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Because it is not a consistent user experience, it is a consistent developer experience. For the actual user, the experience is inconsistent with the rest of t

Because it is not a consistent user experience, it is a consistent developer experience. For the actual user, the experience is inconsistent with the rest of their system.

anigbrowl 5y ago
Well, it depends. Some tools I want to be OS-consistent and unobtrusive. I don't care for the newish trend of everything having its own 'dark mode' (none of which match each other) or the way this is offered as some great innovation when it's only about few pages of code to implement. I would much prefer to have better theming options at the system/WM level. On the other hand, I have many specialized tools where the UI is superior that of the OS and if anything I would like everything else to look more like those. Ableton Live was an early pioneer of the kind of flat minimalism that people associate most often with Material Design, for example. At the time it was launched most music software manufacturers were still obsessed with skeuomorphism, albeit for entirely justifiable reasons because musicians often fetishize and want to emulate the sound of particular pieces of studio equipment.
nawgz 5y ago
> For the actual user, the experience is inconsistent with the rest of their system. This point is moot. If your argument is that each system has its own GUI semantics, and the developer fails the user by not developing within those semantics for that platform, then you are proposing the developer must do 1 unit of work per platform where previously it was 1 unit of work for all platforms. Therefore exactly 1 platform will be supported, and users on the unlucky ones will have exactly no experiences with this tool.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  Sure, if you're strapped for resources and are content with making sub-par tools, that's what happens. If you actually care about what you make and want to make it good, there are no shortcuts. You need to put in the work.
  - nawgz 5y ago
    Or you can use cross-platform solutions which are themselves good tools, and disregard platform-specific semantics in favor of globally good UI/UX and let your tool stand on its own with no need for unnecessary, repetitive, error-prone platform porting.
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      > Or you can use cross-platform solutions which are themselves good tools No such thing exists. > and disregard platform-specific semantics Again, this is a bad thing for users.
      - nawgz 5y ago
        > > and disregard platform-specific semantics > Again, this is a bad thing for users. Can you make a supporting argument for this? You state it as fact. I do not see why globally strong UI/UX should be a bad thing for users just because it disregards some standards of unknown quality on an unknown platform. Most methods of interacting with applications today are standardized and have no platform reliance; it is unclear to me why a developer whose tool delivers value in and of itself would suddenly not be delivering value to users just because their UI implementation did not perfectly match said user's preferred OS' UI standards. Actually, it's perfectly clear to me that the opposite is true.
        user-the-name 5y ago
        Maybe you have not actually used a good platform with good standards?
        nawgz 5y ago
        Maybe you shouldn't revert to facile claims which don't even support your point, such as implying that a single good platform with good standards justifies never building anything cross-platform ever in any context?
        5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dbrueck 5y ago
> For the actual user, the experience is inconsistent with the rest of their system Hmm... is that actually true though? If so, in what way? For example, right now I have open, among other things, Spotify, Visual Studio, Vim, Chrome, and the Windows 10 Settings app. It's a fairly big mishmash of UIs in terms of styling, but in terms of how I interact with them, there is very strong consistency.
eagsalazar2 5y ago
That's just one factor and while it may be true, do you really think that is more important that dramatically higher overall developer velocity and superior developer workflow, both of which contribute to more feature refinement, fewer bugs, faster updates, better support, etc, etc? Definitely not IMO. The fact that you are ignoring those other factors in your comments makes me think you are also ignoring them in your assessment of the options.

Because it is not a consistent user experience, it is a consistent developer experience. For the actual user, the experience is inconsistent with the rest of their system.

anigbrowl 5y ago

Well, it depends. Some tools I want to be OS-consistent and unobtrusive. I don't care for the newish trend of everything having its own 'dark mode' (none of which match each other) or the way this is offered as some great innovation when it's only about few pages of code to implement. I would much prefer to have better theming options at the system/WM level. On the other hand, I have many specialized tools where the UI is superior that of the OS and if anything I would like everything else to look more like those. Ableton Live was an early pioneer of the kind of flat minimalism that people associate most often with Material Design, for example. At the time it was launched most music software manufacturers were still obsessed with skeuomorphism, albeit for entirely justifiable reasons because musicians often fetishize and want to emulate the sound of particular pieces of studio equipment.

nawgz 5y ago

> For the actual user, the experience is inconsistent with the rest of their system. This point is moot. If your argument is that each system has its own GUI semantics, and the developer fails the user by not developing within those semantics for that platform, then you are proposing the developer must do 1 unit of work per platform where previously it was 1 unit of work for all platforms. Therefore exactly 1 platform will be supported, and users on the unlucky ones will have exactly no experiences with this tool.

user-the-name 5y ago
Sure, if you're strapped for resources and are content with making sub-par tools, that's what happens. If you actually care about what you make and want to make it good, there are no shortcuts. You need to put in the work.
- nawgz 5y ago
  Or you can use cross-platform solutions which are themselves good tools, and disregard platform-specific semantics in favor of globally good UI/UX and let your tool stand on its own with no need for unnecessary, repetitive, error-prone platform porting.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    > Or you can use cross-platform solutions which are themselves good tools No such thing exists. > and disregard platform-specific semantics Again, this is a bad thing for users.
    - nawgz 5y ago
      > > and disregard platform-specific semantics > Again, this is a bad thing for users. Can you make a supporting argument for this? You state it as fact. I do not see why globally strong UI/UX should be a bad thing for users just because it disregards some standards of unknown quality on an unknown platform. Most methods of interacting with applications today are standardized and have no platform reliance; it is unclear to me why a developer whose tool delivers value in and of itself would suddenly not be delivering value to users just because their UI implementation did not perfectly match said user's preferred OS' UI standards. Actually, it's perfectly clear to me that the opposite is true.
      - user-the-name 5y ago
        Maybe you have not actually used a good platform with good standards?
        nawgz 5y ago
        Maybe you shouldn't revert to facile claims which don't even support your point, such as implying that a single good platform with good standards justifies never building anything cross-platform ever in any context?
      - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

dbrueck 5y ago

> For the actual user, the experience is inconsistent with the rest of their system Hmm... is that actually true though? If so, in what way? For example, right now I have open, among other things, Spotify, Visual Studio, Vim, Chrome, and the Windows 10 Settings app. It's a fairly big mishmash of UIs in terms of styling, but in terms of how I interact with them, there is very strong consistency.

eagsalazar2 5y ago

That's just one factor and while it may be true, do you really think that is more important that dramatically higher overall developer velocity and superior developer workflow, both of which contribute to more feature refinement, fewer bugs, faster updates, better support, etc, etc? Definitely not IMO. The fact that you are ignoring those other factors in your comments makes me think you are also ignoring them in your assessment of the options.