8 ms·

Except that the abstraction layer for the user has remained the same. The extra abstraction layers you're talking about are invisible to the user... while our

by thechao 10y ago

Except that the abstraction layer for the user has remained the same. The extra abstraction layers you're talking about are invisible to the user... while our GUIs are slower, and our processors faster. It feels like, after 30 years, we should be able to have our GUI cake and eat it, too.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago
Where are the Michael Abrash's of today teaching people how to write tight, fast code? Seems a lost art... Yes, I know, he's still around...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- desertrider 10y ago
  Luckily there are a few people that still care, just look at the response Handmade Hero has gotten.
  - swah 10y ago
    Those videos on data oriented design were also very interesting: https://github.com/taylor001/data-oriented-design https://github.com/taylor001/data-oriented-design The thing is, using C++ instead of React for mobile development of a simple application would probably make me miss deadlines... So we just stick to whats popular.
    - flukus 10y ago
      Building UI's in something like Qt, GTK or swing was never really that time consuming, especially given the limited amount of controls one screen in a mobile app.
- criddell 10y ago
  Except today's machine language is javascript.
stickfigure 10y ago
Except that the abstraction layer for the user has remained the same. This is absolutely not true. Going to windowing GUIs from character-mode DOS was a massive usability improvement. No more exotic ctl-alt-function key combos (or control-control sequences for WordStar users like me). Going from desktop apps to webapps changed the abstraction layer of how we access and share documents. No more installing software on the desktop. Docs are available on every computer we log into. Multiple people can edit the same document. Maybe you don't care about document sharing and would be happy installing old school word processors and spreadsheets? That's a fair statement to make, but the market appears to be voting otherwise.
- wongarsu 10y ago
  >No more installing software on the desktop At least VS Code has to be installed. It is a plus for Google Docs & Co, but not universal. And in most cases, instead of installing you now have to create an account. >Docs are available on every computer we log into. Multiple people can edit the same document. Those features are completely independent from the platform the application uses. Those features are commonly implemented in web apps because for a long time they had no other choice, but cloud storage and collaborative editing can be equally well implemented in a destop application.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dheera 10y ago
  > Going to windowing GUIs from character-mode DOS was a massive usability improvement. No more exotic ctl-alt-function key combos cough Blender ...
  - paulmd 10y ago
    Unfortunately - the OSS world has a shortage of good UX people, and the engineers tend to be the ones steering the ship. I would point to Eclipse as another classic example of "obviously designed by an engineer". There's tons of functionality under the hood and it's a fantastic jumping-off point for further customization... but its layout is intensely non-intuitive in so many ways compared to a purpose-built IDE. Everything is locked away in menus and "perspectives". If you're writing a Java web app - do you want the Java perspective, the Java EE perspective, the Web perspective, or the Debug perspective? I hear GIMP's no picnic to work with either but can't confirm personally.
gvb 10y ago
The abstraction layer has only remained the same visually, and only for a loose definition of "visually." In the "good old days" the user interface was 640px x 480px (original VGA[1], skipping past the original MDA, CGA, and Hercules graphics cards[2] since they predated "modern" GUIs). Then it was expanded to 800x600, etc. The programs of those days were hard-coded to the graphics adapter resolution. If a program did not support the graphics adapter you had, you had to run your GUI in lower resolution compatibility mode. Sometimes it didn't work at all. In lower resolution compatibility mode, the program's display got uglier and uglier as the screen resolution went up. The abstraction layer today is adaptive and high DPI. Since the abstraction layer abstracts away the actual display resolution, programs (generally) can take advantage of the resolution that is available on a given display without change, allowing a program to run on small hardware displays (phone/tablet form factor) up to mega 4K++ displays, looking better and better as the screen resolution goes up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vga [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_Graphics_Card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_Graphics_Card
- pcwalton 10y ago
  Precisely. And even Win32, which is being touted in this thread as somehow far superior to the Web stack, was never designed for high DPI apps. It's far worse than the Web stack, with exact pixel hardcoding everywhere. That's why the HiDPI situation on Windows is such an inconsistent mess. Meanwhile, the Web scaled up to HiDPI so seamlessly that most people never even noticed any friction. This is the benefit of the declarative model of CSS.
  - smitherfield 10y ago
    Isn't this a false dichotomy? Why not create more modern, declarative native APIs and libraries, or use them where they already exist?
    - pcwalton 10y ago
      Because it's less effort and more likely to be successful to just improve Web implementations.

by thechao 10y ago

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

Where are the Michael Abrash's of today teaching people how to write tight, fast code? Seems a lost art... Yes, I know, he's still around...

