8 ms·

Subsurface – An open source scuba dive logging platform

146 points by jkingsman 7y ago

nas 7y ago
I think the "by Linus" is a bit much. He was the founder of the project but others did a lot too. Dirk Hohndel has been the project lead for a long time already.
- fhoffa 7y ago
  Check their homepage (just click on the link above). The project itself gives Linus the spotlight.
  - tus88 7y ago
    And why wouldn't they...it's not exactly a bad endorsement.
- mhh__ 7y ago
  That depends on the project, e.g. even though Linus hasn't been maintaining git day to day for probably a decade now it's still "his" project in the sense that he designed it's architecture and shaped it's early life
sandGorgon 7y ago
What is the best Android app for this ? Anyone know ?
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  The official one?
akersten 7y ago
Always cool to see projects like this. Feels like you gain a little more insight into the hobbies and lifestyles of the prominent figures who usually only appear in news related to their famous technologies. Plus, seeing Linus as a contributor is kind of a subtle seal-of-approval as far as the quality of the software.
dankohn1 7y ago
A lot more detail on the platform: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT_hOTO88Sg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT_hOTO88Sg
ripvanwinkle 7y ago
Is that like git for the world of scuba diving.
- bhoey 7y ago
  The irony of this comment is that Subsurface does in fact use git under the covers for online syncing. So yes, this is git for the world of scuba diving :)
Roritharr 7y ago
This is close to my dream: Forcing the likes of Linus, Stallmann, fefe and a few others of their level down to my level and lock them in a room where they only are allowed to leave once they've finished their MVP for a SaaS app. I'd love to see them getting to v0.1, following their iron hard principles.
fhoffa 7y ago
Quoting their front page: > In fall of 2011, when a forced lull in kernel development gave him a chance to start a new project, Linux creator Linus Torvalds decided to tackle his frustration with the lack of decent divelog software on Linux. > Linus worked with a team of developers, and Subsurface is the result. It now supports Linux, Windows and MacOS and allows data import from many dive computers and several existing divelog programs. It provides a quick and easy way to see the key information provided by a modern dive computer and lets users track a wide variety of data about their dives. In fall of 2012 Dirk Hohndel took over as Subsurface maintainer. > License: GPLv2
- _pmf_ 7y ago
  He should to a TODO app.
- mattbreeden 7y ago
  > In fall of 2011, when a forced lull in kernel development Can anyone speak to, or link to, what this is referencing?
  - jlgaddis 7y ago
    I think it was around that time that the kernel.org servers were compromised so perhaps that's it.
  - flocial 7y ago
    "It was originally just me. I’ve never logged my dives, because I didn’t see the point. Some people do it for the numbers, others do it because they want to do things by the book (literally), and some people seem to just collect the dive shop stamps. For me, the paper logbook just didn’t make sense. At the same time, I’m a huge believer in dive computers. The first piece of scuba equipment I bought was a Suunto Gekko, because while I’m fine renting everything else (I’m apparently very regular sized, and I’ve never had issues with mask fitting etc either), I also think it’s stupid to do dive tables when a dive computer can just do so much better. So I had my dives logged on the computer, but the Gekko would only remember profiles for about 20 dives or so. So I did want to download, but the Suunto downloader only worked on Windows, which I don’t have, and didn’t work for the Gekko anyway. I looked into a few projects, but they really didn’t work at all. And then we had problems with kernel.org, and for a couple of weeks there was basically nothing kernel-related for me to do until the infrastructure was cleared up, and I started writing something to save an electronic log-book. It actually started with just parsing some XML that I had from a Suunto export that Dirk had done for me—I think I had given him my Gekko because I had upgraded to a Vyper Air, and he had saved the dives I had on it using the Suunto app and exported them as xml, so I had some data that I wanted to look at." https://divelog.blue/linus_torvalds.html https://divelog.blue/linus_torvalds.html
flanker 7y ago
Is it a better experience over SSI app? I am not a expert diver, but used that app during my open water certification and it was painful for me as a developer, though I was surprised people made their peace with it.
- diveanon 7y ago
  I use the SSI app every day and it is truly painful. I wish I could just fix it for them. I always encourage my SSI students to paper log instead.
BlackRing 7y ago
I've been using this for a few years now, didn't know Linus Torvalds was involved!
jammygit 7y ago
Any interesting technical implementation details?
pjmlp 7y ago
Written in C++ and Qt, ....
- cjfd 7y ago
  So, it actually has great performance?
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    I guess you haven't learned about Linus relation to C++.
parsimo2010 7y ago
