3 ms·

I kinda miss the unix philosophy... one tool for one job. A PDF reader should read PDFs, there's no need for it to have its own (possibly paid) cloud service an

I kinda miss the unix philosophy... one tool for one job. A PDF reader should read PDFs, there's no need for it to have its own (possibly paid) cloud service and an AI chat bot. I do get why some integrations are beneficial (eg. office software with text editing, spreadsheets and a database, so you can generate eg. letters with data from a database, etc... but every service needing its own cloud and adding a useless AI chatbot is just a useless overkill for me.

mushufasa 1y ago
the counterpoint is that unix itself is a holistic system -- the value of unix is the integration of a bunch of different tools by providing a consistent way to manipulate streams of text and files with standardization
data-ottawa 1y ago
I think you have the wrong model for apps. Doing one thing is almost always having the full document CRUD loop. Once you have a pdf viewer users want rotating pages, then bookmarks, then highlights, then form filling, etc. That “just a pdf reader” is strictly worse than every pdf editor (which have to meet the minimum requirement of a pdf reader). Apple’s Automator and Preview combo for me are indispensible and perfectly follow the Unix ideal. Automator composes well, and Preview does all the pdf editing well, and together they’re excellent software. The version of Preview Apple just released on iPad is however basically just a reader, and do it hasn’t made itself relevant to any of my workflows or needs. Full featured plus composable. That’s the sweet spot for the best apps. Side note: I’m surprised there’s no ffmeg or imagemagik for pdfs (maybe there is?). Someone should build that.
- OkayPhysicist 1y ago
  An under-explored integration type, IMO, is the concept of interchangeable parts. I like having an integrated PDF reader inside my browser. Problem is, my external pdf-reader is substantially better than the pdf reader in my browser. Wouldn't it be nice if I could embed the external reader, replacing my browser's reader? Or one that I've actually hacked into a few contexts already: What if every multi-line text field could be replaced by a neovim buffer?
- mjochim 1y ago
  There is pdftk. https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-server/ https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-server/

mushufasa 1y ago

the counterpoint is that unix itself is a holistic system -- the value of unix is the integration of a bunch of different tools by providing a consistent way to manipulate streams of text and files with standardization

data-ottawa 1y ago

I think you have the wrong model for apps. Doing one thing is almost always having the full document CRUD loop. Once you have a pdf viewer users want rotating pages, then bookmarks, then highlights, then form filling, etc. That “just a pdf reader” is strictly worse than every pdf editor (which have to meet the minimum requirement of a pdf reader). Apple’s Automator and Preview combo for me are indispensible and perfectly follow the Unix ideal. Automator composes well, and Preview does all the pdf editing well, and together they’re excellent software. The version of Preview Apple just released on iPad is however basically just a reader, and do it hasn’t made itself relevant to any of my workflows or needs. Full featured plus composable. That’s the sweet spot for the best apps. Side note: I’m surprised there’s no ffmeg or imagemagik for pdfs (maybe there is?). Someone should build that.

OkayPhysicist 1y ago
An under-explored integration type, IMO, is the concept of interchangeable parts. I like having an integrated PDF reader inside my browser. Problem is, my external pdf-reader is substantially better than the pdf reader in my browser. Wouldn't it be nice if I could embed the external reader, replacing my browser's reader? Or one that I've actually hacked into a few contexts already: What if every multi-line text field could be replaced by a neovim buffer?
mjochim 1y ago
There is pdftk. https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-server/ https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-server/