Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Software I’m thankful for (2021)

crawshaw.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 530 posts

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#251

Post by charlie0 »

dan_mctree wrote: post #150
jgillich wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software development is a much better experience on Linux compared to Windows (unless you stay within Visual Studio). If you do tasks that are well supported by your OS, your experience will be mostly good. Don't run servers on MacOS, don't develop on Windows and don't game on Linux. Or do it anyway and deal with the unpolished aspects of it.

As a lifelong windows dev, what exactly makes linux worth moving to? I understand that coming from a linux world, doing what you like doing in linux isn't always possible on windows. But I've never really found a use for any of that console magic linux devs seem to love. Pipe this into that and through seven pieces of software that sound like glibgcd, add 8 arcane flags and in the end you have some kind of textfile t…

I agree with you on that Windows -> Linux doesn't have much appeal. I tried it 2-3 times and gave up because Linux was not user friendly enough.

However, I will say that Windows -> Mac is pretty awesome. IMO, the main benefits were the commmand line experience. Installing Homebrew on Mac was so much nicer than pointing and clicking everywhere in Windows to do things.

I see that Windows is getting better with their Terminal app, but the MacOS functionalities beat it.

If you value doing things from the keyboard rather than a mouse, then you'll see value in switching to MacOs. Otherwise, the appeal is rather muted.

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#252

Post by wing-_-nuts »

Dalewyn wrote: post #213
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>GNOME is nigh unusable other than as an expensive piece of wall decor. Examples you can expand on?

Lack of customization for one, either I do things the GNOME way or the highway. Screw that, if I wanted that I would be using MacOS and/or iOS instead since Apple does that far better. Form factor dissonance for another. GNOME clearly targets the mobile form factor, and it fails me for all the reasons Metro in Windows 8 failed me because guess what: I'm using a desktop/laptop, not a tablet/phone.

Yeah if you value customizability at all, you should probably be using kde. I value simplicity and consistency.

I had issues with ubuntu's unity back in the day and I switched over to i3wm, but I didn't find I used tiling enough to make it worth losing the usability of a desktop environment

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#253

Post by preseinger »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #126

The fish shell, makes using the shell feel almost painless. Hammerspoon, I use it to automatically switch audio devices based on context, so every call uses the best microphone currently available, window management via keystrokes, limiting media keys to Spotify, tons of other things. Indispensable. Arduino, I don't think I would be able to tinker with microcontrollers as much if I had to write C and use obscure tool…

> This will be a bit controversial, but Kubernetes, because if people use it via GKE, EKS etc. then I won't have to learn their organically grown solution to the same dozen-or-so operations problems, and I have yet to see one that isn't a hot mess in some way or other. Also anything running on top of Kubernetes won't be built the very old-fashioned vi-edits-on-server way, great for sanity.

I appreciate this perspective. It's sane. But my consistent experience has been that the complexity permitted by the Kubernetes configuration surface area tends to be larger, more complex, and ultimately more difficult to wrangle than the complexity introduced by (reasonably coherent) home-grown systems.

I would generally prefer to be responsible for a bespoke solution, with all of its warts and pathologies, than for a Kubernetes deployment. The problems of the former tend to be at least tractable; wrangling Kubernetes to a reasonable level of availability is in my experience only possible if you dedicate your career to it.

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#254

Post by amelius »

isametry wrote: post #25
ajkjk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Ah yes, Steve Jobs, the CEO and entrepreneur widely known for his lack of taste and aesthetic sense.

The minimalist style of most of his products is essentially a demonstration of lack of taste, probably with the purpose of playing it safe and not clashing with any potential customer's taste.

