Am I the only one to avoid Zoom for all the strange things reported these past few months ?
How Zoom works [slides]
131–140 of 149 posts
Re: How Zoom works [slides]
#132This isn't "How Zoom works". It's a 72 slide deck of complaints about the Zoom UI.
Re: How Zoom works [slides]
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
So why did they force everyone else to use the Javascript version instead of only Linux? Why didn't they just improve the Linux version. I use Skype everyday for work and my quality of life is noticeably different in a bad way :( Plus, my poor laptop is now forced to run Skype, Zoom, Slack, Google Docs, and Discord. Its turned into a cooktop...
> Why didn't they just improve the Linux version. You know, write once, run everywhere. It's programmer's dream :-)
Write once, run poorly everywhere. It's a lazy programmer's dream ; )
https://medium.com/commitlog/electron-is-cancer-b066108e6c32
Re: How Zoom works [slides]
#134Spot on. I really wonder if all those people claiming "Zoom just works, unlike x" have really believed that the first time joining a meeting, or if they're just used to its weird UX quirks.
What weird quirks? First time I joined a meeting I typed the code, clicked join with computer audio and everything worked. Where are the quirks?
Re: How Zoom works [slides]
#135Spot on. I really wonder if all those people claiming "Zoom just works, unlike x" have really believed that the first time joining a meeting, or if they're just used to its weird UX quirks.
We had millions of dollars of Cisco/Tandberg hardware in our offices. They worked OK (Telepresence was actually quite good, but $$$$). We trialed every viable competitor in the space that we could find. Blue Jeans and High Five were finalists and I can’t remember which one we were close to settling for. Then a large snowstorm had us working at home for a few days and the experience of just trying to have a small lead…
Telepresence was incredible, but Cisco completely ruined it with the Tandberg acquisition. They restructured management to accommodate all the new execs from Norway, who just wanted to keep doing what they knew how to do: make more crappy commodity units. Surprise surprise, nobody wants a crappy commodity video chat, especially not a piece of hardware for $ when they could just use skype. Telepresence was best in class, but the Tandberg execs didn't "get it", divested attention into other (useless) areas, and ultimately completely fumbled the ball.
Re: How Zoom works [slides]
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
The funny thing here is that this is no small startup with limited resources. Microsoft can have dedicated teams for each platform (perhaps Linux is not as important but certainly for Windows, macOS, android and iOS)
It might also be an issue with motivation. Would you want to work on something that's basically a clone, so there's no creativity but purely porting + solving annoying platform-related bugs? You'd probably tolerate it for a bit, but then it's just playing catch up all the time. It seems like a recipe for employees trying to switch away to another team or company.
They did it for control and convenience at the expense of literate computer users.
The Windows 10 UI is written in TypeScript, Edge is chrome, Chrome is chrome, Safari is chrome - it makes hiring and training easy when you can just make every API a grey gelatinous chunk of ECMA script with hamburger menus. It also means the "app" is always sandboxed unable to do powerful things like universal push-to-talk.
The color and joy of using programs has been flattened out in the name of consistency.
Re: How Zoom works [slides]
#137Spot on. I really wonder if all those people claiming "Zoom just works, unlike x" have really believed that the first time joining a meeting, or if they're just used to its weird UX quirks.
The real innovation Zoom brought to the table (IMHO) was not requiring you to make an account to join a call. Inconsequential within a company where everyone already has a account - but critical if it's a one-off or rare call - such as a vendor talking to a customer, a hiring manager inviting someone to interview, or a doctor calling a patient.
I don't remember ever having to make a WebEx account to join.
Re: How Zoom works [slides]
#138Title is "How Zoom works". It's a good article with valid points but nothing about Skype. The editorialized title "Turns out Zoom isn't all that different to Skype after all" has no appreciation for how hostile Skype's technology has become in the past 10 years. It went from nicely working Qt program that worked well on OSX, Linux, and Windows to Electron beast that maybe works on Windows, could possibly be mining bi…
A few days back we were playing League of Legends and due to some permissions issue the person playing on Mac couldn't use the built in voice, so we swapped to Skype for a bit. First: fans take off. Second: Skype lowers all volumes of all other apps without asking. Third: some people now have a weird floating bar in screen during the game, if clicked by accident the game minimizes. Fourth: sound quality is horrible.…
How does one think "Hey let's use Skype" in 2020 is beyond me. There have been much better options for years.
Re: How Zoom works [slides]
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why didn't they just improve the Linux version. You know, write once, run everywhere. It's programmer's dream :-)
Write once, run poorly everywhere. It's a lazy programmer's dream ; ) https://medium.com/commitlog/electron-is-cancer-b066108e6c32
It really has to be laziness since the Qt framework is widely supported on Linux.
Re: How Zoom works [slides]
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
It might also be an issue with motivation. Would you want to work on something that's basically a clone, so there's no creativity but purely porting + solving annoying platform-related bugs? You'd probably tolerate it for a bit, but then it's just playing catch up all the time. It seems like a recipe for employees trying to switch away to another team or company.
They did it for control and convenience at the expense of literate computer users. The Windows 10 UI is written in TypeScript, Edge is chrome, Chrome is chrome, Safari is chrome - it makes hiring and training easy when you can just make every API a grey gelatinous chunk of ECMA script with hamburger menus. It also means the "app" is always sandboxed unable to do powerful things like universal push-to-talk. The color…
Oh yeah but I was talking about motivating the developers. I think it might be challenging to hire people who just work on porting.