vrinsd

WordPerfect really was an outstanding word processor. Reveal codes (like many others here have pointed out) made "debuging" formatting issues relatively painless as was the "make it fit to a certain layout or size" feature. In an era when you didn't really have WYSIWYG they did an excellent job of enabling users to more or less get nice looking output without having to go to TeX.

I remember it took a LONG time before there was a Windows version of WordPerfect which I think took a lot of their momentum away. Combine that with Microsoft basically giving away Office or bundling Word+Excel they succeeded in eroding market share from Lotus / WordPerfect.

I think the Lotus Suite may have even pre-dated MSFT Office as a suite (not 100% certain) and as usual functionality was often superior or better implemented than MSFT's.

Credit should also go to WordPerfect for making a Linux version in the 2000's before Linux desktop was as mature as it is today. Sadly they didn't continue this effort.

I'm glad we have LibreOffice but it's frankly a clone of MSFT Office, the UI is very cluttered and it has the same "weirdisms" that Office has.

Hi Andreas,

First, thanks for this project and making your self accessible!

Will "plug-in" or "add-on" support be a first-party concept in Ladybird?

I ask that because in years past a few other browsers (Konqueror, Falkon, Dillo, etc) made it pretty far but lacking add-ons, useful capability such as 'NoScript' or 'uBlock' or even a tab manager made them non-starters.

This whole thread got me to go back and see what else is out there and I remembered there's another (potentially) saner choice: Fossil : https://www.fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki

I haven't used it myself but I might for a solo project I'm involved in right now.

A good read (not my article, linked from the Fossil site):

https://wholesomedonut.prose.sh/using-fossil-not-git

What display are you using? 120 Hz LCD with shutter glasses? I assume a Quadro video card with the 3-pin stereo output connector.

Those who don't study history are bound to repeat it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(chatbot)

I can't say I was front and center to everything happening, but I always thought it was strange that Linux used Bitkeeper which is very not open-source. So many battles have been fought around Linux and GPL that this seemed a bit hypocrtical.

Of course things were run afoul when Tridge started reverse engineering the bk protocol/datastructure but frankly the need to switch away from bk was a bit self-inflicted from what I could tell.

A version control tool shouldn't take YEARS of usage to be productive, to me that's a red flag. Some engineering tools are just complex because what we're doing might need that flexability so the tools provide a myraid of options or workflows.

But writing software, tracking your changes, being able to back out your changes and getting your changes integrated into a code base should be as low activation energy as possible to be productive.

But again, git wasn't created for "you and me", it was created by one guy for his project, the fact "mere mortals" are using it is kind of our fault.

Mercurial if you're not on a huge code base. While the core command-line hg works great, GUIs and third-party programs are kind of lacking.

Atlassian Sourcetree in theory works with Hg (because Atlassian's Bitbucket used Mercurial as their primary version control system before moving to git) but SourceTree is Windows/Mac only, there is no Linux version for some strange reason.

Trying to run SourceTree on Linux via WINE fails because Sourcetree can't be installed with the 'Administrator' user and recent WINE releases have (accidentally?) removed the ability to run a WINE program as a non-Administrator user.

I haven't personally tried (yet) to install Sourcetree on a Windows machine and copy the directory over and try via WINE, but it's on my list to do.

100% agree.

The fact there are 5 different ways to do the same thing is BAD, not good. Have one well defined, documented clear way to solve a problem.

Yes. Because git was created by Linus Torvalds specifically to enable and advance Linux kernel development.

The fact it has become so widly adopted is a "happy accident" (or misery). Github I think has been widely credited with making git so common place ("free git hosting") but I don't think git is the "ideal" revision control system for many projects.

Because it was made for Linus for Linus/Linux, this is why the terminology and sometimes workflow is backwards from every other "normal" version control system. A "Pull Request" (PR) is named that because for Linux development Linus/maintainers would PULL changes into Linux kernel tree. In almost every other version control system it's called a Merge Request which logically makes MUCH more sense because you are merging a change (where ever it came from) into a tree.

Git was (still?) the only open-source distributed version control system that could handle enormous code bases with good speed which means it gained a lot of inertia at big companies as well.

I vastly prefer and use Mercurial for personal projects but if you have tried to use Hg on huge code bases (I've tried on Android AOSP) it really chokes. Mercurial got the "user interface" and command-set right and has some nifty features (being able to launch a web server on the fly to get a tree view of your changes) but being written in Python, performance and scalability aren't ideal.

Probably like most people here you end up with a collection of tools, so glad Kate exists and really appreciate the high quality and amazing features. Years past you'd have to pay for things like UltraEdit and fight licenses, etc which are a nightmare if you cross boundaries with big companies.

