spurcell93

I can't speak for others but it's been a real pleasure to use them. The interview was a tad tedious and the project ambiguous. But after that, smooth sailing.

Ditto. They did a big upgrade a few months (years?) back and yet my Nexus 6P takes literally 10+ seconds before Snapchat responds to touches. It's horrendous

I work through Toptal. Once you get through their interview process (takes 1 month plus) I've found their team to be very helpful in connecting me to great clients. I'm in NYC and can live quite comfortably, set my own rates, and get plenty of full time work.

Be aware of goatse in the OP link

I agree... at some point, when analyzing a topic, we need to prune the decision tree leading to some tentative conclusions, even if some subtrees might not be 100% verifiably invalid. Our science is imperfect, reporting is imperfect, and very few (if any) complete-information scenarios exist.

Are you in the Dumbo office? I found that one to be pretty cramped - I liked Montague St a lot more. And better subway access, IMO.

me 3

I wonder if you're conflating skepticism with suspicion. I don't believe it's a meaningless distinction.

More appropriately, Hanlon's Razor.

(To be an internet pedant)

I hate dishonest marketing as much as the next person but I don't think it's a stretch to say that there is nothing wrong with telling a good story about a product. And of course, telling that story means de-emphasizing unpleasant tradeoffs, and emphasizing pleasant ones. The ultimate concise version of this would be a list of features. That wouldn't be nearly as exciting or informative, would it? (I recognize that you did not personally advocate the position you relayed)

I love that idea. In the same way that few people listen to CDs anymore, but the vinyl industry is growing again. Streaming fills the quick-and-easy use case, vinyl fills the immersive-listening use case.

I think that could be a viable option for a lot of people (not all people - I can't imagine on the go emails and messaging on a watch) and not for a few years. If and when Siri becomes great, then the iPhone could become obsolete for many people.

In an ideal world, this would stop people from inhabiting the purgatory that is currently phone ownership. You're not going to browse reddit on your watch in the elevator - maybe you'll make small talk and save the reddit for your own toilet. In an ideal world.

Perhaps screen sizes was a bad example of fragmentation (though, because the range is so much wider than on iOS, keyboard avoiding stuff can be unpleasant). Better examples would be subtle device-specific bugs. Like, off the top of my head, touch handling being handled differently for views on the Galaxy S5, making side swiping impossible. I can't confirm if that's RN specific or not, but I do know that I spent tens of hours on Android specific bugs that just were not present on iOS.

And perhaps RN was the culprit for some of these things. But definitely not all.

Congrats on making it 9 years. I've only been doing mobile development for 2 years, and using React Native for most of it. So I have an opinion that may be less biased toward a certain toolset.

I'd compare developing on Android very unfavorably to iOS. All the points the OP made are accurate, in my experience. Every time I needed to dive into Android native code, Layout Inflation, etc, I find it to be a crufty and unpleasant system. And gradle is really a pain to use - tons of edge cases and unhelpful error messages. Add to that, you need to support like ten thousand devices, many of which are running Android 4.4 (which, IIRC, is like three years old) and have a WIDE range of screen sizes.

Compare that to iOS development, and the differences seem obvious and apparent to me.

As a probably gentrifier in NYC, I can relate to both sides of this issue. I have friends who grew up in Brooklyn who are so incensed by gentrification that they throw garbage all over the street, in order to deter "more fucking billionaires from moving into their high rises". Feelings aren't always rational, nor are our reactions to them. I applaud outreach groups who are trying to find common ground here. As Mario says, “It’s the cheapest transportation option we have.” And everyone should be onboard with that, especially because it also helps solve congestion that makes quality of life worse for all residents (travel time, air quality, noise...)

A whale made of pure gold.

I think the point is more that people already try to not get HIV / AIDS - and once they have it, they can't just "get rid of it".

Yeah, MOPGA doesn't have the same ring to it. Sounds like a janitor's arch-nemesis.

Edison and Tesla both changed the world. Tesla (and Ferraris) are responsible for the invention of first viable AC motor, without which we would rely on DC for our grid.

I can't tell if this comment is brilliant sarcasm or if it has completely missed the point.

If you haven't read them yet, I would suggest Isaac Asimov's Robot series, which discusses the implications of hardware-level 'laws' to which robots must abide. His take was that these laws would constrain behavior according to human judgments of harm and benefit. I wonder if there is another way of looking at it, one where AI action is not only constrained by human sensibility, but informed by it.