167 karma · joined August 15, 2014
The maximum speed of moving data from one physical place to another, moving data from the hard drive to the motherboard and the ram to the cpu/cache is faster than from the internet to a computer. To he speed of light is still noticably slow when you're making round trips to get data.
The other issue is configuration, even if automated, software needs to make decisions about how to deal with different hardware and system differences. This takes time to bootstrap after initial load increase time to usuability or it can be done on the fly slowing down the interactions.
It isn't used because it's just not how the suppliers of content nor consumers of the web want to use the web.
If they want a full featured app, they use it. Even with super fast speeds, latency and minimal startup time still make the browser unattractive for this.
Web users and content providers want linkable documents.
I'd argue that the modern browser stack is so good that we see installed apps adopting html/css/js for the presentation layer.
Likewise, it's not logically consistent to say " well, yeah it looks really bad but because a court can't prove it, I'm going to advocate they they are morally innocent. " Moral and legal aren't the same thing.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the link to the inbox saying "inbox"
Users don't know what all your iconography means.
App design isn't just graphic design or industrial design. It's not airport or device design either.
The app has two purposes, the user wants and what the app provider wants. The problems become more challenging when those two parties desires don't match. Making an app that makes it easy to buy something, take a note, edit an image, or share something with people isn't rocket science with modern OSes and Libraries. These choices are central to discussion because metrics started becoming more important than the core use.
Sometimes this makes business sense, like in a social media app where they want you to stay longer after you share. But this isn't only true because it's a crowded market. Sometimes it doesn't, where a sales app loses sales because they try too hard to move people from what people came to buy to another thing (another product, a membership, a extended warranty, a social media share).
Interestingly, I work at a medium sized company that is updating existing tech to microservices and the cloud because 5 years later, it seems like those are good investments that return good value in ease of configuration, deployment, etc.
A limited list of reasons they may use it include available talent (people often learn on free stuff), availability of support and consultants locally or at their price, specfic features of one tool need or not needed, availability of developers to contribute/fix bugs, desire to have input handled openly and open governed. They prefer the UI or APIs. Flexibility to integrate more openly. Desire to make a statement in support of FOSS or specific project.
Reasons why they may not us FOSS, liability (someone to blame if there's an issue, spread insurance costs), privacy when dealing with issues, availability of consultants or training at the desired price, availability of talent (many people learn paid software at school), availability of managed server farms. They prefer the UI or APIs. Available APIs that have simple integrations. Etc.
So before, you had complex models, tightly bound back-end controllers, sending data to a view.
Now, you have simpler APIs on the server, you arrange and manage the data in the browser, getting more data as needed.
These interviews usually end and then when I look up the company 3 months later they don't exist anymore or have pivoted.
Text based tools are easier to keep modular and advance the process. Without someone doing it, the visual environments seem to stagnate (anecdotally).
That being said, if you had to use a newly invented screw or slide to get that chicken coop mod to work, then that probably should be patentable. Similarly, on a phone, if you invented a new means of translating that motion into a slide, or other actual invention, than that probably should be valid. Using existing touch drivers to recognize an obvious real world motion, probably not.
This is the opposite. Edge requires windows 10. Complaining about new software having a dependency on something, is a bit odd. But this isn't even that. It's software built for a target platform. When you design software you pick hardware and OSes to support. Sometimes older versions are cut, just like older versions of Android don't get all the latest updates to Chrome.
Additionally, it turns out that most commercial OSes are going to be tied in with the OS, and consumers seem select OSes/devices that package the basics like this.
For someone like me, it would have been really fun when I was less experienced. I would have liked the repetitive challenges while I was doing them, because I would have challenged my self to go through them as fast as a I could and gamify it (though it wouldn't have been called gamification back then). It would have got me to memorize things.
His books are different, I appreciate another take on them. I would read and follow along with his books if they fit my needs now. I've recommended him a couple times to people I thought would benefit from that style.
As to his personality, I think most people are jerks sometimes, and not jerks at other times. We all have our issues. :)
Generally, I feel that all the conversations about it much more harmful to the profession than the original instances being discussed.
Standing seems like "paleo" to me. Our ancestors did it so it must be best, am I right brah? They died younger or had much worse old age, but I guess it depends on the definition of best/better as well as definition of spine.
Edit: emphasize sarcasm