Ask HN: What are your coolest software apps ever?
What software inspires you?
I'm talking about exciting, bizarre, inspirational; not necessarily successful. My tastes lean towards dev, or end-user facing tech, especially when it's focused on knowledge or analytics. All of mine have made me say "Wow", or at least "Whoa". Here they are, in no particular order:
1.Smalltalk 80, the combined language and environment 2.APL (plus KDB) 3.the Wolfram Language 4.Palantir (fascinates me in a Darth Vader sort of way. Not that I really know what's there. I've never actually used it since they'll never let me use it, or even read much about it.) 5.D3 6.Quantrix, and especially its predecessors: Javelin, Improv, and even VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3. 7.R, in all it's crazy, crazy glory 8.AutoCAD, especially when it had LiSP as its programming language, and because of how it came about (see:https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/autofile.html). Also Sketchpad (http://images.designworldonline.com.s3.amazonaws.com/CADhistory/Sketchpad_A_Man-Machine_Graphical_Communication_System_Jan63.pdf) 9. Google Earth