Hacker News Reader

Comment by maram | Hacker News Reader

>it will take a lot of time and effort, sure. But not impossible.

“Taking a lot of time” is what’s implied by impossible.

By the time you are done building whatever-it-took-long-time-to-build a new generation of users have just emerged.

Your product is either a) obsolete to the youngest users, or b) you, as the product builder, lost the point of reference of the youngest generation

From the blog:

>I conclude that it is impossible to build a new web browser.

And a new OD. The entire world communicates now by two OSs only..android and iOS.

View on HN

> The entire world is now communicating by two OSs only..android and iOS.

That's silly and reductionist. The world uses those OSs, but not only those. Almost every person that sits at a desk for work also uses something else. Every student in the US is expected to a use a computer with a keyboard for writing papers. I'd they don't have their own computer to do this, they are provided access to one.

A significant portion of the computing for iOS/Android is also powered by offloaded cloud computing, which run a vastly more diverse array of OS environments (though to what extent the myriad varieties of Linux distros are diverse from one another is semantic/subjective).

When I was at college a decade* ago, there were quite a few student carrying around an iPad with a keyboard cover, and doing all of their schoolwork on that. Heck, I understood the draw the moment I did the same with the (doomed, but then-novel) Surface RT. That thing was lightweight and lasted all day without needing to worry about finding an outlet, which is a big deal when you're running to a different lecture hall every couple of hours.

For some disciplines, especially anything involving CAD, I think desktop computer is still necessary. That said, I think you'd be surprised just how much of a typical college education can be done on nothing more than a basic tablet and a handful of productivity apps.

* (...wow, it really was a decade. How the time flies.)

> I think you'd be surprised just how much of a typical college education can be done on nothing more than a basic tablet and a handful of productivity apps.

I think upon reflection this is less surprising than you might initially find it. After all, college predates computers.

>product

>users

Hi maram! It's not that kind of project. I'm building a new OS and browser for myself. There is no "product" and the only "user" I care about is me. :)

Good luck! Ping me if you want users to test your browser ;)

Ill do a digital standing ovation for that. Imagine knowing exactly what the user thinks and cares about. :-)

"Taking a lot of time" is not synonymous with "taking forever".

By the way he phrased his comment, even I could tell this was a project with personal, non-commercial ends.

On this basis, his product will ultimately be: accomplished, or not accomplished but having enriched himself a ton by mere virtue of the pursuit.

The entire world is not only communicating via Android and iOS. Those are the predominant OSs; however, we've all heard of Linux, haven't we?

The Linux is ready for production.

> "Taking a lot of time" is not synonymous with "taking forever".

It can be, when you have a moving target.

I don't fully understand the argument that a long piece of work will leave you behind when you're done. What if you've qualitatively moved the field forward while the "competition" simply made incremental progress? Aren't you ahead then?

You can do that! but referencing history, it's a rare thing to happen.

Regis McKenna made a point at 4:30 "The span from the first transistor to the first microprocessor is going to about a third" he was discussing product innovation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z13NI0SuyA&t=2912s

---------

“There will be certain points of time when everything collides together and reaches critical mass around a new concept or a new thing that ends up being hugely relevant to a high % of people or businesses. But it’s hard to predict those. I don’t believe anyone can” -Marc Andreessn

A new OS is entirely buildable, precisely because it isn't beholden to hundreds of millions of words in standards that you'd be required to implement.

You could keep it simple, too, if you didn't need to support existing bloatware.. such as browsers.

You have me wonder what one could make by that formula. No one else thought it was interesting [hah] but I had a good time pondering an environment that forces the user into a productive pattern. These 2 ideas seem compatible.

Of course most people imagine themselves to be motivated and able to focus on goals. Then, after x hours of win, they log onto twitter or facebook, get calls, messages etc or lose half a day on HN.

Make something like a game console only the exact opposite. Imagine phone calls and work messages popping up in the middle of your xbox session and work being 1 click away at all time? I think that would be just as inappropriate and undesirable as doing it the other way around.

It cant be just me, as soon as I start the browser the entire internet circus is there, all of the clowns, balloons all over. This is where I'm suppose to get work done?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com