Imagine Linus trying to get a job. “So we like that you created one of the most popular operating systems ever, and your version control system is also very nice. But do you only have two projects in your portfolio?” “Those two take up most of my time, but I also have this scuba diving app.” “This is great, it shows that you can ship a full product. You should have led with this.” The moral of the story is that this is like seeing a finger painting made by Leonardo da Vinci. It’s cool, but I expected something different. Like, it’s just too normal compared to the other things Linus’ name is attached to.
- jlgaddis 7y ago
  Sounds like Linus started it, worked on it for a year or so, and it has been maintained by someone else for ~7 years.
  - parsimo2010 7y ago
    I didn’t mean to imply that conversation would have happened in real life or that Linus claims to have sole ownership of the project. His name is featured on the website, and he did write the foundational code, so it’s probably fair to at least mention in a fictional job interview.
  - thomasahle 7y ago
    Looks on github like he's still committing regularly.
- aussieguy1234 7y ago
  As far as I can tell, Linux is the most popular operating system if you take into account everything that runs Linux, including Android phones.
  - jlgaddis 7y ago
    Tanenbaum claims (or did, a few years ago) that the most popular operating system is Minix. Obviously it's impossible to prove one way or the other...
bobbles 7y ago
I wish a passion project like this could be adopted into the PADI certification app. The official app has a horrendous UI, and requires an internet connection to function, which basically makes it unusable in a huge number of places that are worth diving at.
- Spearchucker 7y ago
  First time I tried logging with it was 3km off the coast of Mozambique. Which obviously failed. And I've not found anything else I liked before or since so all my logs are still on paper. I have very specific ideas about tagging my dives so I should really just stop complaining and write something...
albertzeyer 7y ago
It uses CMake, Qt, and is written in C++. GitHub is the official source code upstream (https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface). The licence is GPLv2. This is interesting to me. I don't exactly remember the arguments, for Linux, Linus was always very clearly against C++. He could have also chosen Gtk, and then write the app in C.
- dchest 7y ago
  Linus originally wrote it in C and Gtk+, it has been rewritten.
- tpush 7y ago
  Originally it was C and used GTK+, but cross platform needs drove it to Qt and thus C++. And CMake is the most popular cross-platform C/C++ (meta) build tool, so no surprise there.
  - Sammi 7y ago
    Here's an explanation of those needs: Gtk to Qt - a strange journey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGZyVSOnqm0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGZyVSOnqm0 "Presenter(s): Dirk Hohndel"
    - albertzeyer 7y ago
      It seems this was posted a few times to HN already (I just posted it again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20746962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20746962). Quite interesting. Some of the messages: * Their GTK code became very fragile, such that they did not wanted to touch it anymore, and could not implement new features. * The GTK community was/is not helpful. * The Qt community was/is very helpful. * Qt documentation is much better than GTK. * The Qt frameworks has more to offer (basic data structures, etc). * CMake is much nicer and easier to understand than just raw makefiles (but somewhat unrelated to Qt vs GTK). * The model and view system/framework in both Qt and GTK is somewhat/completely broken. * Qt Creator makes live easier, compared to Emacs (at least for C++/Qt development). * Qt is nicely encapsulated, in contrast to GTK.
alexellisuk 7y ago
I think this shows that everyone can use a side-project :-) I'm not sure how active Linus is on it anymore, but I know and worked with some of his maintainers there. My claim to fame -> https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface/pull/1136 https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface/pull/1136 https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface/pull/1988 https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface/pull/1988
- reacweb 7y ago
  I use regularly another of the side projects of Linus: http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2010/01/embroidery-gaah.html http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2010/01/embroidery-gaah..... My wife has thousands of embroidery files that are nicely displayed in gnome explorer.
- Sammi 7y ago
  Linus made 38 commits over the last year and is on 7th place on count of commits over that period: https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface/graphs/contributors?from=2018-08-18&to=2019-08-20&type=c https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface/graphs/cont...
- alexellisuk 7y ago
  I forgot to add the link to Derek - https://github.com/alexellis/derek https://github.com/alexellis/derek - a bot to add Developer Certificate of Origin checking and to allow non-admin users to administrate the repos through the use of comments.
codeulike 7y ago
The first time you look up from 10m down, and realise you are breathing, is quite surreal. I'd recommend it.
- MarkSweep 7y ago
