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Local-first software (2019)

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Re: Local-first software (2019)

#241

Post by johannes1234321 »

fud101 wrote: post #216
DataDaoDe wrote: post #29

Yes a thousand percent! I'm working on this too. I'm sick of everyone trying to come up with a use case to get all my data in everyone's cloud so I have to pay a subscription fee to just make things work. I'm working on a fitness tracking app right now that will use the sublime model - just buy it, get updates for X years, sync with all your devices and use it forever. If you want updates after X years buy the newest…

Bro who wants your pointless fitness data? Not even you care that much for that. Just use a notepad ffs.

Fitness data tells a lot, your health status, your daily schedule, with running/cycling/... your exact whereabouts that is quite some valuable information.

A notepad also isn't enough to correlate heart rate etc to specific exercises and plotting over time

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#242

Post by bboygravity »

okr wrote: post #39
bboygravity wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root cause of the problem is that it's easier to make personalized stuff with server/backend (?cloud?) than without maybe? Example: I made a firefox extension that automatically fills forms using LLM. It's fully offline (except OPTIONALLY) the LLM part, optionally because it also supports Ollama locally. Now the issue is that it's way too hard for most people to use: find the LLM to run, acquire it somehow (pay t…

Can the LLM not help with setting up the local part? (Sorry, was just the first thought i had.)

Not sure why you're downvoted. This would probably work in the future when LLM's are a standard part of every OS I supposed.

But by then my extension probably also won't be needed anymore as it would likely be integrated in the OS.

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#243

Post by hahn-kev »

swsieber wrote: post #165
monkeyelite wrote: post #161

There is no reason for every application to have its own sync platform. I suspect this framing came out of mobile apps where there is no composability or modularity between programs. If you really embrace "local first" just use the file system, and the user can choose from many solutions like git, box, etc. I hate signing up for your sync just as much as any other SAAS, but it's even more opaque and likely to break.

I agree that not every app needs it's own sync engine, but I disagree with your framing that the file system is the universal way to embrace local first. I have two reasons. First is that yeah, local first, but I also want concurrency. If it's just local first, you're right, any old sync will do. But I want more than that. I want to not have to think (a la dropbox, being slick). I want my wife and I to be able to mak…

If the app is designed for it you can use a hybrid approach, where a given "document" is stored in 1 file for each client, and the client merges the changes across all files. That way there's never a change conflict that something like Dropbox needs to handle and it can all be offloaded to the app.

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#244

Post by AnthonyMouse »

GMoromisato wrote: post #89
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is trying to solve a business problem (I can't trust cloud-providers) with a technical trade-off (avoid centralized architecture). Whenever it's possible to solve a business problem or political problem with a technical solution, that's usually a strong approach, because those problems are caused by an adversarial entity and the technical solution is to eliminate the adversarial entity's ability to defect. Enc…

I 100% agree, actually. If there were a technical solution, then that's usually a better approach. For something like data portability--being able to take my data to a different provider--that probably requires a technical solution. But other problems, like enshittification, can't be solved technically. How do you technically prevent a cloud vendor from changing their pricing? And you're right that the solution space…

Listing key management as the thing that makes distributed protocols hard seems like an error. If your stuff is in the cloud, what are you using to access it? Some kind of password, TOTP, etc., which is maybe tied to your email, which itself is tied to some password, TOTP, etc. So what happens if you lose access to your email or whatever they're using for password recovery? You lose all your stuff.

But it's even worse in that case, because that can also happen if they mess something up. Your email account got banned by some capricious bot, or the provider abruptly decided to stop providing the service, and then the service tied to it decided to send you a verification code to the email you don't have access to anymore -- even though you didn't forget your password for either of them. So now you have even more ways to lose all your stuff.

Meanwhile if you were willing to trust some email provider to not screw you and you only needed some way to recover your keys if your computer falls into the sea, you could just email a copy of them to yourself. And then you wouldn't be relying on that provider to have the only means of recovery, because they're still on your device too.

