This is an amazingly refreshing view of programming. I am envious of anyone who can apply first hand their programming skills to the world around them. I can program, but real life and programming just seem to occupy entirely different realms of my brain, unable to cross over.
Fascinating. Sometimes I think I might lean too far in the other direction. I can't help but imagine-architect software solutions to my meatspace problems and nonproblems if I let my mind wander. I have to remember to ask myself, sure I want to build it but would I really want to use it? By the time someone has finished telling me the awkward thing they had to do today I've got an idle loop in my brain spinning (sile…
An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
211–220 of 296 posts
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#212This 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…
I’ve made a poll/group decision making app for my family and friends, and i’m this close to starting some sort of collaborative note/list making app because apple notes causes us so many headaches
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#213At the same time, I feel the gap is widening between these and professional apps. It's easier to write apps, and it's harder to write "real" apps (for the masses). I'm writing a book ( https://opinionatedlaunch.com ) over the course of 3+ years and I have to keep updating the "Mobile" chapters. Not because of some fancy new framework, but because both Apple and Google keep adding "requirements." Sure, they're for the…
Considerations like these have lead me to Nim. I don't have it working yet, but the vision is that if I constrain myself to a simple enough UI then I can then compile the same code to Objective C for iStuff, C++ for Android and desktop, and Javascript for web. Those apps can each then evaluate arbitrary nimscript in a platform agnostic way. I've log ago forgotten what the app I wanted to build was, but if I remember…
Loved your comment. Sometimes we can get lost in the technology but that can be fun in itself.
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#214> But let’s substitute a different phrase: “learn to cook”. People don’t only learn to cook so they can become chefs. Some do! But many more people learn to cook so they can eat better, or more affordably. Because they want to carry on a tradition. Sometimes they learn because they’re bored! Or even because they enjoy spending time with the person who’s teaching them.
This is actually why I think more people should learn some coding (and why there should be more HyperCard-like environments for non-professionals). It makes the computer or phone a tool to do the things they want, not just what some programmer in SF wanted to write and try to market.
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love writing little tools - but I tend to do so for others, than myself. My GF and her Sister kept a running tab (Beans) between them - and always were having issues reconciling who owes what for when etc... These are smart and capable women, but for some reason their personal tab between eachother was a headache - so an "app" I made was just a smarter spreadsheet in google docs they share and they enter their info…
I love all the comments that I'm reading here, but for most of the cases that are being presented, I'm having a hard time imagining myself needing to do the same, because for the most part there is always an app that already covers that need. For example, your use case sounds like the ideal scenario for Settle Up. Me and my 2 closest friends have a running group where we annotate expenses and there's always a clear p…
It wasnt more about solving a $ issue as to morphing their interpersonal behavior over a tab between sisters... (and my personal friction) ((have you met any sisters who are both close and highly successful in different fields)) - sometimes, you just need to leave the room... this was my method of exiting the room of financial "settle up" types of comments - and I had the mortar of dog pics.
So, yeah - but micro tools are a thing.
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you elaborate on what you would need to do different in terms of dev? The only thing I would do differently in this scenario would be to ensure no secrets or anything gets into the code which is a minor lift but also probably for the best.
In python I do horrible things like the following when nobody else is going to see it: [[[foo(x) for x in y] for y in bar_vec if baz(y)] for bar_vec in bar_mat if bar_vec != []]
Maybe I'm telling on myself but this doesn't seem that bad at all.
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Most people" do not own an iPhone or use iMessages, maybe in your bubble, but not in the real world.
The people that don't use iMessage probably use RCS, not SMS.
Yes, which was rolled out recently, and when these talk to each other it falls back to SMS, there's Messenger/WhatsApp/or whatever people are using today.
That's not the point I'm disagreeing with though, it's just a reminder that the claim that "most people" own an iPhone is delusional. It's just as ridiculous as someone only hanging out with billionaires claiming "most people fly private jets", and it can be healthy to consider the rest of the world from time to time.
I live in Europe and while iPhones aren't uncommon they don't have the status they (seem to) have in the US and most people use Android.
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#218Related 'Ask HN' that I posted about 3 weeks ago, and that got over 780 comments, with many apps mentioned, which was quite unexpected, but fun:
Ask HN: What apps have you created for your own use?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38623695
Still haven't checked all the replies with links to their apps, which many gave, but plan to.
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#219This 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…
I have often thought about creating an everything app for myself. Do you have it as a desktop app, or is it a web app you host somewhere? Would love to read a blog post about it if you have one or would like to write one.
Re: An app can be a home-cooked meal (2020)
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, when you do that you would approach coding the application differently, which adds to development time. Also, it can change the whole mentality of developing it. Probably why more people don’t do that, though I agree it would be nice.
You can ossify it (ha!) after you have done all the work and it is mostly complete. git remote add origin … git push
Time to coin a new word - enossification - like enshittification - which I came across here recently, but without the negative connotation of the latter.