> Plus all of these starting points imply the use of new languages, configurations, and programs, in particular, builds.
Oh yeah, true, some people keep saying a language is just a tool trying to convince somebody to use it, but they forget, or omit for some reason, the fact that it's not "just a tool", it's a huge ecosystem that brings additional, enormous mental burden with it - build system(s), libraries popular within that specific ecosystem, language syntax, language quirks, project structure, its own conventions and so forth.
It's much simpler and more efficient (technically and labour market-wise) to write everything in a single language, as much as possible - unless you start going completely against the grain. Like, auxilliary scripts are usually written in cli-centric languages like Bash, as opposed to API-centric like Python, because you get maximum convenience using cli programs and composing them together.
But no, some people casually shoot themselves in the foot by jumping from language to language depending on the task because it's "just a tool". Ripgrep is a just tool. An entire programming language with its ecosystem is not.
MacOS. Project scripts and software are hardcoded for Mac. The alternative is Windows, but making the project dev environment cross-platform takes time. I dislike non-standard keyboard shortcuts for everything, lack of FAR Manager (using Midnight Commander has the same problem as all the different keyboard shortcuts), its constant annoying notification popups that covert part of my windows, its problem with handling non-Apple mice (have to jump through many hoops to make mouse movements sensible, put mouse wheel in the proper direction etc), its windows rounded corners that cut at the application's view area (run Alacritty without status bar, the rounded corners at the left bottom corner will obscure part of the shell prompt), its support for Linux that is significantly worse than in Windows and probably more that I cba to remember.
The other thing that I dislike but can't get rid of is JVM. Mind you, Python, Go, Javascript and so on is worse, but JVM is what I have to work with, unlike the rest of them.
Java was released in 1996. It got generics in 2004, 8 years later. I don't remember anyone panicking and yelling from every corner that the world is ending. Everyone understood the benefits and it was a much awaited feature. And yes, after Java got them, it became easier and more typesafe to use. End of story. And by the way, Java too was a very simple language and generics didn't ruin it.
I never liked generics in Java - or basically the stuff they added together with them, like annotations and autoboxing - i felt they complicated and "ruined" the original language which was conceptually very simple. But by the time Java 5 became mainstream (i was working on desktop software so i had to keep compatibility with older runtimes anyway - not that i minded at all) i had already moved off Java aside from some of minor projects of my own (but i dropped even those after Oracle's acquisition of Sun as i didn't feel like relying on it). I do remember getting annoyed with NetBeans and Eclipse "helpfully" adding little squiggles everywhere in my code about how i could "improve" it with ranged fors, replacing typecasts in container usage with generics and adding those ugly @override annotations (which i manually removed whenever NetBeans added them on its own when it was creating code via the GUI editor). I guess i could disable them but as i wrote, i moved on after that anyway.
Of course i never panicked or yelled about it nor really even bothered mentioning it (aside from on HN now and then, usually in Go posts since the whole "generics in go" remind me of that time :-P). But me not doing that doesn't mean i didn't think of it and i'm guessing others did too.
My guess is that nowadays you see more complaints about generics in Go because Go largely attracted a higher percentage of people who liked its simplicity than Java ever had (and more people in absolute numbers in general as i'd bet that there are way more programmers nowadays than in late 90s/early 2000s, so you're bound to hear more voices). After all in terms of features as a language Go didn't had anything to offer over Java whereas Java had a lot to offer back in the late 90s/early 2000s.
(amusingly the language i use most nowadays is Free Pascal which is a hodgepodge of arbitrary features and a far cry from the original Java simplicity - though i do often find annoying how much of a "mess" it is)
I’m in a team where every member was forced into macOS against their will, because a lot of project scripts were hardcoded for macOS by a long-gone “architect”. My biggest gripes with macOS, after decades of Windows and Linux:
- Windows has better Linux support than macOS (WSL gives better integration which means Docker is easier to use compared to Minikube via Hyperkit vm)
- macOS doesn’t have the crucial software I need: FAR Manager
- I’ve had terrible experience with Apple’s customer support in the past where they couldn’t fix broken font antialiasing for external monitors
- I’ve been plagued by serious macOS bugs where it would cause 100% cpu load that could only be cured with closing/reopening the lid, and there are still some sleep-related bugs in it, whereas on Windows everything’s fine
- The window manager in macOS lacks basic features compared to Windows: no tiling, but Windows gets it out of the box with Win+arrows
- All hotkeys on macOS are different from the rest of the world (Windows, Linux) for no good reason and it makes switching between computers very difficult. And no, switching Cmd to Ctrl doesn’t solve it
- Rounded window corners make the first character on the bottom line of terminals unreadable
The whole point of the CTRL key is for control characters when using a terminal. The command key on Macs (and the subsequent key pairs) predates CTRL-Z/X/C/V by around 10 years - Larry Tesler, had conceived the notion while at PARC working on text editing for Alto, decided to use the sequence for the Lisa OS.
