Cool desktops don’t change

https://tylercipriani.com/blog/2022/06/15/choose-boring-desktop-technology/

by thcipriani • 4 years ago

534 479 4 years ago

tylercipriani.com

_dave2• 4 years ago

What's with the repost the day after you submitted it? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31761636

rbanffy4• 4 years ago

HN ignores dupes when the original got little traction.

_dave2• 4 years ago

Ah. Guess I still have some learning to do with how things work here a little differently than elsewhere.

arm• 4 years ago

It may not even necessarily be the submitter themselves that has resubmitted it — I’ve had posts I’ve submitted that have gotten low traction get resubmitted (not by me) hours later (but still with me listed as the submitter). Guessing it’s something the moderation team does when they feel a submission didn’t get enough traction the first time.

Edit: Never mind, I see that’s not the case here after looking at their submission history!

rbanffy4• 4 years ago

Shame on the OP. Emacs is 46 this year. As is vi (which is not Vim), but we all know Emacs is much better.

OTOH, ed is 3 years older (Wow! 3 years between ed and Emacs!), and I'm very happy I don't use it today.

agumonkey5• 4 years ago

I love ed unsarcastically.

rbanffy4• 4 years ago

After all, ed is the standard text editor.

alpaca128• 4 years ago

Interesting how you only see Vim as Vim but then treat all Emacs implementations as one unit. Emacs back then was probably very different from today's GNU Emacs too, considering it was originally just a set of macros for another editor.

rbanffy4• 4 years ago

GNU Emacs 1.0 was released in early 1985, making it 6 years “better” than Vim ;-). Multics Emacs is from 1978 and, as a standalone editor written in Lisp, it can be called an ancestor of GNU Emacs and hints towards what its most illustrious descendant would be. You are right in that there are many Emacsen, the same way there is more than one Unix.

gaws• 4 years ago

Shame on the OP. Emacs is 46 this year.

In the Vi user's mind, there is no Emacs.

PaulHoule3• 4 years ago

It's a running annoyance of Windows that they are always making small changes to the UI that don't really come across as an improvement or a deterioration but that force you to relearn things.

It really drove me crazy when I went from being a linux partisan for being responsible for quite a few different Windows machines and on a given day I could be working with anything from Win 98 to Win ME to Win NT to various editions of Win 2000 and XP and if you had to find something in the UI it would be slightly different in all of those which was a cognitive load. Contrast to to Linux where I did it all on the command line and it stayed the same in that time frame.

agumonkey5• 4 years ago

Surprisingly I find linux quite guilty of the neverending gui papercut too (it's a bazaar after all).

Sadly Microsoft is kinda forced to follow the trends, everything moves in all direction (web, phones).

PaulHoule3• 4 years ago

The first thing I do with a Linux install is uninstall X windows.

I remember being excited when I saw the first beta test of KDE but it seemed each version got a little bit worse after that and that's been the trajectory of the Linux desktop since 1995 or so.

VyseofArcadia2• 4 years ago

Sadly Microsoft is kinda forced to follow the trends, everything moves in all direction (web, phones).

Former Microsoftie here. While they are following trends, the actual impetus behind all the little changes you see all the time is that managers and ICs are incentivized to make "impactful" changes if they want good performance reviews. UI changes are a pretty easy way to have "impact". You can say something in your review like, "and X million users used the new taskbar that's in the middle of the screen".

eikenberry3• 4 years ago

You have your choice with Linux where you don't get a choice with proprietary OSes. If you build your desktop from parts you get to keep it as long as you like. I used the same desktop, mostly unchanged for 15 years on Linux without problem. It was basic, Openbox, gkrellm (later conky), xbindkeys, etc. Never had to worry about it changing as Openbox was basically done and the other parts were mostly done as well. Only had to mess with it when I wanted to.

Linux (and FLOSS in general) gives you the choice to have it the way you want it.

hyperman13• 4 years ago

The trick on windows is pressing win+r, opening the run dialog. One keycombo works in all windows versions. It takes a real command or exe, not some simplified shell abomination. After learning a few .msc filenames, you can quickly get around the old advanced config screens. Most common tools havent changed their names since win95, e.g cmd winword excel calc. In fact, I paste and recut one liners in it to strip them from their formatting.

Compare that with the start menu. I type something, and the chosen program changes every time. I type notepad++, it shows the correct program until I type the d, then decides I really want to open edge and search notepad++ on bing. Or it launches an uninstaller instead of the actual program.

Now one of these days ms is going to optimize the win+r experience, so have fun while it lasts.

dfxm12• 4 years ago

haha, I did a brief presentation talking about this exact keyboard shortcut (among others) and why it was so useful for Windows admins back in my college or high school computer club. The feedback I got was the presentation was dry, but useful, but that's keyboard shortcuts for you... :D

li2uR3ce2• 4 years ago

Most common tools havent changed their names since win95

The trick is to rely on decades of acquired arcane knowledge about .exe filenames. What a great UI!

Casteil• 4 years ago

Windows 11 had me feeling this quite a bit, particularly with settings and volume/network management.

