4 ms·

Shawn Hargreaves first created the allegro game library on Atari st that was eventually ported to dos, windows and everything else. It had GUI framework inspire

Shawn Hargreaves first created the allegro game library on Atari st that was eventually ported to dos, windows and everything else. It had GUI framework inspired by GEM. That was my gateway drug for software development. Really straight forward and easy to comprehend stuff. We’ve lost a lot imo.

jchw 8y ago
Maturity comes with a lot of costs. Try making a lightweight GUI framework that supports accessibility, bidirectional text, IME, multiple and different kinds of pointing devices, renders all kinds of Unicode script, DPI scaling, hardware acceleration, and so much more... I absolutely miss those days, but only a little :) I just shrug and use Qt and be happy that at the very least, after I've fought the framework for a couple hours, an incredible amount of engineering is done on such difficult problems without me needing to try to solve them on my own in each project.
- badsectoracula 8y ago
  The vast majority of the time you don't need all (or most of) that stuff though. None of the applications i actually use take any advantage of accessibility (i do not need it), bidirectional text (most all of the text i see and write is in English and all of it is in left-to-right order), IME (i do not write in any language that needs this), multiple pointing devices (i only have a single mouse), all kinds of unicode script (as i said most of the text is in English, but i'll have a note on that below), DPI scaling (i prefer 1:1 mapping of units to pixels ratio and none of my monitors are hidpi and i plan on avoiding getting one as long as it is technically possible since i want to have the pixels visible), hardware acceleration (i do not think any GUI toolkit that uses traditional buttons/checkboxes/inputfields/sliders/etc style uses hardware acceleration, at least in the modern sense where it means using 3D hardware as opposed to the older 2D acceleration - some toolkits that try to reinvent Flash are probably using 3D acceleration more but i do not use any programs that use those) or any "much more". The note i mentioned above and a small exception is unicode support, but that is externally imposed: sometimes i download files (like an album i bought on bandcamp) that use unicode characters which display weirdly if the program you use cannot handle them. But beyond that, no real need for it and this is only in a few types of programs. Of course my needs are not the same as others' needs, but i am "paying" for stuff i do not use nor need, both in terms of complexity and actual resources.
  - robin_reala 8y ago
    That’s the case for any user though. If you’re Japanese and only ever read documents in Japanese then Shift-JIS is all you need and UTF-8 is a waste of bytes. If you use a screen reader then there’s an immediate extraneous cost to your laptop or mobile phone in the form of a screen and a GPU. The benefit though is interoperability and economies of scale. And besides, another way of saying ‘not disabled’ is ‘temporarily abled’. Who knows when you’ll need assistive tech (if ever), but you’ll appreciate the effort that’s been put into the ecosystem when you do.
    - badsectoracula 8y ago
      > That’s the case for any user though. If you’re Japanese and only ever read documents in Japanese then Shift-JIS is all you need and UTF-8 is a waste of bytes. Yes, i do not see the issue with it though - remember that i talked about the case where i explicitly do not care about interoperability, which is pretty much all the time. I do not see the problem to use specialized software in the rare cases where i'd need such interoperability (and again, i'm talking about myself here, not about everyone, although i suspect a lot of people rarely care about more than a single language - and note that i'm not a native English speaker). > . If you use a screen reader then there’s an immediate extraneous cost to your laptop or mobile phone in the form of a screen and a GPU. I'm not sure i follow, what sort of cost are you talking about? > The benefit though is interoperability and economies of scale. Similarly, i do not follow. I am talking about the complexity and resources needed by a GUI system. > And besides, another way of saying ‘not disabled’ is ‘temporarily abled’. Who knows when you’ll need assistive tech (if ever) I may also need better interoperability or any of the other features mentioned above, it isn't like my current needs are written in stone, but that is an issue to be solved when needed, if needed.
      - grkvlt 8y ago
        I remember Microsoft did a study on Word usage after everyone complained of bloat and the huge number of unwanted features, it turned out that each user only used maybe 5% of the features, but it was a different 5% for each user. Its the same here. Sure, you only use ASCII and don't care about RTL text or screen readers, and that would be great if the vendors were writing software only for your sole use. But they're not, because they need to fund development of the software by selling as many copies as possible to many different users...