I find myself using Kate, Geany and Notepad++ at different points in time for different tasks across my Windows/macOS/Linux machines.

Kate surprised me a few months ago, I had to write assembly for a fully custom processor whose ISA is not at all industry standard. Kate was able to do the syntax highlighting and with the right color theme and "double-click to highlight" it made the non-trivial changes I needed to make a LOT easier than anything else (VSCode/VSCodium included).

I've been using Kate on macOS and Windows for sometime and it's outstanding this is possible (a cross-platform KDE app). Kate of course on Linux kicks ass as well.

One stupid question: Is anyone aware of how to change the UI "theme" if you're running Kate on macOS or Windows? The 2D, flat icons really look horrible to me.

Well,

Most Hollywood effects were all done on SGI systems before the slow migration to Linux. Renderman, Maya, were all SGI first-party programs.

Also SGI made huge advances in NUMA and machines with dozens of CPUs/processors before most other companies ventured into this space.

But not business critical like IBM CICS or Java.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMAlink

2. https://www.cs.ucr.edu/~bhuyan/CS213/2004/numalink.pdf

3. https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/classes/fa12/cse260-b/Lectures/Lec17...

I believe nVidia was started with a lot of SGI's core technology ; not "I have a good idea and I can't do it here" and more like "let me just take this stuff I doubt anyone will notice". I think SGI sued but didn't really pursue the matter because they didn't really see nVidia as a threat. I think Jensen was pivotal in this "technology transfer".

Regarding computing cycles, boom/bust, I recently re-read Soul of New Machine and was struck by how much the world has NOT changed. Sure we're not talking about micro/mini-computers and writing micro-coded assembly but the whole "the market is pivoting and we need to ride this wave" and "work like a dog to meet some almost unobtainum goal" seems to still underpin being an engineer in "tech" today.

Wow, Madge! I once deployed Madge PCI Token ring NICs. Worked damn well.

This reeks of a situation where the people in the management position(s) really aren't the right people for the job and having a logical discussion or trying to explain how or why something should be done differently falls on deaf ears (or worse, antagonizes them).

Maybe I'm projecting from my own experiences but this usually is because the leadership has a "top down" mentality, "we know better because we are in this role" and your other team members who are likely less experienced than you can't tell the difference between "dissenting with evidence" vs. "being contrary".

Seems like the best plan is to keep your eyes open for other opportunities when it's no longer tolerable.

Normally I'd agree with you, the exception is if you're the poor "schmuck" that has to deal with the aftermath of said opinions or decisions.

I don't know about other developers & engineers but I've already learned quite a few lessons the hard way and don't need to burn my evenings and weekends knowingly doing something the wrong way.

You might say "That's OK, that's what they're paying you for" but if you've been in this situation, usually someone less knowledgable, bordering on clueless will draft a schedule and you'll be the guy to make it happen. So a bad technical decision turns into a pressure cooker which then turns into more stress. Which is similar to another poster who said (I'm paraphrasing) "each job will suck in different ways".

I didn't remember what the IrfanView license was/is but IrfanView is not cross-platform which is what I was responding to with an alternative.

In my experience its's less about caring what people specifically think of you, and more about how you are treated in whatever team you're on.

Example: I made a trade from a key role to a dev role in one job change. In dev role I was working with a technology I had significant experience with in my prior "key" role. In the new role, when the topic came up, I suggested we avoid certain vendors since in my prior role I was responsible for the technology vetting and I determined the chosen vendor was not forthcoming with some important limitations. My feedback (constructively and succintly presented) was completely ignored since I was "just a developer" and I ended up having to make the sub-par technology actually work.

It was frustrating and painful, not because of ego, but going into the task knowing it would suck since the wrong decision was made and now I was the guy having to make broken pieces meet some demanding requirements because "a developer" couldn't possibly know more than an "architect".

Very possible outcome for OP too.

The weakest part is usually the human factor and the need to bucket someone into a few categories like "rock star" or "loser" or "slightly better than unskilled labor" or "nerd engineer".

Have been in a similar situation and sadly found unless your peers have truly understood what you've done and how, they'll filter your suggestions or insight through whatever bucket they've placed you in.

This is a great suggestion.

If it's for non-commercial use, you might find this a spritual equivalent, cross-platform:

https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/

As much of a non-answer as this might seem, it will really come down to the people in your team and your new management which you won't really find out until the interviews and more realistically only when you're actually working with the new team.

If you have solid team members who are secure in what they know and their position they'll appreciate your broad(er) skillset and will want to work with you and it will be a non-issue. If anything they'll respect you tried something "beyond" what a normal senior engineer might do or get to do.

