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Comment by bluedino | Hacker News Reader

Never read an article inside the App Store. That's a first.

I'm not a huge fan of app stores in general, but I have to give Apple credit for these articles they do. Never too long, high quality and interesting ones like this come along semi-regularly especially the design-centric ones. I've actually found a few good apps through these over the years, partly because of design showcases that looked cool and partly because the developer seemed like a nice person and I wanted to check their app out.

Me neither, and thanks to Apple’s idiotic thought of 1 country = 1 language I’m not even allowed to read it my the language of choice. Thanks Apple!

I'm sure Apple have the utmost respect for their users, and the internal decisions that led to this design choice answered the questions "what does the customer need?" and "how can we help them be more productive?"

It's funny. Safari on iPhone refuses to show the normal options for long press. Really wants to open the store.

These interviews with developers in a magazine format is something I'd welcome seeing more. Who doesn't like a good war story?

Same. It's weird because the article link opens the same article in both the browser and in the App Store app, which seems redundant.

Why not?

Guessing they meant "I have never read" and not telling you to "never read"

I find myself writing like this all the time. I omit the 'I', writing it like I say it.

Then I read back my own words and invariably insert the 'I' as I realise it doesn't make sense.

In this particular instance you'd have to disambiguate with "I have" or "I had", I alone would mean the wrong thing.

"Read" is a particularly unlucky verb for this because its past participle and imperative form are written the same way. Most other English verbs wouldn't have this particular ambiguity.

"Never eaten a Carolina Reaper pepper, but I'm looking forward to my first time."

"Never eat a Carolina Reaper pepper; you'll regret it."

Wiktionary has a few dozen irregular verbs that could produce an ambiguity like this one:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_irregular_ve...

"Never miscast Magic Missile ..."

"Never shut a door on someone's finger ..."

"Never preset the thermostat to 90 °F before going on vacation..."

"Never put an irregular verb in a position where readers might interpret it ambiguously..."

("... but there's a first time for everything, I guess" / "... you won't be happy with the results")

That's a participle with an elided subject and helper verb, not an imperative. In spoken English the difference in pronunciation makes it obvious.

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