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#245

Post by fud101 »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #241
fud101 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bro who wants your pointless fitness data? Not even you care that much for that. Just use a notepad ffs.

Fitness data tells a lot, your health status, your daily schedule, with running/cycling/... your exact whereabouts that is quite some valuable information. A notepad also isn't enough to correlate heart rate etc to specific exercises and plotting over time

Tell me more. Lol. I just did a 10k run, I tracked it with my watch but tell me how any of that matters to anyone except me (and it doesn't even matter to me what my HR was over that run - though i did use a HRM but mainly to keep myself from over-exertion). I really don't understand what fitness apps are supposed to do, they're possibly the most useless thing ever invented. I wrote my own app in Clojure over a decade ago and used it to track my workouts for a year or two, I never ever go back and look at a workout more than a week ago, maybe 2 weeks at the most, it simply isn't good data, it is the least valuable data one can generate.

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#246

Post by canadiantim »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #228
patmorgan23 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obsidian the note taking app is a great model to follow as well. The client is completely free and they sell an optional syncing service. The notes are all on markdown files so the client is completely optional.

This is the reason I have always refused to use Bear note taking app irrespective of how good and snappy that app is. Because they keep their notes in a SQLite db now and even though that file can be backed up and handled locally my notes are not easily accessible to me. I can't easily edit my notes in other editors (which I often like to do on my mac), I can't version controlled backup and sync those files the way I…

Sqlite is still local first. Couldn’t they just also provide you with notes via obsidian-like file folder structure while using sqlite for in-app performance?

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#247

Post by puttycat »

coffeecoders wrote: post #72

Lately, I have been following this approach and going towards local-first software. I like simple softwares with barebone features. - Password manager: KeyPassXC - Notes: Logseq - Analytics: Plausible - Media: Jeyllyfin - Uptime kuma - Finance tracker: Actual Budget etc is too heavy so I built this. https://github.com/neberej/freemycash/ - Search: Whoogle? is kinda dead. Need alternative.

For passwords: Enpass is also a wonderful local-first password manager (with optional LAN or cloud sync options)

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#248

Post by bravesoul2 »

fud101 wrote: post #245
johannes1234321 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fitness data tells a lot, your health status, your daily schedule, with running/cycling/... your exact whereabouts that is quite some valuable information. A notepad also isn't enough to correlate heart rate etc to specific exercises and plotting over time

Tell me more. Lol. I just did a 10k run, I tracked it with my watch but tell me how any of that matters to anyone except me (and it doesn't even matter to me what my HR was over that run - though i did use a HRM but mainly to keep myself from over-exertion). I really don't understand what fitness apps are supposed to do, they're possibly the most useless thing ever invented. I wrote my own app in Clojure over a decad…

Funny. I keep a gym record in a local note on the phone. Not for the data. For the act of recording it. Never look back.

Only useful thing from Garmin app has been comparing heart rates to a year ago.

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#249

Post by bravesoul2 »

the_snooze wrote: post #6

Anything with online dependencies will necessarily require ongoing upkeep and ongoing costs. If a system is not local-first (or ideally local-only), it’s not designed for long-term dependability. Connected appliances and cars have got to be the stupidest bit of engineering from a practical standpoint.

Yeah Dropbox Apple etc. provide enough free or paid storage that shows you the true cost. Circa $10 for 2Tb. Cloudflare let's you host static files pretty much for free. Or cost is rounding error.

So you can run 1000 local first app that syncs to a Dropbox for that 10/m in storage. And that storage is full B2C level ready to go not some low level s3 like primitive. Has auth, has supported has programs to sync.

Really most of the cloud cost is not needed.

Re: Local-first software (2019)

#250

Post by bilsbie »

owebmaster wrote: post #206
bilsbie wrote: post #194

One compromise could be to host the software but also offer the option for self hosting.

Local-first apps should not need hosting.

I mean if local first isn’t possible. I’m more comfortable with web based development plus don’t you need to apply for all kinds of certificates to be “allowed” to run on windows and Mac these days?
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