  Counterpoint: it took all of my concentration to not freak out while attempting to scuba dive. I like swimming, snorkeling, and wetsuits, but my first try at scuba diving was viscerally unpleasant. Anyone else have a bad experience the first time and ended up liking it after trying again? I’m wondering if it is worth trying again...
  - ilkkal 7y ago
    I haven't dived all that much, but the initial submersion with empty lungs is super unpleasant every time, the urge to draw air is super strong. After I'm under I'm 100% fine with it and just don't think about the whole thing. I've only dived drysuit, maybe submersion is easier without.
    - jfengel 7y ago
      I suspect not. I get the same experience with a wetsuit. And I've seen it happen with dozens of people on their first dives. Once they get down and stay down for a minute or so, they begin to trust that there is in fact air in the regulator, and that it will continue to be there. Until then, they'll fight panic every time. Different people get over it at different rates. Some never do.
  - saiya-jin 7y ago
    You can get over this with more experience, but better start with shallower depths and only gradually move deeper, so you know and feel that you are not 'stuck' somewhere deep for the rest of the dive. Actually that's how certification dives should go - start in few meters, train things like losing & cleaning of the mask, sharing oxygen etc. No reason to go deeper than 4-5 meters for this. It is vastly different environment, our bodies and senses are simply not developed for it, but we as species are very adaptable and the experience is literally out-of-this-world (especially on healthy corals, which is sadly becoming harder and harder to find).
diveanon 7y ago
Never knew Linus was an avid diver, definitely going to give this a shot when I get back to my dive center tomorrow. Kind of regretting buying a nice new logbook the other day.
- joering2 7y ago
  All these years I been programming I thought I was at least a better scubadiver (non technical but since being 13 years old) assuming Linus doesn't even have time for sports, and then today I find out he is not only diving on mixed mixtures (technical deep dives) but also wrote a software that is 10 times better than anything out there related to diving. Sheesh. Anyways, to make this post worthwile something: if you haven't tried yet, please take a scuba-dive dip. Only once with instructor. I have passed on this great sport to so many of my friends - there is only one outcome when you go take a breath underwater - you either hate it and never try again, or you will get addicted and open yourself up to a brand new world of adventures :)
  - diveanon 7y ago
    I've been diving most of my life as a hobby, but a few years ago I decided to give up software and start diving professionally. It was the best decision I've ever made. Now Im not wealthy by any metric other than quality of life.
atombender 7y ago
I can't speak for Subsurface's desktop/CLI apps, which I've not used, but I found the mobile app to be very disappointing. The UI is absolutely atrocious, to the point of being unusable, unfortunately. I've been using the commercial Dive Log [1] app for many years, which is okay, but for my type of recreational diving, it requires a lot of manual data entry for each dive. It's got plenty of "pro" features, but lacks obvious features relevant to recreational diving. In particular, its location support is awful -- a good dive app really should be built around a central dive site database so that the dive app becomes useful not just after a dive (to log your dive) but also before (to read about the under- and over-water geography, local wildlife, etc.). Dive Log doesn't even know about countries -- you have to enter them manually! Having tried a lot of these apps, they are all pretty bad, and very few of them are free. I think the worst one I've encountered is the official PADI app. I've still not figured out how to edit a previously logged dive in that app. [1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dive-log/id301049600 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dive-log/id301049600
- bhoey 7y ago
  > I found the mobile app to be very disappointing. The UI is absolutely atrocious, to the point of being unusable, unfortunately Just to provide another anecdote, I have been pleasantly impressed by the (Android) mobile app. I wonder if there are significant UI/UX differences between iOS and Android apps? I don't log my dives through the mobile app which may be where the experience disparity lies. But having a quick reference before a dive of what weight I used on the last fresh water dive or what has been my air consumption at this depth in the past is pretty handy. As for the desktop apps I've used both the Linux AppImage and the MacOS versions and find them both pretty nice to use. The fact that the dive log data is stored locally in XML makes manual tweaks super easy, for example copying over a subset of dives from a watch dive comp to my main intergrated's dive log file after a vacation.
mormegil 7y ago
Yesterday, while googling around to gather clues for reverse-engineering the protocol for a Garmin smart watch, I stumbled upon an e-mail on a listserv, discussing pieces of Garmin BT communication. Only after a while I noticed it had been written by Linus, who apparently worked on diving software. Now this appears on HN frontpage. I wonder what prompted the OP...
joshuaheard 7y ago
Does this use UDDF, the open standardized log data exchange?

