4 ms·

> Most things worked far, far better 10 years ago than today. Apparently this is progress. Sigh. If you wanted to look up a business on your phone you'd have t

by untog 11y ago

> Most things worked far, far better 10 years ago than today. Apparently this is progress. Sigh. If you wanted to look up a business on your phone you'd have to call directory enquiries - did that "work better" than your smartphone? Did you prefer RealPlayer over HTML video? Was WAP better than LTE? Was Windows XP the pinnacle of OS design? Yeah, sometimes progress is a double-edged sword that outdates some things we used to do. Yes, it's worth the price.

gaius 11y ago
I will look you in the eye and say the Amiga and ST in 1986 were better than Windows or Ubuntu in 2016.
- untog 11y ago
  They might have been better at the small subset of things Windows and Ubuntu can do that the Amiga and ST were also capable of, but they are not "better". A single screwdriver is better than a toolbox at being light and easy to carry. It is not better overall.
  - c22 11y ago
    But they still make screwdrivers.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- rwallace 11y ago
  And I'll look you right back and call bullshit. I used an Amiga in the late eighties. It was a fantastic machine for its time, certainly more advanced than the contemporary 286 PCs, but Windows 95 was markedly superior (as it should have been, a decade later), let alone modern Windows or Linux. Yes, sometimes things get screwed up and we get understandably frustrated, but that does not license revisionist history.
stonogo 11y ago
> If you wanted to look up a business on your phone you'd have to call directory enquiries - did that "work better" than your smartphone? Bad example. I didn't need a smartphone for this task because there was a real live human being, who brought to the task all of the adaptability and intuition that modern systems lack. I didn't need Yelp, or Google Maps, or even the entire name of the business I was looking for. "I need the number to the printing company on the east side" was enough to get me a name, an address, and the call routed, without paying monthly bandwidth fees or spending seven hundred dollars on a pocket supercomputer. Realplayer sucked but it was about a thousand times more reliable than the current compatibility crapshoot (sans bandwidth issues). Worth the price? Sure, but to quote Pulp Fictoin, let's not start beating each other off just yet. There is plenty of room for improvement, and we've lost a lot of ground. I used to be able to take a supersonic flight across the country, without having my body inspected via millimeter-wave radar. Has anyone set foot on the moon in your lifetime?
- untog 11y ago
  > I didn't need a smartphone for this task because there was a real live human being, who brought to the task all of the adaptability and intuition that modern systems lack. OK, my example was simplistic. I want to find the best chicken tacos in San Francisco. I can't call directory enquiries for that - I have go find reviews. Then call to make a reservation at the place, then find driving directions of how to get there, somehow. In a paper road atlas? Am I having to advocate for the benefits of the internet on Hacker News? > Realplayer sucked but it was about a thousand times more reliable than the current compatibility crapshoot Well of course it was, it only had to run on one platform. Compatibility is a lot easier when that's the case. Today we have HD video being played on mobile devices in your pocket. I can't remember the last time I ran into a compatibility problem with online video. > I used to be able to take a supersonic flight across the country, without having my body inspected via millimeter-wave radar. That's a political decision, not a technical regression. > Has anyone set foot on the moon in your lifetime? No. Can I load, on demand, stunning satellite photography of planets orders of magnitude further away than the moon, on my phone, on the bus to work? You bet.
  - 11y ago
anexprogrammer 11y ago
Of course LTE and HTML video is better :p Having so many apps constantly spitting unnecessary data out to trackers and heaven knows what isn't better. Neither is simple apps that can't cope when you go out of data coverage, which seems to be becoming more common. I'd rather have gnome 2 than 3, I'd rather have Win 7 than 10 or XP. I don't consider any of them the pinnacle of design, but I don't think they're currently moving in a helpful direction either. There's been precious little progress or innovation in the OS space for years. I'd rather have google talk, which was small, light, minimal and crucially reliable over hangouts or current skype.
- Klathmon 11y ago
  Just because software isn't moving in a way that you personally want doesn't mean it's wrong or that it was objectively "better" before. We don't have apps that work offline? Maybe look around more. FFS half of the web apps i use work fine offline. And claiming that there has been no innovation in the OS space for years is silly. There is plenty of innovation, it's just that people don't like change and will instantly reject something that isn't the same as what they are already using. FFS just look at stuff like the ip command or systemd in linux. People lament that it's the end of days because a command is different exactly because they want to innovate past the constraints of the old systems. And if we are playing the "What i want is what is best" game... I much prefer Windows 10 over linux now. It's gotten that nice and i'm tired of constantly fixing stuff on my workstation. And I much prefer current hangouts to the old google talk plugin. "small", "light"? Did you ever use it. You needed to download and install 2 separate programs to get Google Talk video chat working. Sometimes you'd need to do some port forwarding bullshit just to get it to work. Now i install chrome and sign in, and within a minute hangouts is installed and working. Don't want to install chrome? Run it from a browser tab by going to https://hangouts.google.com/ https://hangouts.google.com/ Don't want to make a google account? You can video-chat with guests by sending them a unique link. All of those things were impossible with the old google talk.
  - matzipan 11y ago
    Windows 10 is a pretty good OS but has serious issues with drivers (it tries to be clever and breaks stuff). And the startup is sooooo slow and the UI crashes twice before I ever get the chance to give it input. The Mail, Calendar and OneNote apps kept me hooked. But the lack of a decent terminal was killing me. Also, Skype didn't work properly half the time and the new "Video" and "Messaging" apps built on top of Skype were crashing 90% of the time.