They attempted to make the new Settings panel the 'HQ' for everything, but in the process really buried some things (for technical people) under numerous additional clicks/sub-menus, if it's even there at all anymore. I think they've been addressing the concerns with new updates, but I still find myself floundering sometimes.

hbn2• 4 years ago

There's a bunch of UI/UX regressions in Windows 11. Examples off the top of my head:

- After waking my computer from sleep, my last active window is not active any more. In fact, no window is active. I have to hit alt+tab to grab focus of the window again, or click the window (this probably wasn't caught because most people use their mouse for everything)

- There's new animations for the basic native Windows menus, including the Win+X menu I use for sleeping my computer, shutting down, etc. When you navigate to a sub-menu with the arrow keys, you have to wait for the animation of the sub-menu sliding out before you can interact with it. I've had to slow down my muscle memory to sleep my computer because otherwise I'll hit random other menu items cause the child menu didn't slide out fast enough to keep up with my inputs.

- I usually snap windows around with the Win+arrow keys shortcuts, but they added a new snap layout where sometimes when I do Win+up it brings the window to the top half of the screen. But that's also how you maximize a window, so I don't know how it decides which one it will do. In my experience it seems to be related to your key input speed.

- Sometimes I'll crop and resize images in Paint. They redid a bunch of the UI in Windows 11, and now when I use the resize menu, I can't hit enter to confirm the size I input. Again, seemingly this UI was only tested by people who use the mouse for everything.

keithnz• 4 years ago

one of the best things you can install is windows power toys, and PowerToys Run becomes your work horse to get to everything really easily. web search, calculator, file search, programs, services, find settings, find open windows, timezones, unit conversion, launch things as admin, etc

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/run and check the search commands / hotkeys

My start menu / win-r days / open a shell to execute some commands are pretty much all over now and I just use PowerToy Run

matsemann• 4 years ago

I actually reformatted my computer so that I could downgrade to W10, only because of the missing feature of being able to choose "never combine" on the taskbar. Why make a new taskbar and then make it worse?

Even after using W11 for a few months ("I will get used to it"), I still noticed everyday how I felt less productive and annoyed having to hover over the icon and try to find the correct window, vs just having them all laid out in the taskbar.

AceJohnny2• 4 years ago

I am reminded of a study where the hue of lights in a factory was changed, and the workers were reported happier and more productive. Then they changed it again (actually, to the original hue), and the workers reported being happier still and more productive!

So what lighting hue was best? Irrelevant, the important thing was that workers perceived that management was paying attention to their wellbeing.

I think something similar is happening in Windows (and Mac!) desktops, where they change small things "for productivity", and the majority of people will think it's an improvement, just because it's different.

Bt a small subset of us opinionated people will be upset that our carefully tuned habits are disrupted.

IfOnlyYouKnew• 4 years ago

It's possible to recognize that mechanism and not mind being affected by it. There is nothing wrong with experiencing joy based on 'just' cosmetic changes. Indeed it's a direct effect of what's called 'novelty-seeking' behavior, a character trait associated with lots of positive things for the person and society, and only a few drug habits and untimely deaths in non-FAA-approved aircraft.

Many of the possibly meaningless desktop changes are also meaningless in the sense that they won't affect any workflow, and are therefore benign.

hbn2• 4 years ago

they change small things "for productivity", and the majority of people will think it's an improvement

I feel like I've never talked to a person, techie or not, who didn't agree it was incredibly annoying to have UIs that they're used to change out under their feet.

Zababa2• 4 years ago

I am reminded of a study where the hue of lights in a factory was changed, and the workers were reported happier and more productive. Then they changed it again (actually, to the original hue), and the workers reported being happier still and more productive!
So what lighting hue was best? Irrelevant, the important thing was that workers perceived that management was paying attention to their wellbeing.

I doubt it would work if they changed the place of tools, the layout of the factory, stuff like that.

weikju• 4 years ago

Related, you just have to spend some time on various tech sites/forums to see that people will complain when something changes in an OS release, but even more so people will complain when the UI does NOT change "there's nothing new, boring" to paraphrase that whole second category... Not the same exact individuals of course, but there are loud voices clamoring for changes for change's sake (even if they don't know they are doing that).

limpbizkitfan• 4 years ago

The Lindy effect is horseshit. Things that are good tend to be old because of infant death.

There are plenty of old tools in consistent/present use that are cumbersome wrecks, too. Curating good things and calling them some buzzword is silly.

jrm43• 4 years ago

It's a heuristic, not a rule.

pdonis• 4 years ago

The Lindy effect is horseshit. Things that are good tend to be old because of infant death.

The Lindy effect doesn't say that the things that have been around a long time have to be good. It just says that their expected lifespan is longer.

There are plenty of old tools in consistent/present use

...that are examples of the Lindy effect even though they are cumbersome wrecks. The point is that they are still in consistent/present use.

superkuh2• 4 years ago

My strategy is to keep the software for a desktop computer stable and of it's era forever. If it gets so old that I'm having trouble compiling things because my glib and gcc are so old then I'll build an entirely new desktop with up to date OS and software. Then set it up and use it till it can't do new software again. This happens every 5 to 10 years. I never lose ability. I only gain it.

There are many things my 2010 era Core2Duo running Ubuntu 10.04 can do that my fancy new Ryzen desktop with Debian 11 can't and won't ever be able to do. Things I cannot give up because they're too important for my daily life.

