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Get in zoomer, we're saving React

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Re: Get in zoomer, we're saving React

#141

Post by LtWorf »

cowtools wrote: post #43
chris_armstrong wrote: post #39

This article is weird linking together many unrelated strands of thought. Like linking reactive programming to “reactive” UIs, when really they mean UIs that are forgiving to their users instead of breaking down. Or how by coding on the web we’ve lost the immediacy of a UI that runs on our desktop, and the primitives (like undo/redo stacks) that make desktop user interfaces friendlier, at least without having to buil…

As someone who has admittedly worked on approximately 0 user-facing programs, it seems like there are not many revolutionary ideas when it comes UI. I have some dream of a sort of user-interface system that exposes controls and data more directly to the user, independent of the author's stylistic choices. Sort of like semantic HTML with style-sheets that are configured on a per-user basis. It would be analogous to th…

> I have some dream of a sort of user-interface system that exposes controls and data more directly to the user, independent of the author's stylistic choices.

It will never happen.

Companies want to "brand" their UI to use it as a marketing tool. Usability and integration be damned.

Re: Get in zoomer, we're saving React

#142

Post by mananaysiempre »

klondike_klive wrote: post #110
fifticon wrote: post #99

I agree with this guy. I can see that his tone unfortunately irks many to take offense and post. I am sad that microsoft has so dropped the ball on UI, that even MS' own teams use web tech to build apps nowadays. I particularly lament that scroll bars have become a lost art. We have gone from scroll bars working perfectly in windows 3.1, to .. whatever passes for a scrollbar these days. Often they are even hidden, so…

Recently scrolling through a list of countries to choose 'United Kingdom' I eventually found it under 'G'. The nearest I can figure, it was previously for 'Great Britain' and was never re-sorted? (Never mind that nobody in the UK has called it Great Britain since maybe mid 20th century!)

The ISO 3166 code is GB (the uk. TLD being a grandfathered exception), they might have sorted by that. There would be more cases of “wrong” order in the list, though most of them would be more subtle than that.

Re: Get in zoomer, we're saving React

#143

Post by pjmlp »

fifticon wrote: post #99

I agree with this guy. I can see that his tone unfortunately irks many to take offense and post. I am sad that microsoft has so dropped the ball on UI, that even MS' own teams use web tech to build apps nowadays. I particularly lament that scroll bars have become a lost art. We have gone from scroll bars working perfectly in windows 3.1, to .. whatever passes for a scrollbar these days. Often they are even hidden, so…

Given the way UWP and now WinUI 3.0 teams have managed the product, with many not even having an understanding of the capabilities and VS tooling from the frameworks they are supposed to replace, I am starting to think the internal code name for the team is something like Team Titanic.

Re: Get in zoomer, we're saving React

#144

Post by kristopolous »

nonethewiser wrote: post #132
kristopolous wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things used to require much more competency. For instance, I've been looking at old Byte Magazine issues on archive.org Let's take November 1982. Here's an article on building a video digitizer ( https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1982-11/page/n175/... ) complete with circuit diagrams, signal examples, and a control program in 6502 assembly. Hobbyist magazine. For enthusiasts. If I had a candidate that did thi…

Quite intentionally so. The more that its abstracted (well) the more accessible it is. Compare assembly to python. With AI tools I think there will be a similar if not greater distance between python and something else.

No it's not.

It's an hourglass where the width is accessibility and the height is abstraction. In the center is the sweet spot. Basic was near there. Pascal probably was. Ruby, PHP and Python are capable of being there...

As an example outside of computers, think about highly abstract art, highly abstract philosophy or poetry.

It comes across as obdurate and diffusive, aloof and needlessly distanced from materiality.

Now in programming you see the same thing. Abstract language that seems to exist in pure vapor. Factory, interface, provider, service, oh and a provider service and a service provider which are not the same things of course.

All these things mean very specific things that change depending on whose lips are moving - they're defined in code somewhere - they do something deterministic - there is a real materialist function here that's being obscured by confusing language. We've entered the age of Jurgen Habermas style programming.

It's fine if you want that, but don't pretend it's successfully easier to understand when poorly, vaguely, and also precisely defined.

The computer is a picky, unrelenting, uncompromising bratty jerk. Because of this programming concepts are best when they're nailed the fuck down and not dancing around in some abstract freeform jazz space pretending that it's more accessible that way.

All it does is create confusion and the emotion of confidence replacing the reality of competence. The computer is still going to be a bastard and we'll have to deal with it eventually.

Re: Get in zoomer, we're saving React

#145

Post by efdee »

LtWorf wrote: post #138
mort96 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes, you want to be able to support more than one OS.

