1,525 karma · joined March 13, 2015
If you ever research NeXT on the Internet you'll find articles and threads about how the company "failed" [1]. One might make the argument that NeXT's acquisition by Apple is something that almost every tech startup in 2020 could only dream of. But even more important is how the creative and technical ideas realized by the company would go on to leave a permanent imprint on computing, with NeXTSTEP being the catalyst.
Thank you and anyone else helping to preserve that history.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H79_kKzmFs
[1] https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=762640
Good luck! I'm trying to rein in my affinity for craft beer (I love the beer but hate the empty calories that come with it).
I'd use an application written in Java or one built with a cross-platform GUI toolkit like Gtk+ or Qt in Windows or Linux. I wouldn't in macOS and most users won't either. They're ugly in macOS. They stick out like a sore thumb. It's not that it's impossible for a cross-platform approach to produce an application that is nice to use in macOS, it's that there is technical debt in the libraries and frameworks that attempt cross-platform and usually it's a failure to keep up with the constant changes in the Apple ecosystem. A few years ago Apple removed support for OpenGL so now if you want to write 3D applications you have to use Metal. Thankfully, there's MoltenVK so if you want to target multiple platforms you can use Vulkan but how do you know that approach is sustainable? MoltenVK only uses public APIs so its safe to use for the time being. That said, any number of decisions Apple makes moving forward could potentially rule it out as a viable option.
> And you don't have to give Apple 30%. Just notarise your app and add a link from your website.
That's a fair point although maybe not the best UX for all purposes.
I'm not angry although I am somewhat frustrated with some of the fragmentation that exists in software, especially when so many on Hacker News are quick to dismiss projects that try to bridge that gap. I understand why Electron is hated but why isn't there a better alternative? How many attempts have there been at providing a good cross-platform UI toolkit that can build applications which look and feel "right" on the platforms they target? Gtk+, Qt, WxWidgets, etc. all suffer the same fate over time and a lot of it has to do with growing technical debt as a result of endless domain-specific iteration. New UX patterns to account for, more OS-specific APIs to learn, etc.
Compare Apple's strategy to that of Microsoft. macOS Catalina has this new feature called Catalyst which lets you run apps written for iOS on macOS. Very cool although you'll have to write your app in Xcode which only runs on a Mac and that app you wrote won't run on any other platform. Meanwhile, Microsoft maintains a free IDE that works on all of the major operating systems (Visual Studio Code), they let you easily set up a Linux environment in Windows using WSL, they're focusing on languages like TypeScript etc. With how profitable Azure is for the company, it makes sense the company is not interested in locking you into a Windows-only world. In the same way, I'm not surprised that Apple development is so specific to the Apple ecosystem.
> I think listing “need to learn to program” as a negative prerequisite of “want to build apps” is somewhat disingenuous.
If you think "need to learn to program" and "need to learn Swift, Apple-only APIs, etc." are equivalent, then you're the disingenuous one.
Maybe but they sure as hell don't make it easy for cross-platform software to target their platforms. As far as I'm concerned, the only feasible way to target Apple platforms at this point is to:
1. Buy a Mac so you can officially run macOS and Xcode.
2. Spend $99 every year for an Apple developer license.
3. Spend the time to learn Swift, a language which despite being touted by Apple fanboys as being cross-platform is basically useless unless you're targeting the official Apple APIs.
4. Learn and stay up-to-date with Apple's ever-changing APIs (just wait until Cocoa and Cocoa Touch are completely deprecated in favor of some other API that is only accessible via SwiftUI... calling it now)
5. Keep up with Apple's ever-changing policies around what and what is not acceptable within their walled garden.
6. Give 30% of your profits to Apple.
Fuck that shit. Look, I don't use Electron applications as a general rule and I do agree with your gripes about "web based cruft". But at least it's possible for developers to learn that cruft and use their knowledge to write software without spending a ton of money and having everything they know be limited to Apple's walled garden. As much as Hacker News loves to hate on JavaScript, guess what? It's free and accessible. Anyone in the world can learn to use web based technologies to build software and enrich themselves (and maybe even others). If you're writing software for Apple platforms, you're only working to enrich Apple's ecosystem and investing your own time and money to do so. Maybe it's just my Linux / FOSS fanaticism but this perspective toward software development just doesn't resonate with me. I want anyone who wants to use the software I write to be able to use it, not just Apple's customers.
1. The thermal situation on newer Thinkpads needs to be called out. Even with undervolting, there doesn’t seem to be a sweet spot where you can avoid regular throttling without the CPU hitting unsafe temperatures. I’ve heard it can be somewhat remedied by applying more thermal paste to the CPU than the meager amount Lenovo provides out of the box (doing it yourself voids your warranty). Ultimately, I think there is a clear regression in the thermal design between Lenovo’s newer laptops and classic Thinkpads like the X200. The internals just aren’t designed to properly dissipate heat and while it’s nice that the fan is quiet, I wish it did more to cool the device. This seems to be a common issue not just with the T480 but other newer Thinkpads like the X1 Carbon. If anyone has any advice here beyond iuvolt, throttled etc. please let me know.
2. My model has a WQHD display and I use an external monitor with the same resolution but a lower DPI. Linux in 2019 is still a bit dicey when it comes to mixed DPI setups. GTK+ 3.0 applications on Wayland scale perfectly between displays but Firefox is a bit buggy and Electron apps are laughably bad. It has come a long way for sure but there’s still work to be done.
All that said, I’m coming from a 2017 MacBook Pro that had way more issues from the failing keyboard to dead speakers and screen burn-in. I’m happier with the Thinkpad and enjoy using it as my daily driver. It’s a solid machine and the keyboard and port selection are perfect. No issues with running Linux on this device either. Everything just worked on a clean install and I’m able to do everything I did before on macOS whether it be software development, multimedia creation or just personal computing. The “hotel vs. home” analogy you used is dead-on and speaks to what I’ve always loved about Linux. I’ll take an OS that lets me tailor my own software experience over the proprietary equivalent any day.