And when Wayland finally happens? Well. I guess I’ll have no choice but to stop using computers forever ¯\_(ツ)_/

Wayland isn't going to happen. https://dudemanguy.github.io/blog/posts/2022-06-10-wayland-x...

cowtools• 4 years ago

Wayland doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to an improvement over Xorg, which is hampered by its complexity and reverse compatibility.

uecker2• 4 years ago

I do not think the criticism of Xorg is really correct. At its core, it is actually a nice and well-designed protocol. It is also rock-solid, works without any problem in all my configurations, and supports remote desktop.

lmm4• 4 years ago

Wayland doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to an improvement over Xorg

Agreed, but it shows no signs of ever achieving that. Yes, it has mixed DPI support, which is not nothing, but that doesn't generally make up for the areas where it doesn't have parity with Xorg and never intends to reach that parity. (Network transparency, screen recording, ...)

which is hampered by its complexity and reverse compatibility

Users don't care about technical elegance. If and when those things start causing user-visible issues with Xorg then Wayland might get a chance.

MarioMan• 4 years ago

There are many things my 2010 era Core2Duo running Ubuntu 10.04 can do that my fancy new Ryzen desktop with Debian 11 can't and won't ever be able to do. Things I cannot give up because they're too important for my daily life.

This has me curious: What sorts of tasks are you doing that only work on a machine like this? I love finding new things to do with old hardware, so I'm interested in your insights.

youngNed2• 4 years ago

i'm going to guess its a Thinkpad, x200? t410? maybe even an x61. People (myself included) still use those, not because they do anything more in particular, but they feel great to use, nicely weighted and a stunning[1] keyboard

[1]ymmv, but personally the keyboard on an x61 is perfection, the screen however is very very very far from perfection

dsr_• 4 years ago

Have you considered pulling your Ubuntu desktop into a VM running on the Ryzen? Let it transcend the mortal shell in which it was born.

robotresearcher• 4 years ago

Your now-immortal VM could run faster while using less power, even with the virtualization overhead.

ntoskrnl• 4 years ago

Most of the bigger distros have already switched to wayland. It's pretty much inevitable that the rest follow eventually.

https://www.ubuntubuzz.com/2021/10/distros-which-adopted-way...

w4rh4wk5• 4 years ago

Well, most distros also ship X and allow you to choose at login. I'd imagine quite a lot of people are still running X since there's always something that does not play nice with Wayland.

My favorite: drag-and-drop from file-roller into nautilus. [1]

[1] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/file-roller/-/issues/4

chupasaurus• 4 years ago

Laughed at pointing out the "switch" in Debian: GNOME lost it's position as a default DE there after the smooth as sandpaper transition to 3rd version, imo very relatable.

horsawlarway7• 4 years ago

lawl - wayland has already happened.

Also, and more seriously - I think I'm not going to take you at your word on this one:

I'd love to see a real example instead of this pithy line. My strong (STRONG) suspicion is that anything you can do on that old machine can be done on the new one just fine - although you might have to adjust a bit or learn a new tool, and that can be painful and annoying.

akagusu2• 4 years ago

Wayland is at best a work in progress.

And if you consider that they made Wayland default on GNOME to force adoption and users usually go to Internet seeking for advice on how to switch back to X11 on GNOME, we will probably wait a long time for Wayland happen.

superkuh2• 4 years ago

Here are 3 concrete examples of everyday tools with special abilities only feasibly installed natively on old linux distros.

1: I use text to speech a lot. For the last 20 years I've use Festival text to speech on linux. Specifically I've used Festival 1.96 because it has support for the best sounding voices, the enhanced Nitech HTS voices. No other voice set, not CMU arctic or any other, sounds as good. Modern distros don't package 1.96 and I can never get it to compile. Nitech HTS don't work in Festival 2.0. There's no other mature local linux text to speech software that sounds decent.

Every time I build a new computer I both survey the Festival 2.x voice sets and other linux TTS software, including any new weird stuff (like google tachotron, etc). I've never been able to replicate the functionality of my old linux install (or get Festival 1.96 compiled on a newer distro). I really would like the same functionality on a newer distro and I spend a lot of time searching and trying. So if you know an answer to this I'd love to hear about it (anyone).

2: It might be possible for me to get GNU Radio 3.6.5 installed on a newer distro but I laugh at the idea of getting all the out of tree modules from that era to compile on a modern distro. It's the norm for GNU Radio modules to be left behind and abilities lost with every minor version.

3: The Python 2.4 software imgSeek which indexes images and allows me to do MS Paintbrush style colored sketches to search for images.

hyperion2010• 4 years ago

I love the point in there that it isn't actually xorg vs wayland, it is xorg vs dbus. Wayland is so deficient that basically everything has to depend on dbus if it doesn't want to use X. This framing clarifies the issue substantially, because whatever people think about wayland, they might have some slightly different opinions about dbus.

rrix2• 4 years ago

slightly different opinions about dbus

Recently i updated my machine and it would fail to boot because NetworkManager-wait-online.service's invocation of `nm-online -s` would fail even when NM was connected, even when `nm-online` actual liveness check would succeed.

I spent hours reading NM code, wading through auto-generated GObject introspections and their XML bullshit to try to figure out why org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.startup was true, what the magic numbers in org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.Connection.Active.StateFlags meant, why my desktop wouldn't boot and couldn't even find what could could cause the state to change before I finally gave up and patched nm-wait-online to just invoke the codepath which did an actual liveness check rather than bumble through a bunch of dbus interfaces.

