7 ms·

All mobile OSes are dogshit.

by usrn 4y ago

rektide 4y ago
PalmOS/webos forever! ;) I never actually used it. But I like the idea. And I believe the web platform is a good existential hedge against the undying forever turning-to-crap-iness that so widely defines the trend of everything else. For now web standards still have a lot of good geeks advancing good moral causes and capabilities-- amid some less than excellent causes, yes, but even these make their way through gauntlets of review, through committees.
- usrn 4y ago
  - qball 4y ago
    >normal desktop Xorg Interestingly, webOS actually did let you do this; chrooting into a lightweight desktop environment (the default one offered was LXDE) was as simple as launching the application. Sure, dual-boot configurations were eventually offered, but being able to switch environments and run any (ARM-compatible) Linux software at will had a good chunk of uses, especially in an environment where apps (and the developers to make them) weren't forthcoming.
  - rektide 4y ago
    I bought a OnePlus last summer to go run wayland/sway/web on last summer, but have spent zero time trying to get a debian/debian-ish installed yet. Shame. I also have had some decent tablet-style 2-in-1 computers for half a decade plus, but havent spent hardly any time trying to operate without a mouse+keyboard. For shame! Modern industrial software design is incredibly productive, approachable, consumeable. But what a sick abomination, software that restrains & bounds, platforms that priorotize the platform over the users. I have respect, the maasification & sucess of de-personalized software is epic, has done wonders. But there just being so so few healthy, robust, explorable open ended & personalized/personable alternatives: it makes me beg that the future doesnt just keep closing up/shutting down forever, makes me so want to see some post-desktop opening & sourcing of more.
  - tragictrash 4y ago
- SemanticStrengh 4y ago
  Ionic say hello. The web is so far ahead it's humiliating, e.g. PDF.js is the only PDF renderer to have a standard acessibility tree.
  - iggldiggl 4y ago
    Maybe, but simultaneously its performance on any slightly more complex/heavy-weight PDF file is still noticeably inferior.
    - SemanticStrengh 4y ago
      I find the reverse to be so true! I mean i have not tested it heavily on 100+ pages so maybe for that but WOW for a regular sized scientific paper the difference in both smooth scrolling and text selection accuracy and speed is insane compared to the default chrome native pdf renderer. The difference is instantly noticeable (although me being on a 4K screen might help) that is why I use the Chrome PDF.js extension to make it my default reader.
      - iggldiggl 4y ago
        Interesting. For medium or heavy-weight CAD plans with loads of vector graphics the browser based PDF renderers (I tried both Firefox and Edge) are definitively slower for me.
        SemanticStrengh 4y ago
        1) PDF.js can be faster on chrome than on firefox (needs the extension) 2) the chrome extension expose in settings a webGL renderer, which can be much faster for specific kinds of PDFs
      - usrn 4y ago
        No. Try opening sea charts (from NOAA) in pdf.js. It just doesn't work at all. Meanwhile mupdf handles them fine like any other pdf.
- selfhoster11 4y ago
  > And I believe the web platform is a good existential hedge against the undying forever turning-to-crap-iness that so widely defines the trend of everything else. I'm sorry to say, but my view is the exact opposite. I can place nearly all the blame for the current state of the software ecosystem on overuse of web technologies and JavaScript.
  - rektide 4y ago
    Make an actual claim please. You've made no case, not explained why you think so very poorly, offered nothing that could be argued with or contested. This isnt useful or contributive.
    - selfhoster11 4y ago
      My claims: - the rise of Electron means that: 1. a lot of native applications got killed off 2. those that remain have fewer features (native applications generally tended to be feature-rich). For example the web version of Outlook is nowhere near as feature-ful as the true native version for Windows. 3. Electron apps have worse UX due to much slower response times to every single click (which is both perceptible and infuriating, if you are one of the people that can see it), consume much more RAM (no, RAM is not cheap - maybe for you it is, but is it cheap for the end user?), and do not use native controls a lot of the time. The former two points can be verified by loading Microsoft Teams. 4. Even if the user has enough RAM for an Electron application, they may not have enough RAM for five. Lighter-weight alternatives aren't always available, and sometimes you just have to run that many side by side if required by your work. - due to this, many machines that could have otherwise been useful for a few more years (anything with <=4 GB of RAM in my experience, YMMV) became e-waste prematurely because of the accelerated obsolescence, which not only imposes unfair cost on the consumer, but is also bad for the planet. - the JavaScript ecosystem largely relies on NPM for dependencies. NPM is very far from the level of maturity achieved by comparable ecosystems for other programming languages. This means that somewhere down in your dependency chain, your application relies on something ridiculous like left-pad. This results in a technically inferior product, and more pragmatically speaking, introduces many more opportunities for third parties to break your dependency chain (intentionally or not), or to slip in extra code (I think it was node-gyp, a common dependency, that selectively ran in destructive mode in case the current machine's geoip was Russian or Belarusian). A lot of the points I raised about Electron apply to JavaScript as well. TL;DR: the JavaScript ecosystem is not very conducive to good (stable and performant) engineering, short of heroic efforts like those undertaken by the VS Code team. Most teams don't actually care as much, so the resultant Electron applications are slow and unnecessarily huge. The result is a worse user experience.
selfhoster11 4y ago
Unironically agreed. I haven't liked a mobile OS since circa Android 5.

