hashmal

Like kids, d'oh!

It was my experience as well, but over time things "click" and your VCs are suddenly small, there is almost nothing in AppDelegate and the app architecture becomes obvious. I can't explain how to reach that state of mind, though.

(and I'm not writing trivial apps…)

I'm a bit wary of articles making no distinction between management and leadership.

The argument is that the focus is on the companies when the problem lies within rule-making. We cannot expect entities to obey rules that aren't there, whether these entities are individuals or companies.

The distinction has to be made between what is lawful and what is moral. The law is a system that we all have to comply to (which may or may not be perceived as moral), morals are subjective and built on experience, environment, etc. Laws are often made with current/major moral views in mind.

Tax evasion is clearly perceived as not moral, but it's lawful. We cannot expect companies (or individuals) to obey moral rules, since it's kinda unsolvable (morals being subjective). On the other hand, we can expect them to obey law.

Again, focusing on companies in this case is pointless and unproductive, no matter how shocking it is. Governments like to criticize tax evasion, but they are the only ones who could do something about it. We have to go after them.

For what it's worth, Apple released some devices (iPod touch I think) with the camera-wart when Jobs was still around.

But I agree, lately I don't like what they do. My favorite is still the iPhone 5.

A while ago it was easier to get in (and the framework wasn't simpler), there was a lot of beginner-friendly materials (like the "do a blog in 15 minutes" video). If you started from there it was actually hard not to understand the file structure. (hint: rails/rake commands are your friends to quickly scaffold your models/pages).

I agree that a lot of people don't make the distinction between rails and ruby. I had interns who where quite surprised you could use ruby without rails, and that "it's actually a complete language!". Ruby on its own is charming indeed. Rails gets the job done: few other tools enable you to finish a functional MVP in a day or two. But if you start to add gems for everything it just becomes a pain in the ass.

edit: I was f*cking mad when they added coffeescript. fortunately it's simple to disable (just removing the gem and changing a setting for the file generators)

It is easy to blame Apple (and other big companies) when the real problem is that governments are incapable of taming these companies.

I use both Live and Audacity, they are just not comparable. Audacity is an audio editor, not a DAW.

Just look at Ableton Live 10 which has just been announced. Granted, it is an evolution, not revolution, but that's what happens when the people who make software care about efficiency and familiarity (instead of novelty and trendiness).

As a music app developer myself, I can say that UI design for music software is a completely different beast than "general" UI design.

b-but someday, the doom-sayers will be right! SOMEDAY!

> all I heard over the last 4-5 years was how Apple was doomed

Shows how the press is extremely focused on buzz. Doom predictions sell.

"if people start to complain about it, we'll just say we didn't know and that we're sorry"

-- my former boss

I'm pretty sure clicking the unsubscribe button says "hey, this email address you obtained is real and active!"

> This is why I don't buy games with DRM other than steams

Valve did an amazing job at building their reputation (by doing things the right way.) Very few can do DRM without pissing off people.

Rust is not for everything, but for the situations where GC is unsuitable (e.g. you have real-time constraints), and a few others, benefits become obvious (and it's hard to look back once you are there).

Yes it can be a pain to write. But I prefer the pain of making the compiler happy than the pain of debugging a weird segfault.

an unreal amount?

I like that for once, the records displayed in a music app are tasteful independent productions and not national top charts.

On people being nice on the internet…

Considering how most companies are structured, it's not ready to happen. Usually there's a guy high in the hierarchy who will "think like a user" and say that "users love pretty stuff" and damn, "we're professionals, we have to look professional."

I've seen it countless times, at this point "plain emails work better" is an elephant in the room.

I'm learning German with Fluent Forever, and though it's a bit early to have a definitive opinion, so far it's going really well, far better than any of my previous attempts. Fantastic method.

I don't think my first point is incompatible with your comment, in fact I agree with it.

Specifically, that the outcome of a desire for freedom is democracy. It's not freedom itself. I still stand with my point, both should not be conflated at the risk of being blind to the shortcomings democracy could have.

Democracy can have shortcomings and still be the best system out there, but being aware of them (questioning freedom vs democracy is one way) prevents our systems from drifting away.

Random thoughts:

- Freedom and democracy are different things, if some people think democracy isn't that important, it does not mean they do not value freedom.

- Maybe the millenials are "not open to diverse opinions", but maybe they're just sick of bullshit. "Free Speech" can be interpreted in different ways (and each country in the world does that).

That's not because of C, that's because of GCC.

You're right, such things should actually be in the README, but go figure, nobody does it.

Documentation should not be a matter of "every function has a docstring", a description of the architecture is always useful.

If it's a niche market, low prices is rarely a viable approach because you won't have a lot of volume. Also, all the info you have about app stores and revenue are based on the total mass, or on the top-100 lists, and niche apps fall completely outside of it. There are actually a few narrow categories where you can get away with a high price.

Indeed, concatenative languages are a perfect example of point-free notation. I don't see the point (pun!) of doing it in JS or any mainstream language though.

They are also a joy to design/implement* and doing it really changes how you think about programming.

* http://hashmal.github.io/shirka/ my personnal attempt at designing such a language. warning: very old, dirty, buggy code.

I know Ableton Live very well, and yes it's a very good example of hard stuff done right. But I wouldn't include it in the list of "apps that are so user friendly that you don't need to read the docs".

(that's not a complaint)

In a sense, all software is service. After all, what you buy is a license, the right to use the software, you don't buy the software itself. I suppose the US doesn't view it this way, but it definitely varies from country to country.

For mass market products, maybe. What about photoshop? music production software? what if your customers are developers and your product is a software library?

In many cases there is an inherent complexity to a product, and it warrants some learning curve. Removing the need for documentation often removes power and depth.

Funnily, now that many products are like this, the opposite trend is surfacing, and in some niches you have customers who love reading manuals. It becomes part of the user experience.

I have to agree, things could change in the future. However, my guts tell me rust GUI libraries/frameworks won't be as great as say, Cocoa, although that's something I would love.