Gotta say I was missing the old KDE3 dcop after that... IPC is still such a PITA on linux.

stinkytaco3• 4 years ago

Wayland isn't going to happen.

I'd be very disappointed by this because I'm in a mixed DPI environment and I need its support.

Seriously though, I find hostility toward Wayland so weird. I could kind of understand it with systemd, but X seems perpetually stuck in 2005.

smoldesu2• 4 years ago

Seriously though, I find hostility toward Wayland so weird.

I think the hostility towards Wayland is pretty justified. It's a backdoor power-grab by the GNOME foundation and Red Hat, much like Flatpak, Libadwaita, and to a limited extent, systemd. I, like many others, am totally exhausted of GNOME trying to be the center of the desktop universe. Every couple years, they decide to redouble their development efforts on some useless, stopgap tool that ultimately ends up being underdeveloped and redundant. Making matters worse, they announce $PROGRAM to be the next big feature of Linux, and anyone who's refusing to embrace it is a luddite. In reality, most people can't switch to these alternatives because they're niche, and don't provide the same degree of functionality as their favorite Window Manager.

Furthermore, people don't hate the idea of something replacing X, people hate the fact that Wayland has been in development for more than a decade and is still considerably worse than Xorg with objectively less features and functionality. Adding insult to injury, a majority of these omissions are deliberately removed by the maintainers because the GNOME desktop doesn't need it, therefore everyone else doesn't. Take AppIndicator support, for example. Everyone has statusbar icons: Mac and Windows users alike deal with them daily. When developing Wayland though, AppIndicators were deliberately removed because GNOME didn't intend to use them. Worse yet, the maintainers refused to even support it in wlroots, their pittance of a cross-platform desktop library.

I could kind of understand it with systemd, but X seems perpetually stuck in 2005.

X is indeed terrible software, and it's functionality is stuck not just in 2005, but rather the mid-90s. I really hate Xorg, which makes it even more infuriating that Wayland:

a. Doesn't support my hardware

b. Doesn't support my desktop environment

c. Makes it harder for me to stream my display, take screengrabs, and use my webcam

d. Deliberately removed functionality that I use on a daily basis, forcing everyone adopting Wayland to write their own implementation of a basic feature.

If I didn't know any better, I'd accuse Wayland of being a project deliberately designed to sabotage desktop Linux. It's a project with less ambition than Quartz, and less hardware/software support than x11. It has a weaker security model than the compositor in MacOS, and manages to have less features than even the compositor in Windows. How is that closer to "the future" than a feature-complete desktop from 30 years ago?

The only truly excellent thing to come out of Wayland was PipeWire. But PipeWire works just fine on Xorg machines too, so I guess we're at an impasse. Wayland fractured the Linux desktop for good, there is no "way forward" anymore.

snerbles• 4 years ago

Seriously though, I find hostility toward Wayland so weird.

I felt the same way until I tried to get Chromium working without turning into a blurry pixelated XWayland mess. I still run Sway, but the hours I've spent pouring over smug "It's working as intended! X is soooo 2005 anyway" posts while troubleshooting my Wayland config has been absolutely infuriating.

I've also had to pause updates from Visual Studio Code, while they have contributed a lot to Wayland support in Electron they sure do break it with regularity.

deckard1• 4 years ago

people have been trying to replace X11 since I started using Linux around '96.

The Xorg we use today is miles ahead of the XFree86 days that I find it rather humorous people are still complaining. Sure, I can see from a dev point of view it still sucks to work with. But from a user point of view? It does everything I need it to, and more. I can run remote apps. I can run headless X (how I was doing headless Chrome way before anyone else). I can run multiple X servers on one machine and switch between them (one for multi-monitor productivity, and a second for single-monitor gaming since most games don't work great with multiple monitors). xrandr is a thing today. I can dynamically change just about anything on the fly. I haven't touched the Xorg config and modelines in about a decade now. Getting a GPU to work has never been easier. There is just insane flexibility in what you can actually do with X11 that the warts kind of just fade away.

li2uR3ce2• 4 years ago

Yeah it's kind of weird that people want things to work as well as they do in Xorg. While I completely understand that it works very well for you, the "for you" doesn't actually make it so for me.

While I understand that it's probably my fault for not discovering the same combination of software components and configuration that you did through brute force... Xorg no longer makes me do these sorts of things. Probably because it's not in a hurricane of development where every wheel is reimplemented monthly. You want people to switch to Wayland? Restart development on Xorg and introduce lots of breakage until it's just as much of a pain in the ass as Wayland.

I've tried it as recently as this year. The deal breaker? Toolbar popups in LibreOffice would not show. While I could submit bug reports to hundreds of different projects wait for them to be a duplicate of a closed won't-fix-not-our-bug-good-luck-figuring-out-who's-bug-it-is-becasue-they-sent-you-back-here, I just don't have the patience I used to have for that. I got to get something done. So, back to xorg until some update discards my preference and loads Wayland again.

