5 ms·

Yeah Jonathan Blow isn't exactly a luminary in computer science. I once read him going on a meltdown over linux ports because "programming is hard". This is the

by thefz 6y ago

Yeah Jonathan Blow isn't exactly a luminary in computer science. I once read him going on a meltdown over linux ports because "programming is hard". This is the kind of minds Apple enable, i.e. "why isn't this easy?"

movedx 6y ago
It's easy to take a stab at someone online, behind a keyboard, but I'd suggest you show us all your work and we'll judge your future opinions based on it.
- majjgepolja 6y ago
  preferably future work and dreams and ramblings too.. preferably over a twitch stream..
- thefz 6y ago
  By no metric I am comparatively as successful as the guy, but I am still able to disagree on his point that Linux is held back by its tools. The fact that he did not want or had the time to learn Linux's tooling don't mean anything in particular except that he's either very busy or very lazy. Any interview I read with him he's just ranting and crying over this or that "too complex" matter. If he does not want to deal with the complexity of modern computers, he should design and build board games. As an example, read how the one-man-band of Execution Unit manages to, in house, write and test his game on three operating systems. https://www.executionunit.com/blog/2019/01/02/how-i-support-windows-mac-and-linux/ https://www.executionunit.com/blog/2019/01/02/how-i-support-... It's not a matter of "this is too hard", Blow just does not want to do it, let's be honest.
neuronic 6y ago
The entire point of computers is to make things easy. The Apple question "why isn't this easy" is missing from 95% of UX in modern software. Stop acting as if software devs are the only users of software. And even then: computers should do work and not produce work or mental overhead.
- otabdeveloper4 6y ago
  Are you implying Apple software and devices are "easy"? I think that's marketing, and not borne out of real experience. Try setting up a new Apple device, there is very little in IT that is as frustrating and confusing.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >Try setting up a new Apple device, there is very little in IT that is as frustrating and confusing. It's a 5 minute process, and there's very little to it that it's not optimized for ease. Any champ can do it, and millions do. Not sure what you're on about. >I think that's marketing, and not borne out of real experience. Yes, all those people are delluded.
    - otabdeveloper4 6y ago
      Clearly you've never tried it, because it's certainly not 5 minutes, it's optimized for selling you bullshit Apple services and it's buggy as hell, with no feedback to the user why everything is broken and why you're having to re-authenticate five times in a row. And good luck if you're setting up a family account for several devices with different iOS versions. You're gonna really need it.
      - monkey_monkey 6y ago
        Honestly, literally millions of people do this every year, and for most of them, it's like 10 minutes, plus the time waiting for the iCloud restore. Even my dad was able to set up his new iPad, and he's as techophobic as it gets.
        otabdeveloper4 6y ago
        Technophobic people are exactly the target audience that has a huge tolerance for broken software built on piles of abusive bullshit.
coldtea 6y ago
>This is the kind of minds Apple enable, i.e. "why isn't this easy?" So the kind of minds we want? "Why isn't this easy?" should be the bread and butter question of a programmer...
- thefz 6y ago
  Except for problems that are hard. I wholeheartedly disagree, Blow showed many times he has not the right mindset.
yowlingcat 6y ago
> This is the kind of minds Apple enable, i.e. "why isn't this easy?" I dunno, personally that's why I've used Apple products for the past decade, and I think it's also maybe part of why they have a 2T market cap, and are the most liquid publicly traded stock in the world?
- thefz 6y ago
  So making simplistic products that treat users as dumb is profitable, yeah, I agree with that.
  - meepmorp 6y ago
    Believe it or not, lots of people have more important things to do with their computers than dick with them to make shit work. Most people don't really know how their car works, and shouldn't have to. Same goes here.
  - yowlingcat 6y ago
    Where's your evidence for that? The argument that it "treats users as dumb" and that doing so is "profitable" is oft trotted out, but I never see any substantiation for it. Plenty of companies do that. What's so special about Apple, then? I mean, it's gotta be something. You gotta be careful about these arguments. They often have a slippery slope to a superiority complex (of "leet" NIX users over the unwashed "proles") hiding deep within. Needlessly complex or powerful user interfaces aren't necessarily good. They were quite commonplace before Apple. Apple understood the value of minimalism, of cutting away interaction noise until there's nothing left to subtract. Aesthetically speaking, this is approach has a long, storied history with respect to mechanical design. It's successful because it works. What Apple understood really acutely and mastered is human interface design. They perfected making human centric interfaces that look and feel like fluid prosthetic extensions of one's body, rather than computational interface where power is achieved by anchoring ones tasks around the machine for maximal efficiency. Briefly, they understood intuition. Are you arguing that intuition is somehow worse than mastering arcana, simple because you've done the latter? Now, I'm not going to say that one is better than the other. I love my command line vim workflow dearly, and you'll have to pry my keyboard out of my cold dead hands. But there's definitely the idea of "right tool for the right job" that you might be sweeping by here. Remember, simplicity is as much a function of cherished *NIX tools you probably know and love. It's where they derive their power. Be careful of surface level dismissals (visual interfaces versus textual) that come from tasting it in a different flavor. You might miss the forest for the trees!
pjmlp 6y ago
If I wanted that experience I would kept my PC with MS-DOS 3.3.