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#255

Post by p4bl0 »

CodeSgt wrote: post #215
bachmeier wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Linux is absolute freedom, but that comes with the cost of having to do much more than install, plug and play. You need to be a computer geek, or you need someone else to fix things for you. Hard disagree. Linux works extremely well for the person that only does basic computing. My mother, for instance, used Linux for years. Folks that need to do things like recompile a kernel in 2022 are way in the tail end of the…

I feel like linux only works for 2 categories of people: 1. The extreme laymen that do essentially nothing outside of the web browser 2. The tech savant that has the time, energy, and motivation to spend the countless hours required to get Linux to run anything sufficiently complex. Those in-between typically have the desire to do more than they are able to easily do OOTB with Linux, but also lack the technical abili…

I would have agreed with that 15 and maybe 10 years ago. Nowadays, do you really think this is still true? At the university I work at some of the administrative staff with little to no technical knowledge are using Ubuntu and doing essentially the same thing they would on Windows or Mac, and that really not only web browsing, nor LibreOffice usage. For example they have to use custom horrible tools developed years ago that look just as familiarly awefull on Linux as they do on Windows or Mac (I'm talking of Apogée if any French academics pass by).

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#256

Post by ekrebs »

The responses so far say so much about the HN audience. As a mobile app designer, developer, I'll throw in some higher level tools that I love: - Figma - Slack - VS Code - DataGrip (most JetBrains tools really) - Photoshop - 1Password - Lightroom (Classic, of course) - UBlock Origin - Gusto (makes my life easier as a startup founder)

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#257

Post by karmakaze »

kergonath wrote: post #228
karmakaze wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No mention of the shoulders that Apple products stand upon.

Apart from all of the message, yes, no mention of it at all.

I was thinking more of things like the "windows, icons, menus, pointer" that Apple tried to sue Microsoft for.

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#258

Post by JohnFen »

pwinnski wrote: post #123
JohnFen wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, which means that neither are "most common". But the distribution is not even. In my part of the country, you don't see iPhones very often at all. In other parts of the country, you see them everywhere.

I'm sorry, how is "greater than 50%" not the same as "most common?" Either it's two players with 51% and 49%, in which case the 51% is "most common," or it's many players, with 51% and a bunch of other percentages that collectively add up to 49%, in which case the 51% is still the most common, perhaps even more so. I'm not shilling for Apple here, as Android was clearly most common From 2011-2021, and still is world-…

> Either it's two players with 51% and 49%, in which case the 51% is "most common,"

In a market the size we're talking about, 51% and 49% are effectively the same as 50-50. I think it's reasonable to say neither is the "most common". They're used equally.

And I don't know the margin of error on the figures, but I'm sure it exceeds 1% anyway.

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#259

Post by Arisaka1 »

Dalewyn wrote: post #20

Strangely enough: Windows. Yes, I fucking hate Windows 10/11 for several laundry lists' worth of reasons, but you know what? At the end of the day, Windows is the only desktop OS that enables me to use my computer to do the shit I need or want to do. So long as that fundamental principle as a tool is not violated, I will forever be thankful for Windows regardless what criticism I might have for it.

>At the end of the day, Windows is the only desktop OS that enables me to use my computer to do the shit I need or want to do.

I feel like this is the kind of dystopian thing everyone just accepted that it's normal.

And by that I mean, I expected competition, options, etc. Instead I'm still forced to use Windows for my gaming, GPU's for Linux desktop is still hit or miss, and Apple decided to break up with Intel so on top of everything else I get to "enjoy" package incompatibilities for my work.

And now I have to pretend that I'm enjoying that Microsoft keeps deciding to grab "a little bit more" every now and then because I really don't have any other options, besides the "stop playing video games that aren't a pain to setup or even work on Linux".

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#260

Post by alanbernstein »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #126

The fish shell, makes using the shell feel almost painless. Hammerspoon, I use it to automatically switch audio devices based on context, so every call uses the best microphone currently available, window management via keystrokes, limiting media keys to Spotify, tons of other things. Indispensable. Arduino, I don't think I would be able to tinker with microcontrollers as much if I had to write C and use obscure tool…

Got any Hammerspoon config to share? I've used it for simple stuff for years, but recently noticed that people use it for window management, and macos' handling of windows on my second monitor is driving me nuts...
Post reply on HN