Yeah, why should I be mad? Just be patient another 13 years for the pain points (which simultaneously don't exist) to get worked out.

ews• 4 years ago

My desktop has been Wayland/sway for years and years, and it's incredibly stable (I am using Arch btw)

philliphaydon6• 4 years ago

Unless you have an nvidia graphics card in which case you can't use Wayland, or if you need to do screen sharing, or have multiple monitors and want to do screen sharing.

saati• 4 years ago

What do you mean Wayland isn't going to happen, I've been using it without major problems for years.

bandrami5• 4 years ago

You and roughly one-fifth of the Linux desktop userbase. And good for you! I'm really glad it works for your use cases. But when people say "Wayland isn't going to happen" they mean that one-fifth is going to asymptotically approach two-fifths, maybe, over time. Until Wayland has the capabilities of X ca. 2008 it's not going to replace X in actual use.

darthrupert3• 4 years ago

Wayland is already here, and swaywm is the number one reason why I’m sticking with Linux instead of falling back to MacOS.

jl6• 4 years ago

Are you not a little worried about running such an old OS that no longer receives security updates? Is it airgapped/offline/isolated?

Zababa2• 4 years ago

The correlary to that is that unless you go out of your way to create a "cool" desktop for yourself, the desktop you use will change every few years, usually breaking your habits and becoming less and less usable. For example, I've been using Pop!_OS for a while. It has the terrible GNOME flaw that you can't see thumbnails in the filepicker, you can only see a preview of the image you currently select. Or you could, a few months ago. Ever since a relatively recent update, I can't even see the preview anymore. They made something that was bad for years even worse. Same thing with Windows. I can't find my ways in the new options or settings or whatever that is.

I'm trying to slowly move towards using software. I'm still relatively young, but I don't want to spend my whole life adjusting my habits to new random changes.

Etheryte• 4 years ago

The author makes a common statistical error in interpreting the Lindy effect. The Lindy effect proposes, simplified, that the longer something has been around, the longer it will probably stay around still. The author then makes a quick jump and posits that the opposite is also true, which it is not. Just because something has been around for a short time does not mean that its expected lifespan is somehow short. In other words, A implies B does not mean B implies A as well. All things that have been around for a long time had at one point only been around for a short time.

jinwoo68• 4 years ago

A "logical" error rather than a statistical one :)

zwieback3• 4 years ago

Very true but I think what's also implied in the article is that new tools (VS Code) that look very different from old tools (vi/emacs) will probably not last. So, if A is very old and B is very different from A then B is less likely to succeed.

I don't believe that, btw, just guessing at the mindset of the author.

horsawlarway7• 4 years ago

Even that's a fairly bad take.

Visual Studio Code is based on a much older line (visual studio) which dates back to 1997.

It's not nearly so new as it may seem, although I certainly appreciate the refresh from the older, more feature-filled (and feature slowed) visual studio proper.

Not to mention - most of the "new stuff" in visual studio code is really just a nice UI layer that's built using mature and incredibly battle tested tooling - HTML/CSS/JS.

jackpirate• 4 years ago

I believe you are incorrect. According to wikipedia:

The Lindy effect is a theorized phenomenon by which the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things, like a technology or an idea, is proportional to their current age.

This implies that things that have been around for a short period of time do in fact have a short expected lifespan. You're correct that "A implies B does not mean B implies A as well", but that assumption is not needed.

Eddy_Viscosity23• 4 years ago

I think the Lindy effect can work in reverse. Like if you had a collection 1000 things that are all just invented, then the likelihood would be only a small percentage of them will be around and in use in 50 years. Compared with a collection of 1000 things that have all be in use for 100 years, the percentage of them that will be around in 50 years will be much greater.

toss1• 4 years ago

Yup, it seems that this 'effect' is simply extrapolating from randomness and averages.

Take any random thing and random time (with zero knowledge of actual lifespan), and on average, you are in the middle of it's lifespan. Therefore, if Thing-A has existed for 28 years, it is likely to last for another 28, if Thing-B has existed for 6 years, it's likely to exist for another 6, and so on.

It may be somewhat informative for comparisons but not in real life.

You are hiking away from a disaster with all your possessions and life's savings in your backpack, and are now at a muddy riverbank needing to cross. You ask me how deep the river is and I tell you the average depth is 6 inches. That sounds great, but I have most definitely NOT told you that you'll be able to get across without finding a deep spot and having to drop your backpack to survive.

Using this effect to make judgements about product lifetime is similarly uninformative. It is a hint leading to only a possible inference, not data leading to a valid prediction.

PaulDavisThe1st3• 4 years ago

It's not reversible, inasmuch as your first statement is correct, but cannot identify the things that will be around.

skykooler2• 4 years ago

You can't apply it endlessly in reverse though. Say you have a piece of software that's been around for 25 years - assuming that it's halfway though its life is reasonable. If something was just released 25 minutes ago, assuming that it will be abandoned in another 25 minutes is preposterous, since products tend to have a minimum amount of time for which they stay relevant. You could use this argument to create an "ultraviolet catastrophe"[1] for the Lindy effect and argue that virtually all software should be abandoned microseconds after being released.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_catastrophe

feral10• 4 years ago

Disagree: even in your formulation, no 'quick jump' is needed.

Your statement A:"The longer something has been around, the longer it will be around" is not the opposite of B:"the shorter something has been around, the shorter it will be around".

Rather they mean the same thing. 'longer' and 'shorter' here are just English language ways of referring to the same time t that an object has been around.

If someone tells you "the longer a distance is, the more time it takes to walk it", that is exactly the same as "the shorter a distance is, the less time it takes to walk it"; there's no logical leap there.

I could conceive a rule that says "archeological artefacts are likely to be around for a long time" and it'd be a mistake to conclude that this means that non-archelogical artefacts will only be around for a short time.