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
desertrider 10y ago
Luckily there are a few people that still care, just look at the response Handmade Hero has gotten.
- swah 10y ago
  Those videos on data oriented design were also very interesting: https://github.com/taylor001/data-oriented-design https://github.com/taylor001/data-oriented-design The thing is, using C++ instead of React for mobile development of a simple application would probably make me miss deadlines... So we just stick to whats popular.
  - flukus 10y ago
    Building UI's in something like Qt, GTK or swing was never really that time consuming, especially given the limited amount of controls one screen in a mobile app.
criddell 10y ago
Except today's machine language is javascript.

stickfigure 10y ago

Except that the abstraction layer for the user has remained the same. This is absolutely not true. Going to windowing GUIs from character-mode DOS was a massive usability improvement. No more exotic ctl-alt-function key combos (or control-control sequences for WordStar users like me). Going from desktop apps to webapps changed the abstraction layer of how we access and share documents. No more installing software on the desktop. Docs are available on every computer we log into. Multiple people can edit the same document. Maybe you don't care about document sharing and would be happy installing old school word processors and spreadsheets? That's a fair statement to make, but the market appears to be voting otherwise.

wongarsu 10y ago
>No more installing software on the desktop At least VS Code has to be installed. It is a plus for Google Docs & Co, but not universal. And in most cases, instead of installing you now have to create an account. >Docs are available on every computer we log into. Multiple people can edit the same document. Those features are completely independent from the platform the application uses. Those features are commonly implemented in web apps because for a long time they had no other choice, but cloud storage and collaborative editing can be equally well implemented in a destop application.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dheera 10y ago
> Going to windowing GUIs from character-mode DOS was a massive usability improvement. No more exotic ctl-alt-function key combos cough Blender ...
- paulmd 10y ago
  Unfortunately - the OSS world has a shortage of good UX people, and the engineers tend to be the ones steering the ship. I would point to Eclipse as another classic example of "obviously designed by an engineer". There's tons of functionality under the hood and it's a fantastic jumping-off point for further customization... but its layout is intensely non-intuitive in so many ways compared to a purpose-built IDE. Everything is locked away in menus and "perspectives". If you're writing a Java web app - do you want the Java perspective, the Java EE perspective, the Web perspective, or the Debug perspective? I hear GIMP's no picnic to work with either but can't confirm personally.

gvb 10y ago

The abstraction layer has only remained the same visually, and only for a loose definition of "visually." In the "good old days" the user interface was 640px x 480px (original VGA[1], skipping past the original MDA, CGA, and Hercules graphics cards[2] since they predated "modern" GUIs). Then it was expanded to 800x600, etc. The programs of those days were hard-coded to the graphics adapter resolution. If a program did not support the graphics adapter you had, you had to run your GUI in lower resolution compatibility mode. Sometimes it didn't work at all. In lower resolution compatibility mode, the program's display got uglier and uglier as the screen resolution went up. The abstraction layer today is adaptive and high DPI. Since the abstraction layer abstracts away the actual display resolution, programs (generally) can take advantage of the resolution that is available on a given display without change, allowing a program to run on small hardware displays (phone/tablet form factor) up to mega 4K++ displays, looking better and better as the screen resolution goes up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vga [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_Graphics_Card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_Graphics_Card

pcwalton 10y ago
Precisely. And even Win32, which is being touted in this thread as somehow far superior to the Web stack, was never designed for high DPI apps. It's far worse than the Web stack, with exact pixel hardcoding everywhere. That's why the HiDPI situation on Windows is such an inconsistent mess. Meanwhile, the Web scaled up to HiDPI so seamlessly that most people never even noticed any friction. This is the benefit of the declarative model of CSS.
- smitherfield 10y ago
  Isn't this a false dichotomy? Why not create more modern, declarative native APIs and libraries, or use them where they already exist?
  - pcwalton 10y ago
    Because it's less effort and more likely to be successful to just improve Web implementations.