Sumatra is a the timeless gems of free/open-source software. Alternatively, a reminder of a time when PC programs were unobtrusive and performant.
SumatraPDF Reader
191–200 of 276 posts
Re: SumatraPDF Reader
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the retrospective. > And yet I do know that you can write complex, relatively bug free code without tests, because I did it. > I do know that you can write complex, relatively bug free code without anyone looking over your code, because I did it. > If no one uses your app then who cares if it crashes. > If many people use your app and it crashes, they’ll tell you and then you’ll fix it. Those four statements are…
(I wrote that blog post). What I was trying to say is: there's dogma about tests and code reviews. At Google you would get fired for suggesting skipping code review. Even at smaller Silicon Valley companies (smaller == less than 10 devs) it's unthinkable to not do code reviews. I haven't worked outside SV so it might be different. That's the dogma. My point is that maybe we should apply a bit of common sense on top o…
I work in Health IT here in Germany and for the past 3 years we've been "testing" those "smaller companies" for different parts of our business.
It's a mess. We've been paying them serious money for a product. We've never been warned that their product isn't finished yet or that we're the beta testers for the product they'll sell to other clients. Or that we have to invest our own personal and their time to fix their problems and talk to their useless support.
This has become a pattern and I'm done with it. We are slowly moving back to older and larger companies who actually do their work properly before they roll out products and updates.
Re: SumatraPDF Reader
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least as of Firefox 109, support for non Latin languages was broken to the point of being completely unusable.
128 characters ought to be enough for everybody.
Yep, it's codepage 1276 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_StandardEncoding
Re: SumatraPDF Reader
#194Great retrospective of SumatraPDF from the author: https://blog.kowalczyk.info/article/2f72237a4230410a888acbfc... .
From the retrospective. > And yet I do know that you can write complex, relatively bug free code without tests, because I did it. > I do know that you can write complex, relatively bug free code without anyone looking over your code, because I did it. > If no one uses your app then who cares if it crashes. > If many people use your app and it crashes, they’ll tell you and then you’ll fix it. Those four statements are…
Now I'm ready for massive downvotes here but hear me out.
Much of our professional habits are part of the corporate chains which is optimised to deliver and squeeze as much as possible.
Software developed in the wild does not have those corporate obligations and the sole purpose is to enjoy the process, the sheer joy of creating something. Of programming as a creative medium.
You don't get your paintings code reviewed. It's just that artistry. You like it, then you like it, end of the story, you're not playing for the gallery.
Corporate enslavement works differently. It has moved and distributed the part of the factory shift in charge to the dude sitting next to you, cleverly. Many are just complaining to make sure they're considered the quality sensitive cooperate loyals.
You two might like different pigments for the grass and he'll strike down your painting with a red ballpoint if not to his taste.
Happens to all of us and if not, wait for it.
Declaring a single boolean flag in a corporate environment might cost more then an hour to get to a consensus because one I-am-dffierent-I-care-too-much guy has some objection about some ambiguity in the flag name in some far future and has now swayed roughly half the team on his side.
That doesn't exist in open source. Open source is all about anti status quo. It is pure rebillion. It started that way, it is about hippies and naysayers. The very root of the GNU toolchain, Herd etc are probably there.
EDIT: Typos + corporate software development environment.
Re: SumatraPDF Reader
#195If you are on linux and miss the snappiness of sumatra, try llpp. They use the same renderer. In fact, llpp has more features, like a better overview mode where you can get 3 pages on screen. Search does suck. llpp is written in Ocaml and a fantastic piece of software.
I’ve been using Sumatra through WINE (a tool that emulates the Windows api) for years. Works great on Linux that way.
Re: SumatraPDF Reader
#196I use daily. Extremely useful, lightweight, and minimalistic.
It is similar to MKVToolNix, VLC, or GIMP.
Re: SumatraPDF Reader
#197I have the bad habit of keeping many PDF files in the reader open (yeah, I keep reading long books). The thing is when I open Sumatra for a new file (maybe only for a quick glance) Sumatra will reload all my files and slowed the startup significantly. I wish I can set the option which will load only if I’ve actually switched to the tab, just like Firefox.
This can be controlled when use the "Advanced Options". It opens a config file where you can set: RememberOpenedFiles = false https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/settings/settings3-4-6
the files should still be remembered, they should just be lazy loaded
Re: SumatraPDF Reader
#198Bless the heart of whoever looked at the PDF spec and said to themselves, "Nice, I'd like to writer a parser for this."
(I wrote SumatraPDF). In fairness, I didn't write the PDF rendering. That is indeed quite a tall order. I used to use poppler and switched to mupdf (was more active at the time, poppler seems to have picked up pace since). The core PDF feature set isn't that bad to implement. From what I've seen, the bad / complex parts are: - stuff they added years later, like some XML stuff (of course you had to add XML in 2000!),…
When I bought my first computer in 2005, I discovered SumatraPDF and good lord it was miles better than the bloated alternatives. In particular, it was lighter and faster than everything else, which for someone like me who had to buy used hardware, was a godsend. So thanks for that!
Re: SumatraPDF Reader
#199I implore all developers of PDF readers to implement sioyek's overview feature[0]. When you hover on a cross-referenced entry, it opens a little preview window with the contents of the reference. It is an absolute game-changer for reading textbooks and technical papers; I cannot overstate its utility. [0] https://github.com/ahrm/sioyek#overview
Is this not Ted Nelson's transclusion? Namely, "...the same content knowably in more than one place".
Re: SumatraPDF Reader
#200Great retrospective of SumatraPDF from the author: https://blog.kowalczyk.info/article/2f72237a4230410a888acbfc... .
From the retrospective. > And yet I do know that you can write complex, relatively bug free code without tests, because I did it. > I do know that you can write complex, relatively bug free code without anyone looking over your code, because I did it. > If no one uses your app then who cares if it crashes. > If many people use your app and it crashes, they’ll tell you and then you’ll fix it. Those four statements are…
> I became increasingly terrified of making changes.
That's the main value of automated tests.