But that doesn't seem to be how the Lindy effect is formulated, either on Wikipedia or on your post, so there doesn't seem to be an error in applying it to new things.

PaulDavisThe1st3• 4 years ago

The real meaning of the Lindy effect is:

   the more something has been continued to be around due to be continuously and repeatedly selected from a pool of similar other somethings, the longer it will likely continue to be so.

Because this is a statistical effect (longer lived things are drawn from a pool of things, some of which are not long lived), you cannot invert it trivially.

If there is no selection process, then the Lindy effect is either meaningless, or decomposes to an assertion that the current thing is the only way to do something.

jgtrosh• 4 years ago

The logical contrapositive to A is A' “if something dies off soon, there's a good chance it was a recent fad“. A makes sense, and A' makes equal sense, but B is claiming stuff about new tools for which we have no way of guessing the future.

867-5309• 4 years ago

If someone tells you "the longer a distance is, the more time it takes to walk it", that is exactly the same as "the shorter a distance is, the less time it takes to walk it"; there's no logical leap there.

that's comparing A->B with A->B. comparing A->B with B->A would yield "the less time a distance takes to walk, the shorter that distance must be"

remram5• 4 years ago

Your logic is wrong. You could go to the Wikipedia page for contraposition and learn about this, rather than arguing in comments.

To use your own example: You have to take a long time to walk a long distance. That doesn't mean you have to take a short time to walk a short distance.

Ygg24• 4 years ago

The statement is A=>B. A implies B e.g. long life, implies longer life remaining.

The moment you negate A, both positive B and negative B, satisfy implication.

I.e. you can't claim shorter life implies shorter life remaining. For that to hold you need equivalency, not implication.

Here is an example. Rain implies streets are wet.

Does no rain implies streets are dry? No. There could be a flood or street cleaning, or a pipe burst.

yowmamasita• 4 years ago

I remember a rule in audio speakers which sounds similar to Lindy effect: bad distortion (>=10%) are bad sounding speakers, but the opposite of that isn't true (e.g 0.001% distortion can still be a bad speaker)

blowski• 4 years ago

I’d never heard of the Lindy effect!

By the author’s logic, COBOL programs still in use today will long outlive Linux. That could even be true.

szundi• 4 years ago

These statements of "longer" and "shorter" actually refers to probabilities. So it makes sense to state when something is not "longer", then it is "shorter". So I disagree, OP's statements about the Lindy effect makes sense.

Also someone commented about COBOL. Of course no one thinks COBOL "is around", what also means statistics about usage. COBOL is declining and almost no one uses it anymore, so it is safe to say "it is almost not around".

tarboreus• 4 years ago

There are 220 billion lines of COBAL in production. Much of the most essential banking infrastructure in the world runs on COBAL, and is likely to indefinitely.

https://www.bmc.com/blogs/cobol-trends/#:~:text=According%20....

The only way we stop using COBAL in production this century is to have some kind of apocalypse, or maybe an apotheosis.

yarg3• 4 years ago

The Lindy effect states that the expected lifetime of a thing is proportional to its current age.

That includes the expectation that something young will be (on average) half way through its lifespan.

monkeybutton2• 4 years ago

Can it also apply to the time until an event which hasn't yet happened? Ie. a system you have never observed crashing before, has been running for T hours. So being on average half way through its lifespan, will probably run another T hours without incident.

Barrin92• 4 years ago

That's not right. The Lindy argument holds in that case as well, it's just a different version of the doomsday argument.

The basis for this kind of reasoning is essentially that, if you can assume that you are an 'average user' (and you don't have reason to believe you're especially late or early), the chance that your prediction about the longevity of the project is correct is most likely to be true if you 1/3 - 3x[1] the lifespan of the project currently.

That is because if say, you predicted VsCode existed a hundred times longer than it currently did, that prediction is only true if you are indeed among the first 1%. 99% of VsCode users making that prediction will be wrong.

[1]https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2VfpAbtj-yOq5gHhYIdgrAIdBuw=...

avindroth• 4 years ago

The Lindy effect proposes, simplified, that the longer something has been around, the longer it will probably stay around still.

I think there is a linguistic ambiguity here. What is meant by "the longer something has been around"? Longer with respect to what?

If you mean to say if A has been around longer than B, then A will stay around longer than B (in expectation), then this law is commutative with respect to A and B and what you specify as "opposite" holds.

If you mean to say if something has been around for t then it will stay around for some f(t) where f is an increasing function, then again what you specify as "opposite" holds.

madrox• 4 years ago

I don't think there's anything in the wording of the Lindy effect that means it's only a one way inference. It says the life expectancy of a thing is proportional to its age. That makes sense to me. If a product is going to die, it's likely to die fast. If a product sticks around five years, it's more likely it'll be around for ten more. It's why startups go under all the time, but you don't hear of a lot of 50 year old companies going out of business.

I think the error is interpreting these things literally. If we did, then if it were 1990 we'd say Windows wouldn't be see the next century. Probabilities are attached.

randal_handle• 4 years ago

The converse of "the longer something has been around, the longer it will probably stay around still" is "the longer something will probably stay around (in the future), the longer it will have already been around (from the past)." The change from longer to shorter is not a logical converse.

andrewchambers• 4 years ago

It just says visual studio is statistically more likely to die out - as most software does.

dwighttk• 4 years ago

But a lot more things have only ever been around for a short time. Only a few made it through that “having been around a short time”, stay around longer than expected, and become exceptions to the rule.

samatman2• 4 years ago

This is correct, let me take a crack at explaining why.

