Comment by alxlaz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alxlaz | Hacker News Reader

Can I nitpick two things about the website? I don't mean to be an asshole about it or anything, I just hope it can help in some way:

- I think the mobile detection thing uses nothing but window size to determine if this is on a mobile browser or a desktop, so it mistakes my (definitely desktop) browser window for a mobile one. I know from my friends who do frontend stuff that reliably detecting a mobile browser isn't very straightforward (or even possible?) but perhaps a "my device was not correctly detected, request desktop site" button would help? Or at least a hint about resizing the browser window for technical users who are, nonetheless, not very web-inclined?

- The plural of "scenario" is "scenarios", without an apostrophe. Also frames, not frame's. Sorry if it seems overly pedantic but I see a lot of people (including native speakers) do this and it's driving me nuts.

Other than that I think like the idea! Me and web interfaces don't really get along so I can't say I've done too much test driving but I realize that's a personal preference of mine, and quite possibly something that puts me outside your target audience. I don't suppose there's yet a good web equivalent of Visio, and I'm fairly sure that the ones I've tried don't have the hierarchical/structured approach to diagramming that Terrastruct has. Best of luck with it -- I hope ten years from now I can tell my friends I went all grammar nazi on alixanderwang, world-renowned billionaire and the founder of Terrastruct!

Are you using a Linux desktop?

Recently I ran into this more and more. Eventually it came down to Linux being in the user-agent causing a large chunk of sites to assume I was using android. This became apparent when gmail asked if I wanted to download the mail application when visiting their site with cookies cleared. Once the agent was changed I no longer get mobile type notifications (on my desktop).

I don't know why you're being downvoted. This may be a very legitimate problem, especially considering that OP says they haven't seen this yet. And yes, I am using a Linux desktop!

Your nitpicks are absolutely welcome!

Re: sizing: interesting, that’s the first report of it failing, I indeed should do a require desktop version. Are you talking about the landing page or the app? The app uses javascript to detect, the landing page uses page width.

Re:spelling, plural of proper nouns should use apostrophes I think, no? Eg “how many Airbnb’s did you book”. I’m not sure if making those proper nouns was the right choice, I wanted to highlight that they were terms in the app.

Anyway, thank you for the kind words and feedback!

Apostrophe-s marks possession. Plurals of regular nouns are always formed without apostrophes.

Plural of Airbnb is Airbnbs.

Compare this to "Airbnb's fifth year was terrific" where the apostrophe marks possession. Whose fifth year was terrific? Airbnb's.

Wow why did I think proper nouns used apostrophes for plurals, oof. Fixed. Thank you and OP of comment!

Probably because of weird rules like "children's room" and "four cows' pasture", then the contrary notion that "it's" is incorrect for possessive form because "it is" already used for a contraction of "it is". English sucks.

I'm not a native English speaker and the fact that this is such a common error among native speakers baffles me because the rules that govern these things are very simple. Conventions about when to omit the 's' after the apostrophe differ from one set of guidelines to another (see e.g. https://www.dailywritingtips.com/possessive-of-proper-names-... ), but that's the only non-uniform thing about it.

There's nothing weird about "it's" being incorrect. Pronouns have their own possessive forms. You say her keyboard is white, not she's keyboard is white, and his shirt is yellow, not he's shirt is yellow -- why would you say it's collar is white?

You guys have no idea how easy English is, you should be happy about it and love it and cherish it forever! My native language has a phonetic alphabet, so it's easier to figure out how to pronounce words (i.e. no "lead men in battle" vs "the pipes are made of lead" bullshit). But forming possessives for plurals is waaaay more complicated than "add 's, except if the noun already has an s at the end".

Apostrophes are confusing and overloaded for several purposes.

His report card received four A’s and two B’s.

So, for plurals. Sometimes. Possessives, sometimes, and sometimes omitting the s after an s, other times not. And contractions, where ' is a placeholder for 9 or 10 different things.

""add 's, except if the noun already has an s at the end"

Texas's laws are conservative. (You'll find credible style guides with conflicting advice)

Right, forgot about A's and B's -- we don't use that grading system over here (although, FWIW, I've seen guidebooks that recommend As, Bs and 1s and 2s, because ABCs is also fine and the 1800s is a thing that has to be distinguished from the 1800s'). There's a lot of regional variation, too, which is inevitable considering that English is used from Brisbane to London and from Alaska to California.

But, seriously, every non-constructed language on Earth has exceptions that you have to memorize along with the rules. English doesn't have that many, and it doesn't have too many rules, either. I'm fluent in two other languages (French and my own), and I'm somewhat familiar with a few more languages of Latin, Slavic and Celtic descent. English is a breeze compared to any of them.

Perhaps it's because there's no phonetic difference that native speakers would not have learned the spelling or the rules at the same time, and thus make the error more commonly, due to not having felt a formalized understanding of the rules was necessary.

> Re: sizing: interesting, that’s the first report of it failing, I indeed should do a require desktop version. Are you talking about the landing page or the app? The app uses javascript to detect, the landing page uses page width.

Ah, I'm talking about the landing page. Sorry, I should have been more clear. If it's not something that you can easily reproduce on your end (see this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21960897 ) let me know, I can send you more details about what I'm using.

> Re:spelling, plural of proper nouns should use apostrophes I think, no?

Someone's already answered this -- I'm just chiming in to let you know that this is an extraordinary common error, even among native speakers. I have literally seen C-level executives making it in their emails, and I'm sure it wasn't a typo or something because they didn't get a single damn plural right. So don't feel bad about it. If you're not a native speaker and learned English by yourself, you've likely picked it up from someone who is :-).

(FWIW, I'm not a native speaker, either, I just had really good teachers.)

> I’m not sure if making those proper nouns was the right choice, I wanted to highlight that they were terms in the app.

I don't think that's too big a problem :). I'm fairly sure it's not correct (I don't think they're proper nouns, just like class, object or channel, all of which have specific meanings in the context of one technology or another). But the English language does have a tradition of weird capitalization, and capitalizing them doesn't change anything in terms of meaning. It's not the same as using a possessive form instead of a plural form.

I'm curious, do you (or anyone else) even have an interest in creating diagrams on mobile? It's never crossed my mind as a conducive platform for creating diagram because of the small screen size. I've thought about viewing diagrams in mobile, but again I'm unsure of the desire from other people to do so. (It isn't too hard to get this working as a viewing platform for mobile)

Not really, and I don't really see how that would work on a touch interface. I've seen countless attempts at making tablets (and phones) useful for more than looking at cat pics and watching cat videos and they've all sucked.

But being able to at least easily view diagrams on mobile may be useful, I guess? I'm not sure if it's supported right now.

I experimented with it on my iPad, and came away frustrated. I definitely like to use my iPad when practical.

Same and diagramming seems like something that a tablet touch interface should be good at. I just use the omnigraffle app though so it’s unlikely I’d bother with a webapp tool.

I use draw.io a lot and I can't imagine trying to do anything productive with it on mobile. Viewing diagrams would definitely be appreciated.

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