jchw 8y ago

Maturity comes with a lot of costs. Try making a lightweight GUI framework that supports accessibility, bidirectional text, IME, multiple and different kinds of pointing devices, renders all kinds of Unicode script, DPI scaling, hardware acceleration, and so much more... I absolutely miss those days, but only a little :) I just shrug and use Qt and be happy that at the very least, after I've fought the framework for a couple hours, an incredible amount of engineering is done on such difficult problems without me needing to try to solve them on my own in each project.

badsectoracula 8y ago
The vast majority of the time you don't need all (or most of) that stuff though. None of the applications i actually use take any advantage of accessibility (i do not need it), bidirectional text (most all of the text i see and write is in English and all of it is in left-to-right order), IME (i do not write in any language that needs this), multiple pointing devices (i only have a single mouse), all kinds of unicode script (as i said most of the text is in English, but i'll have a note on that below), DPI scaling (i prefer 1:1 mapping of units to pixels ratio and none of my monitors are hidpi and i plan on avoiding getting one as long as it is technically possible since i want to have the pixels visible), hardware acceleration (i do not think any GUI toolkit that uses traditional buttons/checkboxes/inputfields/sliders/etc style uses hardware acceleration, at least in the modern sense where it means using 3D hardware as opposed to the older 2D acceleration - some toolkits that try to reinvent Flash are probably using 3D acceleration more but i do not use any programs that use those) or any "much more". The note i mentioned above and a small exception is unicode support, but that is externally imposed: sometimes i download files (like an album i bought on bandcamp) that use unicode characters which display weirdly if the program you use cannot handle them. But beyond that, no real need for it and this is only in a few types of programs. Of course my needs are not the same as others' needs, but i am "paying" for stuff i do not use nor need, both in terms of complexity and actual resources.
- robin_reala 8y ago
  That’s the case for any user though. If you’re Japanese and only ever read documents in Japanese then Shift-JIS is all you need and UTF-8 is a waste of bytes. If you use a screen reader then there’s an immediate extraneous cost to your laptop or mobile phone in the form of a screen and a GPU. The benefit though is interoperability and economies of scale. And besides, another way of saying ‘not disabled’ is ‘temporarily abled’. Who knows when you’ll need assistive tech (if ever), but you’ll appreciate the effort that’s been put into the ecosystem when you do.
  - badsectoracula 8y ago
    > That’s the case for any user though. If you’re Japanese and only ever read documents in Japanese then Shift-JIS is all you need and UTF-8 is a waste of bytes. Yes, i do not see the issue with it though - remember that i talked about the case where i explicitly do not care about interoperability, which is pretty much all the time. I do not see the problem to use specialized software in the rare cases where i'd need such interoperability (and again, i'm talking about myself here, not about everyone, although i suspect a lot of people rarely care about more than a single language - and note that i'm not a native English speaker). > . If you use a screen reader then there’s an immediate extraneous cost to your laptop or mobile phone in the form of a screen and a GPU. I'm not sure i follow, what sort of cost are you talking about? > The benefit though is interoperability and economies of scale. Similarly, i do not follow. I am talking about the complexity and resources needed by a GUI system. > And besides, another way of saying ‘not disabled’ is ‘temporarily abled’. Who knows when you’ll need assistive tech (if ever) I may also need better interoperability or any of the other features mentioned above, it isn't like my current needs are written in stone, but that is an issue to be solved when needed, if needed.
    - grkvlt 8y ago
      I remember Microsoft did a study on Word usage after everyone complained of bloat and the huge number of unwanted features, it turned out that each user only used maybe 5% of the features, but it was a different 5% for each user. Its the same here. Sure, you only use ASCII and don't care about RTL text or screen readers, and that would be great if the vendors were writing software only for your sole use. But they're not, because they need to fund development of the software by selling as many copies as possible to many different users...