The Lindy effect is named after a restaurant, Lindy's, which ironically closed recently. If we were to take it as invertible, we would have to conclude that a brand-new restaurant, which opened an hour ago, is most likely to shut down one hour from now.

This is an obvious absurdity: if we wish to speculate on the longevity of new things, we can't use the Lindy effect to do so. It's a good heuristic for betting that something will continue, it's a bad heuristic for betting something won't.

bdowling• 4 years ago

... a brand-new restaurant, which opened an hour ago, is most likely to shut down one hour from now.

A new restaurant that opened one hour ago existed for months during its planning stages. That restaurant will probably not survive its first few months of business.

lm28469• 4 years ago

most likely to shut down one hour from now.

Yeah but in an hour it most likely shut down in two hours /s

I really don't get the whole argument over this definition, to me it sounds like a funny observation more than a law of the Universe.

osigurdson2• 4 years ago

Reading through the wiki page, the Lindy effect is not so much about the the restaurant itself. It was initially about a comic's ability to stay relevant by not having too many appearances then later seemingly co-opted by Mandelbrot and Taleb to mean what it does now. Lindy's law is a strange one for sure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect#cite_note-6

https://www.gwern.net/docs/statistics/1964-goldman.pdf

catherd• 4 years ago

Well, that was certainly a successful nerd-snipe.

Aeolun• 4 years ago

There are 1000 things that have been around for 1 year.

There are 10 things that have been around for 10 years.

I think it’s safe to say that there is less chance of any individual thing that’s 1 year old being around in 1 year than the things that have already survived for 10.

skybrian• 4 years ago

Well, yes, but that's the outside view, based on knowing very little. If you know more than just the age, often you can get better estimates.

ascar• 4 years ago

In other words, A implies B does not mean B implies A as well.

I think you wanted to write A implies B does not mean "not A" implies "not B" as well. B implies A would be: the longer something will probably stay around, the longer it already has been around.

hyperman13• 4 years ago

On linux, if you want a calculator, just type python.

marcosdumay• 4 years ago

And here I go again, recommending Qalculator and its CLI friend qalc.

Python is a lousy calculator, unless you want to program it.

hyperman13• 4 years ago

python is good enough for almost everything you throw at it, and is probably installed. qcalc might be better, but it is probably not installed.

Evidlo• 4 years ago

Octave is also nice as a calculator

markstos2• 4 years ago

I use Speedcrunch. Launches instantly, so not much time savings to use a CLI tool instead.

throwaway7422• 4 years ago

>> 1/3

Macha• 4 years ago

    $ python
    Python 3.10.5 (main, Jun  6 2022, 18:49:26) [GCC 12.1.0] on linux
    Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
    >>> 1/3
    0.3333333333333333

If you're going to keep using EOL versions, that's on you.

jjice• 4 years ago

Hmmm, I got

>> 1/3 0.3333333333333333

What version?

    $ python3 --version
    Python 3.9.9

I'd expect your result with `1//3`.

yellowapple• 4 years ago

I install Julia on my machines for this reason.

shiomiru• 4 years ago

I'm more of a javascript kind of person, so I prefer the qjscalc command from QuickJS.[1]

[1] https://bellard.org/quickjs/

asdff• 4 years ago

or just type bc

pram• 4 years ago

IMO he should be using Xaw or Motif applications, the stuff on his desktop is a little too new and pretty. Your desktop should at least be an authentic recreation of the late-80s. Not a convincing act for performative oldness.

dredmorbius9• 4 years ago

WindowMaker enters the chat.

xupybd• 4 years ago

I like this but find I'm more productive in Windows. For one reason Microsoft Office. I have to use to work with others and systems that rely on it. For years I struggled with work arounds. The amount of time and effort I wasted is insane.

xnacly2• 4 years ago

You could use google docs or libre office, both support offices proprietary file formats

zwieback3• 4 years ago

I've been using PCs since before GUIs so some of my habits are probably too crusty at this point. However, I don't really mind so much how the graphical shell changes, the command shell in Windows 11 feels like the MS-DOS of my youth, the Linux shell feels like the old HP-UX or Xenix shells from my youth so I can get all the basics done quickly.

Having said that, I do think that there's mostly improvement in our GUIs as well, bad ideas that crop up now and then usually disappear quickly.

jrm43• 4 years ago

Not enough attention is paid to the (perhaps now cargo-culting) cause of this mess, which is that we still have companies that do something like "selling operating systems." This is a stupid idea that should have died a long time ago.

13415• 4 years ago

I don't know, in the consumer market only Microsoft still sells an operating system but it's dirt cheap, you can get Windows licenses for a few bucks. The problem is perhaps rather that they don't sell operating systems and instead of building a good OS product sell their users' data or use the OS to lock costumers into their platform and hardware. There does not seem to be a competitive OS market at all (and probably there never was a healthy one to speak of).

jrm43• 4 years ago

Right, I'd argue that "Operating system as for-profit-product separable from the computer itself" should have never existed -- any more than e.g. "OS for cars." Bill Gates had a wonderful very awful idea. :)

dangus2• 4 years ago

Long-lived, stable tools are great things. However, it's also not great to be stuck in your ways and being unwilling to adapt.