by untog 11y ago

gaius 11y ago

I will look you in the eye and say the Amiga and ST in 1986 were better than Windows or Ubuntu in 2016.

untog 11y ago
They might have been better at the small subset of things Windows and Ubuntu can do that the Amiga and ST were also capable of, but they are not "better". A single screwdriver is better than a toolbox at being light and easy to carry. It is not better overall.
- c22 11y ago
  But they still make screwdrivers.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
rwallace 11y ago
And I'll look you right back and call bullshit. I used an Amiga in the late eighties. It was a fantastic machine for its time, certainly more advanced than the contemporary 286 PCs, but Windows 95 was markedly superior (as it should have been, a decade later), let alone modern Windows or Linux. Yes, sometimes things get screwed up and we get understandably frustrated, but that does not license revisionist history.

stonogo 11y ago

> If you wanted to look up a business on your phone you'd have to call directory enquiries - did that "work better" than your smartphone? Bad example. I didn't need a smartphone for this task because there was a real live human being, who brought to the task all of the adaptability and intuition that modern systems lack. I didn't need Yelp, or Google Maps, or even the entire name of the business I was looking for. "I need the number to the printing company on the east side" was enough to get me a name, an address, and the call routed, without paying monthly bandwidth fees or spending seven hundred dollars on a pocket supercomputer. Realplayer sucked but it was about a thousand times more reliable than the current compatibility crapshoot (sans bandwidth issues). Worth the price? Sure, but to quote Pulp Fictoin, let's not start beating each other off just yet. There is plenty of room for improvement, and we've lost a lot of ground. I used to be able to take a supersonic flight across the country, without having my body inspected via millimeter-wave radar. Has anyone set foot on the moon in your lifetime?

untog 11y ago
> I didn't need a smartphone for this task because there was a real live human being, who brought to the task all of the adaptability and intuition that modern systems lack. OK, my example was simplistic. I want to find the best chicken tacos in San Francisco. I can't call directory enquiries for that - I have go find reviews. Then call to make a reservation at the place, then find driving directions of how to get there, somehow. In a paper road atlas? Am I having to advocate for the benefits of the internet on Hacker News? > Realplayer sucked but it was about a thousand times more reliable than the current compatibility crapshoot Well of course it was, it only had to run on one platform. Compatibility is a lot easier when that's the case. Today we have HD video being played on mobile devices in your pocket. I can't remember the last time I ran into a compatibility problem with online video. > I used to be able to take a supersonic flight across the country, without having my body inspected via millimeter-wave radar. That's a political decision, not a technical regression. > Has anyone set foot on the moon in your lifetime? No. Can I load, on demand, stunning satellite photography of planets orders of magnitude further away than the moon, on my phone, on the bus to work? You bet.
- 11y ago

anexprogrammer 11y ago

Of course LTE and HTML video is better :p Having so many apps constantly spitting unnecessary data out to trackers and heaven knows what isn't better. Neither is simple apps that can't cope when you go out of data coverage, which seems to be becoming more common. I'd rather have gnome 2 than 3, I'd rather have Win 7 than 10 or XP. I don't consider any of them the pinnacle of design, but I don't think they're currently moving in a helpful direction either. There's been precious little progress or innovation in the OS space for years. I'd rather have google talk, which was small, light, minimal and crucially reliable over hangouts or current skype.

Klathmon 11y ago
Just because software isn't moving in a way that you personally want doesn't mean it's wrong or that it was objectively "better" before. We don't have apps that work offline? Maybe look around more. FFS half of the web apps i use work fine offline. And claiming that there has been no innovation in the OS space for years is silly. There is plenty of innovation, it's just that people don't like change and will instantly reject something that isn't the same as what they are already using. FFS just look at stuff like the ip command or systemd in linux. People lament that it's the end of days because a command is different exactly because they want to innovate past the constraints of the old systems. And if we are playing the "What i want is what is best" game... I much prefer Windows 10 over linux now. It's gotten that nice and i'm tired of constantly fixing stuff on my workstation. And I much prefer current hangouts to the old google talk plugin. "small", "light"? Did you ever use it. You needed to download and install 2 separate programs to get Google Talk video chat working. Sometimes you'd need to do some port forwarding bullshit just to get it to work. Now i install chrome and sign in, and within a minute hangouts is installed and working. Don't want to install chrome? Run it from a browser tab by going to https://hangouts.google.com/ https://hangouts.google.com/ Don't want to make a google account? You can video-chat with guests by sending them a unique link. All of those things were impossible with the old google talk.
- matzipan 11y ago
  Windows 10 is a pretty good OS but has serious issues with drivers (it tries to be clever and breaks stuff). And the startup is sooooo slow and the UI crashes twice before I ever get the chance to give it input. The Mail, Calendar and OneNote apps kept me hooked. But the lack of a decent terminal was killing me. Also, Skype didn't work properly half the time and the new "Video" and "Messaging" apps built on top of Skype were crashing 90% of the time.