You mean like download qt and make an app that compiles on everything and integrates much better than a webpage while also being much faster and smaller?

Don't expect me to download your .exe if you're solving a problem that can be solved using a web app.

Re: Get in zoomer, we're saving React

#146

Post by darepublic »

cowtools wrote: post #43
chris_armstrong wrote: post #39

This article is weird linking together many unrelated strands of thought. Like linking reactive programming to “reactive” UIs, when really they mean UIs that are forgiving to their users instead of breaking down. Or how by coding on the web we’ve lost the immediacy of a UI that runs on our desktop, and the primitives (like undo/redo stacks) that make desktop user interfaces friendlier, at least without having to buil…

As someone who has admittedly worked on approximately 0 user-facing programs, it seems like there are not many revolutionary ideas when it comes UI. I have some dream of a sort of user-interface system that exposes controls and data more directly to the user, independent of the author's stylistic choices. Sort of like semantic HTML with style-sheets that are configured on a per-user basis. It would be analogous to th…

I've thought the same thing. A tech that lets you consume data from web sites but visualize it in any way you want. Despite the naysayers in other replies I think it is possible

Re: Get in zoomer, we're saving React

#147

Post by ripe »

amelius wrote: post #106
ricardobayes wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought windows had bad UX until I tried macOS. Maybe my taste is different than others but I found macOS UX to be really confusing. I particularly disliked the iconset. Interestingly this is not true for iOS and iPadOS, those are magnificent.

I can never find the back button on iOS.

Is there a back button? Honest question. I thought iPhones didn't have one. When I pick up my wife's iPhone I always feel a little lost.

Re: Get in zoomer, we're saving React

#148

Post by stillkicking »

fifticon wrote: post #99

I agree with this guy. I can see that his tone unfortunately irks many to take offense and post. I am sad that microsoft has so dropped the ball on UI, that even MS' own teams use web tech to build apps nowadays. I particularly lament that scroll bars have become a lost art. We have gone from scroll bars working perfectly in windows 3.1, to .. whatever passes for a scrollbar these days. Often they are even hidden, so…

Scrollbars are actually a real pain to implement.

- you first need to lay out the scrollable content normally, without a scrollbar

- then you need to detect whether it spills over, and whether a scrollbar is needed

- if so, you need to lay out all the content again, in a slightly smaller area

- if the content ever shrinks, you need to detect this too

- and if the content only _just_ fits, then it is possible that without a scrollbar, it doesn't need a scrollbar, but if there is a scrollbar, it needs to be scrollable. Chicken and egg.

This is actually pretty nasty to get right. Now factor in layout models like flex box, which also require part of the content to have a "pre layout" pass done in order to estimate "natural size", and it can get quite gnarly. And if you want to mix vertical and horizontal layouts... oof.

I got an equivalent of HTML/CSS box+flex working in Use.GPU but it took plenty of iteration.

I think the lesson here is that UI is always more complicated than you think. There are countless little tricks and mechanisms that you would only ever notice it if they didn't work. When they do, it is so "obviously" right you literally can't tell.

(As an aside, whoda thunk that a generation raised on participation trophies would be easily triggered???)

(Yes this is an alt)

Re: Get in zoomer, we're saving React

#149

Post by twodave »

ripe wrote: post #147
amelius wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can never find the back button on iOS.

Is there a back button? Honest question. I thought iPhones didn't have one. When I pick up my wife's iPhone I always feel a little lost.

Convention is to keep it in the top left. All the stock apps will use more or less the same navigation dock up top for back and other functions. Often apps will be rejected for not providing this kind of functionality predictability. This was the hardest thing for me to learn moving from Android to ios as well, but the smoothness of ios trumps all the hardship in my opinion.

Re: Get in zoomer, we're saving React

#150

Post by ourmandave »

kristopolous wrote: post #115
mwcampbell wrote: post #44

> What's really frustrating about all this is how passive and helpless the current generation of web developers seem to be in all this. It's as if they've all been lulled into complacency by convenience. They seem afraid to carve out their own ambitious paths, and lack serious gusto for engineering. If there isn't a "friendly" bot spewing encouraging messages with plenty of emoji at every turn, they won't engage. > A…

Things used to require much more competency. For instance, I've been looking at old Byte Magazine issues on archive.org Let's take November 1982. Here's an article on building a video digitizer ( https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1982-11/page/n175/... ) complete with circuit diagrams, signal examples, and a control program in 6502 assembly. Hobbyist magazine. For enthusiasts. If I had a candidate that did thi…

Today would you look for someone who grew up doing Rasberry Pi builds?

I haunted Radio Shack back in the day, but would have loved to grow up doing single board computer stuff.

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