If you have one or more people who are insecure or "not an A-player" they'll likely view you as a threat to their career progression and you'll have to be cautious around these people.

A good / great manager wants people of diverse backgrounds and experiences, a mediocre manager might feel threatened by you because your insight might challenge his authority or the concept of it.

If you're interviewing with a team they'll likely know your background, but if it doesn't come up I wouldn't go out of my way to discuss your CTO role, just stick to the technology parts you've worked with.

Sadly, this is more of MSFT's "we can do what Apple does too!".

For a "business" oriented portable why is it so limited on ports? No wired Ethernet? As many others have pointed out, why are the 3D graphics so hobbled? People use laptops for CAD, visualizations and these days GPUs perform offload of a lot of other functions.

I saw someone "crap" on Dell and Lenovo but honestly I think most of the Lattitude laptops have really good build quality, decent availbility of parts and good longevity.

Lenovo X1 Carbons are far from perfect but they're pretty solid machines and still offer wired Ethernet (albiet via a breakout dongle) and a decent amount of ports. Linux works pretty decently here too.

I never understood what the value add of MSFT's Surface family was/is, supposedly a "first party" portable with Windows with the same quality and engineering as an Apple product but if you look at HOW they go about it they seem to keep missing the point. If you go to Wikipedia and punch in 'Surface' you'll see some crazy big table of devices they've churned out, all with varying degrees of issues.

I have a Surface Pro 2 which runs Debian Linux quite well (like another poster pointed out) so that's cool but it's has a lot of oddities that wouldn't be acceptable had the machine not been free.

Lenovo made an X1 Tablet family that's fanless and is honestly pretty compelling if you need a fanless, "tablet-like" PC that runs Windows. I use mine as a car diagnostics computer and the car software needs Windows.

If I were writing the specs for a "business computer" it'd include being fanless, excellent battery life, plethora of ports incl. legacy USB-A, light-weight and durable. I doubt any Surface will meet that.

Apple MBPs and Apple Airs BTW do NOT meet these criteria either, lack of ports, chunkier / heavier on the MBP line, can't do dual-displays on the Air, macOS really needing 16GB but Apple charging a crazy tax for 16GB+ of RAM, etc.

Yes! And it supports sub-tasks!

I'm not the parent-level poster but I've stood-up a Mattermost instance a few times and it's really easy to get going and is good for a text-IM/DM channel/group service. The desktop app or web-based interface work quite well and the architecture is pretty sane, Javascript front-end, golang-based "backend", Postgres database.

But, there are some frustrating aspects.

LDAP is only available in the "enterprise" edition which is kind of crazy and there is no price-break for < 10 users. So for personal / non-commercial usage if you want LDAP you're placed into an enterprise bucket. I reached out to Mattermost and pointed this out and even said "Hey, what about offering a 10-user license for some reasonable fee?" No response.

Really great project, just wish nested tasks or sub-tasks was easier to interact with.

You're right on the QML ; I'll admit I didn't look super hard, I was under the impression QML eventually compiled down but maybe there's some interpreter-type event loop implementation that results in a slower than expected UI.

Based on this Stackover flow post I guess it CAN be compiled but that depends on the version, open-source, commercial, etc:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9448296/is-qml-translate...

JMP.chat exists but honestly that's kind of a crutch or work around if your primary cell phone can't make or receive calls on its own without ANOTHER broker or provider.

One thing I did like about Sailfish OS and to a lesser extent Ubuntu is that it's mostly "standard" Linux under the hood so you can do things like run dnsmasq or something like that and tweak it as needed.

But in this day and age I think the bare minimum for a cell phone is calling, texting (SMS), possibly MMS and GPS/maps that don't need a network or Internet connection. I'm hoping PostmarketOS, Sailfish, Ubuntu Touch, open-source-smart-phone will get there but I'm not holding my breath.

Same. I was using SailfishOS on Xperia devices and also Ubuntu Touch.

I found SailfishOS UI to be pretty bizarre and for using compiled software (Qt) the UI was oddly laggy. Basic things like attaching photos when sending an MMS were bizarre, you had to do it one at a time from the gallery app, etc.

Ubuntu Touch has a pretty reasonable UI (aside from having a start-bar like thing that you swipe in and out) but they do NOT support VoLTE at the moment which means you can't use it as a phone! Performance on Ubuntu Touch was also pretty bad even on decent hardware and while it's improved on Pixel-era devices you'd think all UI interactions would be instaneous.

Both projects seem to have made some strane prioritizations. Sailfish seems to have pointless re-invented their own UI paradigms, their own browser, etc and Ubuntu Touch doesn't seem to care the devices can't be used as phones given lack of VoLTE but they have Snaps and their own web browser...