146 points by jkingsman 7y ago

nas 7y ago

I think the "by Linus" is a bit much. He was the founder of the project but others did a lot too. Dirk Hohndel has been the project lead for a long time already.

fhoffa 7y ago
Check their homepage (just click on the link above). The project itself gives Linus the spotlight.
- tus88 7y ago
  And why wouldn't they...it's not exactly a bad endorsement.
mhh__ 7y ago
That depends on the project, e.g. even though Linus hasn't been maintaining git day to day for probably a decade now it's still "his" project in the sense that he designed it's architecture and shaped it's early life

sandGorgon 7y ago

What is the best Android app for this ? Anyone know ?

TeMPOraL 7y ago
The official one?

akersten 7y ago

Always cool to see projects like this. Feels like you gain a little more insight into the hobbies and lifestyles of the prominent figures who usually only appear in news related to their famous technologies. Plus, seeing Linus as a contributor is kind of a subtle seal-of-approval as far as the quality of the software.

dankohn1 7y ago

A lot more detail on the platform: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT_hOTO88Sg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT_hOTO88Sg

ripvanwinkle 7y ago

Is that like git for the world of scuba diving.

bhoey 7y ago
The irony of this comment is that Subsurface does in fact use git under the covers for online syncing. So yes, this is git for the world of scuba diving :)

Roritharr 7y ago

This is close to my dream: Forcing the likes of Linus, Stallmann, fefe and a few others of their level down to my level and lock them in a room where they only are allowed to leave once they've finished their MVP for a SaaS app. I'd love to see them getting to v0.1, following their iron hard principles.

fhoffa 7y ago

Quoting their front page: > In fall of 2011, when a forced lull in kernel development gave him a chance to start a new project, Linux creator Linus Torvalds decided to tackle his frustration with the lack of decent divelog software on Linux. > Linus worked with a team of developers, and Subsurface is the result. It now supports Linux, Windows and MacOS and allows data import from many dive computers and several existing divelog programs. It provides a quick and easy way to see the key information provided by a modern dive computer and lets users track a wide variety of data about their dives. In fall of 2012 Dirk Hohndel took over as Subsurface maintainer. > License: GPLv2

_pmf_ 7y ago
He should to a TODO app.
mattbreeden 7y ago
> In fall of 2011, when a forced lull in kernel development Can anyone speak to, or link to, what this is referencing?
- jlgaddis 7y ago
  I think it was around that time that the kernel.org servers were compromised so perhaps that's it.
- flocial 7y ago
  "It was originally just me. I’ve never logged my dives, because I didn’t see the point. Some people do it for the numbers, others do it because they want to do things by the book (literally), and some people seem to just collect the dive shop stamps. For me, the paper logbook just didn’t make sense. At the same time, I’m a huge believer in dive computers. The first piece of scuba equipment I bought was a Suunto Gekko, because while I’m fine renting everything else (I’m apparently very regular sized, and I’ve never had issues with mask fitting etc either), I also think it’s stupid to do dive tables when a dive computer can just do so much better. So I had my dives logged on the computer, but the Gekko would only remember profiles for about 20 dives or so. So I did want to download, but the Suunto downloader only worked on Windows, which I don’t have, and didn’t work for the Gekko anyway. I looked into a few projects, but they really didn’t work at all. And then we had problems with kernel.org, and for a couple of weeks there was basically nothing kernel-related for me to do until the infrastructure was cleared up, and I started writing something to save an electronic log-book. It actually started with just parsing some XML that I had from a Suunto export that Dirk had done for me—I think I had given him my Gekko because I had upgraded to a Vyper Air, and he had saved the dives I had on it using the Suunto app and exported them as xml, so I had some data that I wanted to look at." https://divelog.blue/linus_torvalds.html https://divelog.blue/linus_torvalds.html

flanker 7y ago

Is it a better experience over SSI app? I am not a expert diver, but used that app during my open water certification and it was painful for me as a developer, though I was surprised people made their peace with it.

diveanon 7y ago
I use the SSI app every day and it is truly painful. I wish I could just fix it for them. I always encourage my SSI students to paper log instead.

