people here must have worked at commercial kitchen and never cooked at home?
The poster is speaking through the analogy: they mean most people here have coded professionally but not at home. I'm not sure I agree with that, I think a lot of programmers have done hobby projects, even if only when they were starting out.
> they mean most people here have coded professionally but not at home
The idea that there are devs who did not do fairly extensive home coding is so alien to me! I don't personally know a single dev like that, and it would never have occurred to me that they exist.
TIL
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#120This is poetry. I have been working on a personal project for the last 10 years that replaces every other app I used to use - E-mail, calendar, and all the others we all use on a daily basis - and every time someone sees me using it they ask "Wow, this is amazing, how do I download it!?", and the answer is always the same: you don't. There's a beauty to engineering something having yourself as the target user, and no…
> There's a beauty to engineering something having yourself as the target user, and no one else. 100%, I'm following a similar approach to you with yet another notes app solely for my own use. Have you written more about your personal project anywhere? One thing I only realised once I started building my own tools, is that you become - from day one - an unmatched world-class expert in using that tool. This seems obvi…
If I recall correctly, this approach was what led to Apollo’s success before Reddit murdered it.