Further, this hypothetical system is ripe for exploitation. Aside from the potential exploits others have raised, have you considered the parallels to other industries such as defense contractors? Your idea creates an incentive and profit motive for crime. It’s the type of thinking that could literally result in corporations creating artificial mass shooters in pursuit of all the easy money that could be made. Sorry, but I think this is an extremely bad take and I actually worry about a dystopian future where this takes place. Pull on this thread at your own peril.
Ironically, you could make the case that Google itself fits this description.
If I’m buying into this logic I would expect Google to take similar action against other presidential candidates like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, who are much more vocal in spearheading policies that are against the corporate interests of large tech companies like Google. Have either of those candidates been censored?
1. How does this compare to historical trends in the US? Did more kids in the 80s want to be rock stars or Hollywood actors, for example.
2. How is the author establishing a relationship between occupational earnings and the ambition of young people? Do we know that this is even a significant factor or could there be other motivations (popular culture placing more value on Internet celebrities than scientists, for example).
3. What other variance is at play in the country data? You can’t rule out differences in the US and Chinese education systems, for example. There are many sociological and technological factors you need to parse here.
4. How much does this even matter? “What do you want to be when you grow up” is a question most of us have been asked at some point but how many of us stuck to those dreams? Further, there may be an argument for having a diversity of skills and experiences that is often limited by rigid educational and career paths. Some of the best software developers I have worked with have been musicians and artists.
All that said, I think it would be great if becoming an astronaut had the same or more appeal to young people as social media fame. I’ll also say that it’s never too late (look at Richard Garriott who took a break from designing video games to become a citizen astronaut). One of my life goals is to go to space before I die and I think it’s a real possibility.
[1] https://github.com/thomaswangio/minimal-twitter/blob/e076507...
When I think of American companies that actually care about data privacy only a few come to mind. I do believe Apple makes a good faith effort toward protecting user data, despite the company's many anti-consumer practices. There are a number of smaller companies like Purism and Yubico that go further in making this a part of their core business strategy. But generally my experience has been that American companies give a backseat to these concerns. Remember when Equifax, an American company, leaked the personal data of 143 million U.S. citizens in 2017 [1]? What about the Citrix hack from just a few months ago where 6TB of sensitive information was stolen by Iranian hackers [2]? What makes these companies more trustworthy than Huawei or any other Chinese company?
Finally, there's a line you can draw from the decisions of the past to what's happening today. The U.S. is largely responsible for the design of the modern web for both good and bad. The Internet is an amazing thing that has uplifted people around the world, including in developing countries where opportunities are needed [3] [4]. At the same time surveillance and proprietary software has become pedestrian to the point where most people (myself included) just accept it. We used Chinese manufacturing to scale this vision, from cheap Internet-connected devices to the servers that store and deliver our personal information. What kind of example did we set for China or other countries to follow? Where would we be had we followed the advice of people like Richard Stallman who warned us decades in advance?
We seem to be moving toward a more isolated world as of late. I hope we can get to a point where we're having productive conversations on a global scale about how tech could make our lives better (and potentially worse). The alternative is to let the chips fall where they may. In a world of IoT, AI and autonomous weapons, that's not a game I'd like to play.
[1] https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/07/technology/business/equifax...
[2] https://www.techradar.com/news/hackers-steal-6tb-citrix-data...
[3] https://www.cta.tech/News/Blog/Articles/2015/July/How-Mobile...
Our society pays a lot of lip service to youth being the future but we don't actually do much to help them succeed. The person you might call a loser or criminal was once a child who had the opportunity to become a shining example of what our society can produce. These children are being lost at some point along the way. Once they become adults we shame them for their life decisions but what are we actually doing to solve the problem?
When you say, "hey, 90% of these students are outpacing peers in their district based on academic indicators", I say maybe LeBron is onto something. Let's adopt this approach, scale it and study the results.
That said, the problem is not email. Email is just fine. The problem is people using email to solve problems that email was not designed to solve, namely marketing. With this move, Google is adding a considerable amount of fuel to the fire. Can’t say that I’m a fan of this, as cool as the features may sound on a surface level.
When I mention "modern art" one might be quick to associate it with the type of people I was criticizing in my original post; rich, well-adjusted individuals who go to Ivy League schools and end up spending more money on paintings than you or I will ever see in our lives. But it didn't start this way. If you trace modern art back to its roots, you'll find a trend among most of the foundational artists and painters of this period: personal turmoil and careers which were almost universally dismissed by the art schools and museums of the time.
Vincent van Gogh's last words before shooting himself in the chest with a revolver is reported to have been, "The sadness will last forever." Indeed, van Gogh lived a troubled life of alcoholism, poor academic performance and psychotic episodes. He is also widely credited as being one of the most important 19th century painters and an artist whose works serve as an underpinning of expressionism, one of the foundational stylistic movements of modern art. We see similar lives of turmoil among other important post-impressionists during this period. Paul Gauguin, who witnessed domestic abuse and death in the family at an early age, ended up broke and living in a hut in Panama when he produced some of his most important works.
Of course there were other key post-impressionists who lived less tragic lives, such as Henri Matisse who was lucky enough to be non-Jewish during the Nazi occupation of Paris. He and other artists of this movement were harshly criticized and rejected by the art establishment of the time, however, which considered their rejection of tradition an affront to art. Nonetheless, it's this artistic movement that led to an entire era of artistic experimentation; expressionism, cubism, surrealism, abstract art, pop art and other genres would follow.