BlackRing 7y ago

I've been using this for a few years now, didn't know Linus Torvalds was involved!

jammygit 7y ago

Any interesting technical implementation details?

pjmlp 7y ago

Written in C++ and Qt, ....

cjfd 7y ago
So, it actually has great performance?
- pjmlp 7y ago
  I guess you haven't learned about Linus relation to C++.

parsimo2010 7y ago

Imagine Linus trying to get a job. “So we like that you created one of the most popular operating systems ever, and your version control system is also very nice. But do you only have two projects in your portfolio?” “Those two take up most of my time, but I also have this scuba diving app.” “This is great, it shows that you can ship a full product. You should have led with this.” The moral of the story is that this is like seeing a finger painting made by Leonardo da Vinci. It’s cool, but I expected something different. Like, it’s just too normal compared to the other things Linus’ name is attached to.

jlgaddis 7y ago
Sounds like Linus started it, worked on it for a year or so, and it has been maintained by someone else for ~7 years.
- parsimo2010 7y ago
  I didn’t mean to imply that conversation would have happened in real life or that Linus claims to have sole ownership of the project. His name is featured on the website, and he did write the foundational code, so it’s probably fair to at least mention in a fictional job interview.
- thomasahle 7y ago
  Looks on github like he's still committing regularly.
aussieguy1234 7y ago
As far as I can tell, Linux is the most popular operating system if you take into account everything that runs Linux, including Android phones.
- jlgaddis 7y ago
  Tanenbaum claims (or did, a few years ago) that the most popular operating system is Minix. Obviously it's impossible to prove one way or the other...

bobbles 7y ago

I wish a passion project like this could be adopted into the PADI certification app. The official app has a horrendous UI, and requires an internet connection to function, which basically makes it unusable in a huge number of places that are worth diving at.

Spearchucker 7y ago
First time I tried logging with it was 3km off the coast of Mozambique. Which obviously failed. And I've not found anything else I liked before or since so all my logs are still on paper. I have very specific ideas about tagging my dives so I should really just stop complaining and write something...

albertzeyer 7y ago

It uses CMake, Qt, and is written in C++. GitHub is the official source code upstream (https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface). The licence is GPLv2. This is interesting to me. I don't exactly remember the arguments, for Linux, Linus was always very clearly against C++. He could have also chosen Gtk, and then write the app in C.

dchest 7y ago
Linus originally wrote it in C and Gtk+, it has been rewritten.
tpush 7y ago
Originally it was C and used GTK+, but cross platform needs drove it to Qt and thus C++. And CMake is the most popular cross-platform C/C++ (meta) build tool, so no surprise there.
- Sammi 7y ago
  Here's an explanation of those needs: Gtk to Qt - a strange journey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGZyVSOnqm0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGZyVSOnqm0 "Presenter(s): Dirk Hohndel"
  - albertzeyer 7y ago
    It seems this was posted a few times to HN already (I just posted it again: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20746962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20746962). Quite interesting. Some of the messages: * Their GTK code became very fragile, such that they did not wanted to touch it anymore, and could not implement new features. * The GTK community was/is not helpful. * The Qt community was/is very helpful. * Qt documentation is much better than GTK. * The Qt frameworks has more to offer (basic data structures, etc). * CMake is much nicer and easier to understand than just raw makefiles (but somewhat unrelated to Qt vs GTK). * The model and view system/framework in both Qt and GTK is somewhat/completely broken. * Qt Creator makes live easier, compared to Emacs (at least for C++/Qt development). * Qt is nicely encapsulated, in contrast to GTK.

alexellisuk 7y ago

I think this shows that everyone can use a side-project :-) I'm not sure how active Linus is on it anymore, but I know and worked with some of his maintainers there. My claim to fame -> https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface/pull/1136 https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface/pull/1136 https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface/pull/1988 https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface/pull/1988

reacweb 7y ago
I use regularly another of the side projects of Linus: http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2010/01/embroidery-gaah.html http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2010/01/embroidery-gaah..... My wife has thousands of embroidery files that are nicely displayed in gnome explorer.
Sammi 7y ago
Linus made 38 commits over the last year and is on 7th place on count of commits over that period: https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface/graphs/contributors?from=2018-08-18&to=2019-08-20&type=c https://github.com/Subsurface-divelog/subsurface/graphs/cont...
alexellisuk 7y ago
I forgot to add the link to Derek - https://github.com/alexellis/derek https://github.com/alexellis/derek - a bot to add Developer Certificate of Origin checking and to allow non-admin users to administrate the repos through the use of comments.

codeulike 7y ago

The first time you look up from 10m down, and realise you are breathing, is quite surreal. I'd recommend it.

