72deluxe

How is wxwidgets garbage DX and UX wise? You can literally read the source code and can build the library in 5 minutes, and the UX is native user interface elements of the given platform.

I don't see how reusing web code is an advantage. Web code is for the web. We are talking about a native platform (Windows 11) which has a mature API platform stretching back decades. Why would you need to make it "web"?

How? Cognitive skills and enjoyment of coding is not something exclusive to the privileged.

I found the Corsica training map to be incredibly difficult when they were trying to train you how to do S-curves and I kept trying to drove around the bends instead of doing a straight line. Ever since then, I've taken roundabouts in the UK like S-curves.

Thank you, EA.

I remember trying to play Need For Speed 1 and that was incredibly sensitive to damage and I found it very difficult compared to 2. Need For Speed 3 changed the default camera angle to make the car take up a lot of the screen. But I remember having a lot of fun with the game. It came with a PC my dad bought but there was zero chance it'd run on that DirectX HAL3D "GPU" and the Cyrix processor in it. Ah, the memories.

They also remember Screamer and Screamer 2 being great around the same time.

Edit: Seems I can't read! I thought this was NFS2 not NFSUG2! I still have my CDs for both! I am old.

I recall playing the demo level on an Elonex laptop that my brother had for work and we played it repeatedly. When SE came out with the 3DFX support, we were absolutely amazed at the fog and water effects in game.

I remember the music being very good, and was sad to learn of the death of the guy who did it at EA a few years back. The menu music was amazing.

Edit: Seems I can't read! I thought this was NFS2 not NFSUG2! I still have my CDs for both! I am old.

What's the rumours on the Pi6?

Do you find it intelligent enough? What hardware are you using?

But "friction" is the job, and "complexity" is the job. That's why we're developers.

The problem is that they never reach this point where they put it into native code. So you always have a plethora of JavaScript and Python files littering your system. It's baffling.

I agree. The lack of native user interface controls for accessing menus and the inability for them to properly track focus for keyboard usage for right clicking (for example) makes them really difficult to use. You have to use the mouse for everything.

I did use VS code for a while but I've just gone back to using QT Creator simply because it is so much faster to use in daily life.

This is definitely true. It seems to be the modern approach that the less effort in development, the better!

I too had code that worked across 3 platforms with wxwidgets and a 3D game toolkit incorporated in opengl for visualisation, with most 2d controls being drawn using wxwidgets OnPaint handlers for custom controls rendered natively on that platform. I wrote this single-handedly, with another colleague handling the network code and firmware on the remote hardware devices.

Everything else is sheer laziness as far as I am concerned. There's even less excuse today with the rise of LLMs to do the majority of UI coding for you.

That's like saying it would make sense to make Internet Explorer work on all platforms. It doesn't make sense.

The solution is to use user interface toolkits that are available on each platform. For example, wxWidgets or Qt or appropriate bindings to them if you can't be bothered to write UI code for each platform you're targeting.

But then the C++ libraries you mentioned also had the ability to statically link into a binary, which means you could statically link the webcam access in, in your example. So I don't see the advantage you're arguing for?

I do not understand. "open source" describes the availability of the source code, not the attitude of the maintainers/writers, or their underlying ideology.

I would agree. The AI system has destroyed junior job roles, but to understand the output from a LLM and ensure it is useful and correct, you need to be a senior/experienced developer.

AI merely makes certain folk stay at the start of the Dunning-Kruger curve for longer and longer. Having zero understanding of a system and only see the user-interface and concluding that is somehow all that is involved means people end up thinking everything is far, far simpler than it actually is.

And nothing (and I really do mean "nothing") is simple. We have layers and layers of complexity and idiocratic systems with complex interworking and are creating the opportunity to create things based merely on the appearance of the icing on the cake, or the output of a sausage machine without understanding anything about farming cows.

It's baffling how it isn't 100% present, since any law once passed will affect 100% of the population. It isn't like a law only applies to jurisdictions where the MPs were present for the vote.

I find it witty than the removal of the notch is seen as great progress. Why was it even there in the first place? My 2012 Macbook has no notch.

I think you'd be surprised how many people have a lot more money than you and me, and how they buy expensive things and never use them to their "full". Eg. people buy expensive cars and yet aren't racing drivers, and they also buy expensive computers and use them merely for browsing the web.

This argument comes up a lot but I think it's like saying "cars are expensive - you can get an awful lot of bus trips with the monetary value of a car, so why not just use the bus?"

Despite this, cars seems awfully popular.

But does the money itself weigh more than the weight difference? A question to ponder.

If you take an Apple computer from the early OSX releases (an iMac G4 from 2002, for example), you will be able to use it exactly as you use macos today. This indicates a success for UX.

You cannot say the same about GNOME3 or Windows 11 versus XP - Windows 11 has some baffling Settings app and also a Control Panel, being a mashup of different ideas and UI elements (and toolkits! see MMC snap-ins versus the UI of Settings).

The only difference is recent trends to dumb-down the UI to be more iPad-like, and this trend of Etch-A-Sketchification of the macos UI is not something to be welcomed.

My Huawei Watch GT 2 is a few years old and the battery life is (and always has been) better than my wife's (new last year?) Apple Watch SE (GPS) 2nd Generation. They do exactly the same things.

I simply don't understand why the Apple Watch is so pap. My watch lasts all week if I go on holiday, and my wife's is dead won't last much longer than a day.

I believe that user interfaces have just got appallingly bad. Compare Windows 3.11 which came with a paper manual and had about 5 pages detailing scrollbars, buttons, menus and window controls. That is all you had to learn, and you could use the system through consistent usability.

This seems to have been universally abandoned so that user interface elements are hidden (scrollbars), buttons don't look like buttons, and you can "scroll" or move window contents even if there's nowhere for them to scroll to (like on an iPhone where you can "scroll" past the boundary and it comes back. It makes everything an exercise in frustration as you have to grope the user interface to discover if anything is usable.

I believe this is why some of the older generation have such difficulty with basic features on phones and tablets - nothing behaves consistently, and nothing looks like you should be able to press it.

Replying to myself as I cannot edit now: and therefore since wxWidgets is the native user interface, it has no "look"

True, but this is only the case if the track pads are absolutely awful, like you get in very low quality Windows laptops.

I am not sure how you would play a game and watch a video at the same time, unless you have independent eyes?

Yes, and that looks the most ridiculous interaction with the computer I've ever seen.

But wxwidgets is just the actual native user interface?

Intriguing, thank you.

I see comments on here that refer to something someone has said before, for example, "as I said before", or "I said this the other month", as if the entire universe is following a single person's statements. It seems very self-referential and self-consumed.