by thefz 6y ago

movedx 6y ago

It's easy to take a stab at someone online, behind a keyboard, but I'd suggest you show us all your work and we'll judge your future opinions based on it.

majjgepolja 6y ago
preferably future work and dreams and ramblings too.. preferably over a twitch stream..
thefz 6y ago
By no metric I am comparatively as successful as the guy, but I am still able to disagree on his point that Linux is held back by its tools. The fact that he did not want or had the time to learn Linux's tooling don't mean anything in particular except that he's either very busy or very lazy. Any interview I read with him he's just ranting and crying over this or that "too complex" matter. If he does not want to deal with the complexity of modern computers, he should design and build board games. As an example, read how the one-man-band of Execution Unit manages to, in house, write and test his game on three operating systems. https://www.executionunit.com/blog/2019/01/02/how-i-support-windows-mac-and-linux/ https://www.executionunit.com/blog/2019/01/02/how-i-support-... It's not a matter of "this is too hard", Blow just does not want to do it, let's be honest.

neuronic 6y ago

The entire point of computers is to make things easy. The Apple question "why isn't this easy" is missing from 95% of UX in modern software. Stop acting as if software devs are the only users of software. And even then: computers should do work and not produce work or mental overhead.

otabdeveloper4 6y ago
Are you implying Apple software and devices are "easy"? I think that's marketing, and not borne out of real experience. Try setting up a new Apple device, there is very little in IT that is as frustrating and confusing.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >Try setting up a new Apple device, there is very little in IT that is as frustrating and confusing. It's a 5 minute process, and there's very little to it that it's not optimized for ease. Any champ can do it, and millions do. Not sure what you're on about. >I think that's marketing, and not borne out of real experience. Yes, all those people are delluded.
  - otabdeveloper4 6y ago
    Clearly you've never tried it, because it's certainly not 5 minutes, it's optimized for selling you bullshit Apple services and it's buggy as hell, with no feedback to the user why everything is broken and why you're having to re-authenticate five times in a row. And good luck if you're setting up a family account for several devices with different iOS versions. You're gonna really need it.
    - monkey_monkey 6y ago
      Honestly, literally millions of people do this every year, and for most of them, it's like 10 minutes, plus the time waiting for the iCloud restore. Even my dad was able to set up his new iPad, and he's as techophobic as it gets.
      - otabdeveloper4 6y ago
        Technophobic people are exactly the target audience that has a huge tolerance for broken software built on piles of abusive bullshit.

coldtea 6y ago

>This is the kind of minds Apple enable, i.e. "why isn't this easy?" So the kind of minds we want? "Why isn't this easy?" should be the bread and butter question of a programmer...

thefz 6y ago
Except for problems that are hard. I wholeheartedly disagree, Blow showed many times he has not the right mindset.

yowlingcat 6y ago

> This is the kind of minds Apple enable, i.e. "why isn't this easy?" I dunno, personally that's why I've used Apple products for the past decade, and I think it's also maybe part of why they have a 2T market cap, and are the most liquid publicly traded stock in the world?

thefz 6y ago
So making simplistic products that treat users as dumb is profitable, yeah, I agree with that.
- meepmorp 6y ago
  Believe it or not, lots of people have more important things to do with their computers than dick with them to make shit work. Most people don't really know how their car works, and shouldn't have to. Same goes here.
- yowlingcat 6y ago
  Where's your evidence for that? The argument that it "treats users as dumb" and that doing so is "profitable" is oft trotted out, but I never see any substantiation for it. Plenty of companies do that. What's so special about Apple, then? I mean, it's gotta be something. You gotta be careful about these arguments. They often have a slippery slope to a superiority complex (of "leet" NIX users over the unwashed "proles") hiding deep within. Needlessly complex or powerful user interfaces aren't necessarily good. They were quite commonplace before Apple. Apple understood the value of minimalism, of cutting away interaction noise until there's nothing left to subtract. Aesthetically speaking, this is approach has a long, storied history with respect to mechanical design. It's successful because it works. What Apple understood really acutely and mastered is human interface design. They perfected making human centric interfaces that look and feel like fluid prosthetic extensions of one's body, rather than computational interface where power is achieved by anchoring ones tasks around the machine for maximal efficiency. Briefly, they understood intuition. Are you arguing that intuition is somehow worse than mastering arcana, simple because you've done the latter? Now, I'm not going to say that one is better than the other. I love my command line vim workflow dearly, and you'll have to pry my keyboard out of my cold dead hands. But there's definitely the idea of "right tool for the right job" that you might be sweeping by here. Remember, simplicity is as much a function of cherished *NIX tools you probably know and love. It's where they derive their power. Be careful of surface level dismissals (visual interfaces versus textual) that come from tasting it in a different flavor. You might miss the forest for the trees!

pjmlp 6y ago

If I wanted that experience I would kept my PC with MS-DOS 3.3.