MarkSweep 7y ago
Counterpoint: it took all of my concentration to not freak out while attempting to scuba dive. I like swimming, snorkeling, and wetsuits, but my first try at scuba diving was viscerally unpleasant. Anyone else have a bad experience the first time and ended up liking it after trying again? I’m wondering if it is worth trying again...
- ilkkal 7y ago
  I haven't dived all that much, but the initial submersion with empty lungs is super unpleasant every time, the urge to draw air is super strong. After I'm under I'm 100% fine with it and just don't think about the whole thing. I've only dived drysuit, maybe submersion is easier without.
  - jfengel 7y ago
    I suspect not. I get the same experience with a wetsuit. And I've seen it happen with dozens of people on their first dives. Once they get down and stay down for a minute or so, they begin to trust that there is in fact air in the regulator, and that it will continue to be there. Until then, they'll fight panic every time. Different people get over it at different rates. Some never do.
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  You can get over this with more experience, but better start with shallower depths and only gradually move deeper, so you know and feel that you are not 'stuck' somewhere deep for the rest of the dive. Actually that's how certification dives should go - start in few meters, train things like losing & cleaning of the mask, sharing oxygen etc. No reason to go deeper than 4-5 meters for this. It is vastly different environment, our bodies and senses are simply not developed for it, but we as species are very adaptable and the experience is literally out-of-this-world (especially on healthy corals, which is sadly becoming harder and harder to find).

diveanon 7y ago

Never knew Linus was an avid diver, definitely going to give this a shot when I get back to my dive center tomorrow. Kind of regretting buying a nice new logbook the other day.

joering2 7y ago
All these years I been programming I thought I was at least a better scubadiver (non technical but since being 13 years old) assuming Linus doesn't even have time for sports, and then today I find out he is not only diving on mixed mixtures (technical deep dives) but also wrote a software that is 10 times better than anything out there related to diving. Sheesh. Anyways, to make this post worthwile something: if you haven't tried yet, please take a scuba-dive dip. Only once with instructor. I have passed on this great sport to so many of my friends - there is only one outcome when you go take a breath underwater - you either hate it and never try again, or you will get addicted and open yourself up to a brand new world of adventures :)
- diveanon 7y ago
  I've been diving most of my life as a hobby, but a few years ago I decided to give up software and start diving professionally. It was the best decision I've ever made. Now Im not wealthy by any metric other than quality of life.

atombender 7y ago

I can't speak for Subsurface's desktop/CLI apps, which I've not used, but I found the mobile app to be very disappointing. The UI is absolutely atrocious, to the point of being unusable, unfortunately. I've been using the commercial Dive Log [1] app for many years, which is okay, but for my type of recreational diving, it requires a lot of manual data entry for each dive. It's got plenty of "pro" features, but lacks obvious features relevant to recreational diving. In particular, its location support is awful -- a good dive app really should be built around a central dive site database so that the dive app becomes useful not just after a dive (to log your dive) but also before (to read about the under- and over-water geography, local wildlife, etc.). Dive Log doesn't even know about countries -- you have to enter them manually! Having tried a lot of these apps, they are all pretty bad, and very few of them are free. I think the worst one I've encountered is the official PADI app. I've still not figured out how to edit a previously logged dive in that app. [1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dive-log/id301049600 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dive-log/id301049600

bhoey 7y ago
> I found the mobile app to be very disappointing. The UI is absolutely atrocious, to the point of being unusable, unfortunately Just to provide another anecdote, I have been pleasantly impressed by the (Android) mobile app. I wonder if there are significant UI/UX differences between iOS and Android apps? I don't log my dives through the mobile app which may be where the experience disparity lies. But having a quick reference before a dive of what weight I used on the last fresh water dive or what has been my air consumption at this depth in the past is pretty handy. As for the desktop apps I've used both the Linux AppImage and the MacOS versions and find them both pretty nice to use. The fact that the dive log data is stored locally in XML makes manual tweaks super easy, for example copying over a subset of dives from a watch dive comp to my main intergrated's dive log file after a vacation.

mormegil 7y ago

Yesterday, while googling around to gather clues for reverse-engineering the protocol for a Garmin smart watch, I stumbled upon an e-mail on a listserv, discussing pieces of Garmin BT communication. Only after a while I noticed it had been written by Linus, who apparently worked on diving software. Now this appears on HN frontpage. I wonder what prompted the OP...

joshuaheard 7y ago

Does this use UDDF, the open standardized log data exchange?