(This is adapted from a reddit comment of mine .)
I’ve been reading trite prognostications about how the browser is the Next Big Platform, and the OS won’t even matter tomorrow, for years. These lame predictive statements all miss some important facts. A few such facts are:
The browser interface style is not ideal for everything. In fact, it actively gets in the way for some tasks.
Sometimes, having separate applications that are visually distinct from one another is a good thing. Why do you think we have tiling window managers and tiling capabilities in terminal multiplexers?
Hierarchical collections of multitasking metaphors make for a far greater productivity boost than just trying to cram every task for a heavy multitasker (like me) into a single multitasking metaphor (like a tabbed browser). I have pseudo-tabbed console applications within terminal multiplexers within stacked and/or tiled terminal emulators within workspaces within my...
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required cookies == bad designFrom: sob.apotheon.org
Post Date: 2008-04-03 10:23:45
Is your website requiring cookies?
No.
Are you sure?
Yes.
Maybe you should actually visit your own site on a computer you haven’t used to do so before, and deny all cookies for the site. See what happens.
Earlier today was the third time in about a week that I visited a website that, when I refused all cookies, entered an annoying perpetual reload loop without ever getting to the point that anything displays in the browser. In two out of three cases, I was looking...
more WikiVS — a new way to waste timeFrom: sob.apotheon.org
Post Date: 2008-04-02 13:37:41
note: Some RSS readers may screw up some of the formatting in this SOB entry. If you don’t see the strikethroughs, I recommend you click through — otherwise some of the sentences won’t make much sense.
I recently discovered an excellent new time sink resource for comparing the characteristics of competing products. It’s called WikiVS , and it’s a place where wiki pages are created to foster flame wars provide unbiased comparisons. I rather imagine it’s g...
more 10 steps to 99 bottles: simple program dev 101From: sob.apotheon.org
Post Date: 2008-03-28 12:07:54
Thinking back, one of the most difficult things for me to really get the hang of at first when I initially started learning to program was how to get off to a good, orderly start when writing a simple program. I’m reminded of this by someone who popped up on the ruby-talk mailing list asking for help with a programming problem presented in Chris Pine’s Learn to Program online tutorial. (Note that page also gives you somewhere to go to buy the book Pine wrote as an "improved,...
more This discussion will have been hilarious, when it happens.From: sob.apotheon.org
Post Date: 2008-03-20 05:29:42
This is the best discussion I’ve read online in subjective-time years. Seriously. I mean, the page to which it links is hilarious (and reading it is useful for understanding some of the discussion), but the discussion at reddit actually manages to trump it quite handily.
There are some damned clever geeks on reddit.
Here’s a taste, including my explanation of Wikipedia edit wars:
whereverjustice
Anyone else struck by the similarity to arguments on Wikipe...
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