All mobile OSes are dogshit.

by usrn 4y ago

All mobile OSes are dogshit.

PalmOS/webos forever! ;) I never actually used it. But I like the idea. And I believe the web platform is a good existential hedge against the undying forever turning-to-crap-iness that so widely defines the trend of everything else. For now web standards still have a lot of good geeks advancing good moral causes and capabilities-- amid some less than excellent causes, yes, but even these make their way through gauntlets of review, through committees.

usrn 4y ago
- qball 4y ago
  >normal desktop Xorg Interestingly, webOS actually did let you do this; chrooting into a lightweight desktop environment (the default one offered was LXDE) was as simple as launching the application. Sure, dual-boot configurations were eventually offered, but being able to switch environments and run any (ARM-compatible) Linux software at will had a good chunk of uses, especially in an environment where apps (and the developers to make them) weren't forthcoming.
- rektide 4y ago
  I bought a OnePlus last summer to go run wayland/sway/web on last summer, but have spent zero time trying to get a debian/debian-ish installed yet. Shame. I also have had some decent tablet-style 2-in-1 computers for half a decade plus, but havent spent hardly any time trying to operate without a mouse+keyboard. For shame! Modern industrial software design is incredibly productive, approachable, consumeable. But what a sick abomination, software that restrains & bounds, platforms that priorotize the platform over the users. I have respect, the maasification & sucess of de-personalized software is epic, has done wonders. But there just being so so few healthy, robust, explorable open ended & personalized/personable alternatives: it makes me beg that the future doesnt just keep closing up/shutting down forever, makes me so want to see some post-desktop opening & sourcing of more.
- tragictrash 4y ago
SemanticStrengh 4y ago
Ionic say hello. The web is so far ahead it's humiliating, e.g. PDF.js is the only PDF renderer to have a standard acessibility tree.
- iggldiggl 4y ago
  Maybe, but simultaneously its performance on any slightly more complex/heavy-weight PDF file is still noticeably inferior.
  - SemanticStrengh 4y ago
    I find the reverse to be so true! I mean i have not tested it heavily on 100+ pages so maybe for that but WOW for a regular sized scientific paper the difference in both smooth scrolling and text selection accuracy and speed is insane compared to the default chrome native pdf renderer. The difference is instantly noticeable (although me being on a 4K screen might help) that is why I use the Chrome PDF.js extension to make it my default reader.
    - iggldiggl 4y ago
      Interesting. For medium or heavy-weight CAD plans with loads of vector graphics the browser based PDF renderers (I tried both Firefox and Edge) are definitively slower for me.
      - SemanticStrengh 4y ago
        1) PDF.js can be faster on chrome than on firefox (needs the extension) 2) the chrome extension expose in settings a webGL renderer, which can be much faster for specific kinds of PDFs
    - usrn 4y ago
      No. Try opening sea charts (from NOAA) in pdf.js. It just doesn't work at all. Meanwhile mupdf handles them fine like any other pdf.
selfhoster11 4y ago
> And I believe the web platform is a good existential hedge against the undying forever turning-to-crap-iness that so widely defines the trend of everything else. I'm sorry to say, but my view is the exact opposite. I can place nearly all the blame for the current state of the software ecosystem on overuse of web technologies and JavaScript.
- rektide 4y ago
  Make an actual claim please. You've made no case, not explained why you think so very poorly, offered nothing that could be argued with or contested. This isnt useful or contributive.
  - selfhoster11 4y ago
    My claims: - the rise of Electron means that: 1. a lot of native applications got killed off 2. those that remain have fewer features (native applications generally tended to be feature-rich). For example the web version of Outlook is nowhere near as feature-ful as the true native version for Windows. 3. Electron apps have worse UX due to much slower response times to every single click (which is both perceptible and infuriating, if you are one of the people that can see it), consume much more RAM (no, RAM is not cheap - maybe for you it is, but is it cheap for the end user?), and do not use native controls a lot of the time. The former two points can be verified by loading Microsoft Teams. 4. Even if the user has enough RAM for an Electron application, they may not have enough RAM for five. Lighter-weight alternatives aren't always available, and sometimes you just have to run that many side by side if required by your work. - due to this, many machines that could have otherwise been useful for a few more years (anything with <=4 GB of RAM in my experience, YMMV) became e-waste prematurely because of the accelerated obsolescence, which not only imposes unfair cost on the consumer, but is also bad for the planet. - the JavaScript ecosystem largely relies on NPM for dependencies. NPM is very far from the level of maturity achieved by comparable ecosystems for other programming languages. This means that somewhere down in your dependency chain, your application relies on something ridiculous like left-pad. This results in a technically inferior product, and more pragmatically speaking, introduces many more opportunities for third parties to break your dependency chain (intentionally or not), or to slip in extra code (I think it was node-gyp, a common dependency, that selectively ran in destructive mode in case the current machine's geoip was Russian or Belarusian). A lot of the points I raised about Electron apply to JavaScript as well. TL;DR: the JavaScript ecosystem is not very conducive to good (stable and performant) engineering, short of heroic efforts like those undertaken by the VS Code team. Most teams don't actually care as much, so the resultant Electron applications are slow and unnecessarily huge. The result is a worse user experience.

selfhoster11 4y ago

Unironically agreed. I haven't liked a mobile OS since circa Android 5.