Originally, Windows followed the IBM CUA [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access] standard, which it still does to a great extent today - Pressing Alt will still activate the menu for instance. In this standard, the cut command was Shift+Del, Copy was Ctrl+Ins and paste was Shift+Ins; which I believe still work as of Windows 10. Microsoft introduced CTRL-Z/X/C/V in Windows 3.1, released in 1992.
In short, the keyboard shortcuts for undo/cut/copy/paste have been constant on the Mac since it’s inception 37 years ago. It’s been “standard” in the Windows world for 29 years
> - Windows has better Linux support than macOS (WSL gives better integration which means Docker is easier to use compared to Minikube via Hyperkit vm)
'bit of a duh, that.
> My biggest gripes with macOS, after decades of Windows and Linux: [...] macOS doesn’t have the crucial software I need: FAR Manager
...
FAR doesn't work on linux either, the unofficial linux port (of 2.0) advertises macOS support, and midnight commander works everywhere.
> - The window manager in macOS lacks basic features compared to Windows: no tiling, but Windows gets it out of the box with Win+arrows
BigSur added a tiling system, but it's really just a split-window fullscreen (so you can't have one half of the screen full and the rest mixed-purpose). Much easier to use a tiler like divvy or BetterSnapTool.
Then again I find windows' tiling just as useless as macos' though it's less prescriptive, I use PowerToys' FancyZones there.
> All hotkeys on macOS are different from the rest of the world (Windows, Linux) for no good reason
That's next-level dishonest. There are excellent reasons for it:
1. macos was first
2. macos has always dedicated its own modkey to system-level shortcuts
3. this also makes ctrl and opt (alt) much more regular and convenient
> - All hotkeys on macOS are different from the rest of the world (Windows, Linux) for no good reason and it makes switching between computers very difficult. And no, switching Cmd to Ctrl doesn’t solve it
There is a reason they’re different, and it’s because those are the shortcuts that macs have used since 1985. It would extremely upsetting to Mac userbase if all of the sudden shortcuts were wincloned.
I also think that most Mac shortcuts make more sense in the modern context; they’re nearly all mnemonic (e.g. Cmd+W to close a window and Cmd+Q to quit) whereas Windows shortcuts are more arbitrary and rooted in limitations of legacy platforms (Alt+F4 doesn’t mean anything to someone new to computers, for instance).
Any more example of arbitrary and limitations of shortcut keys on Windows except close window/application?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you switch tabs with ctrl+tab but close a tab with cmd+w on macOS. How is that not arbitrary and not based on a limitation on a legacy platform?
I dunno about limitations, but similarly F5 for refresh on Windows feels quite arbitrary compared to Cmd-R.
Ctrl-Tab at least builds on the concept of [modifier]-tab cycling tabs, and Cmd-W makes sense for closing browser tabs because there tabs are functionally the “windows” you’re working with most often.
When working with a bunch of tabs and cycling thru them and wanting to close some of them based on visual decision means that you have to move your hands much more on macOS than on PC, thus ergonomically bad.
Homer didn't need rich text to write the Trojan War. Neither did Shakespeare, nor Ovid for their writing. My emails are way less ambitioned and are fine written in poor text.
But, almost everyone does? Would you prefer all web articles to be strictly in plain text, same colour? No font changes between text and code, no colors for quotations, no indented multilevel bullet points? Basically, nothing that markdown can do. In your opinion, those things don’t improve ease of reading, right? What about syntax highlight in code - nobody needs that either, am I getting it right?
And how are emails any different from web articles? Both contain structured thoughts represented as structured text, both often contain code and quotations, lists and so on. Why special treatment?
Any closed community ends up as a cult, derangement reinforced through the circular patting on the backs. HN already got a bit of a loony reputation (for example, see the comment about being a think tank), and it’ll get even worse behind a paywall.