The problem with most notetaking apps is editing text outside Vim breaks my brain.

I see this as an unwillingness to learn. I felt like the tone of the article was of the sort where I was just there to be told that I'm inferior for using a mouse.

Microsoft Word is actually an older program than vim (not older than vi), so obviously the author should switch to Word to take notes instead of vim.

horsawlarway7• 4 years ago

Also - as much as the Vim/Emacs folks love to bash on the mouse... it turns out a pointer is actually an incredibly good tool for doing most of the things you might want to do with one - like select some text, or change cursor position, or quickly and accurately select an item from a list of similar items.

Having grown up with a mouse playing fps/rts games, I don't really get the hate. A mouse is an excellent tool.

dredmorbius9• 4 years ago

On text selection and movement:

- Repositioning the cursor by incrementally searching for the word you want to move to is more accurate, quite fast (3-4 letters is virtually always sufficient to find the word in question), keeps you in the text / document "head", and leaves your hands on the keyboard.

- Yank (y) + movement (w for word, ) for sentence, } for paragraph, 'yi<modifier>' for copy within marks (quotes, braces, angle-brackets, parenthesis, etc.) is also amazingly fast.

- Visual mode can be used to select specific blocks of text where necessary.

- If I want to select specific fields from a file, I'll usually either use tools for that purpose (cut, sed, awk), or read in the entire file and edit it down from within vim. The tools-based approach means I can reproduce the task readily if I need to do it repeatedly.

And finally, where I'm dumping text from some GUI app to vim ... it's still usually easier, faster, less error-prone, and more reproducible to grab the entire screenful of text without specifically selecting what I want (e.g., C-A or Cmd-A (Mac)), and then trim to size within vim. Again, vim's tools permit working with text as text rather than with text as a GUI presentation.

I'm not saying I never use the mouse for text selection, but it is far less common than you might think, and much more cumbersome.

mustermannBB• 4 years ago

Agreed. I never understood this almost unnatural hate towards the mouse by some vim users.

mrob• 4 years ago

I agree. But on the other hand, I expect you're using a good mouse, configured exactly to your preferences, on your favorite mousing surface, and you have opinions about all these things. Somebody using whatever mouse was cheapest directly on their desk is unlikely to become competitive with an expert keyboard user, who can get away with a cheap rubber dome keyboard.

anthk3• 4 years ago

False on Emacs. A true Emacs user uses both schemes, the keyboard shortcuts and the mouse.

rubyist5eva2• 4 years ago

That's what I like about macos - no drastic changes in the 10+ years that I've been using it. They've added some stuff - some of it I've absorbed into my workflow, some of it I haven't and it stays out of my way.

horsawlarway7• 4 years ago

If this is a real opinion - I don't think you're doing very much with macOS.

Hell - just the KEXT changes break about 20 different things in my workflow.

honestly, as someone who uses a mix of all three major OSes (Windows/Linux/Mac), Mac has been the least pleasant dealing with upgrades - they make as many breaking changes as linux, and they have dogshite docs.

rubyist5eva2• 4 years ago

My machine only has kexts for Parallels (had? they switched to Virtualization Framework a while ago), and never had any issues as long as I was keeping Parallels up to date. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

markstos2• 4 years ago

Wayland is viable. Time to try Sway!

bravetraveler2• 4 years ago

I've been using Sway, very happy - just prepare to do a fair bit of fiddling :)

A quick tip, imitate this however you see fit -- setting `XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP`:

    $ cat ~/.config/environment.d/envvars.conf 
    XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP="${XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP:-sway}"

... so that `xdg-desktop-portal-wlr` can share your screen by knowing the environment you're in

For whatever reason this isn't set by Sway. This will only set it if another DE hasn't already

Arnavion• 4 years ago

~/.config/environment.d/envvars.conf

Set it by exec'ing from your sway config instead. Otherwise every session under your user will think it's running in sway, even if it isn't.

How to do that is explained in the xdpw wiki.

For whatever reason this isn't set by Sway.

It's because sway generally doesn't do any kind of integration with anything not related to Wayland, which in this case is systemd and dbus. It gives you the tools to do it yourself.

Distros that provide pre-configured packages of sway should ship such a config by default. Eg OpenSUSE has https://github.com/openSUSE/openSUSEway/blob/ee8fe750a843165... + https://github.com/openSUSE/openSUSEway/blob/ee8fe750a843165...

deadbunny2• 4 years ago

I was so close to switching from X/i3 to wayland/sway but I couldn't get drag and drop from Firefox to mpv to work. Maybe next reinstall.

jmclnx• 4 years ago

Well I have three older objects, Slackware, xterm and fvwm, but who's counting :)

muhammadusman• 4 years ago

I would love to see more guides on how to make vim more like a knowledge/mind notes app like Notion/Roam. I've been on and off looking for something like that.

wardedVibe• 4 years ago

Look into org-roam, which embeds roam in emacs org mode, and evil, which uses vim keybindings and modal editing in Emacs.

Doom emacs has extremely easy ways of installing both of these packages in the setup.

machrider• 4 years ago

I'm liking vimwiki, for what it's worth. It feels like a pretty small set of changes to vim that make the wiki stuff "just work", and otherwise it's my regular ass plaintext world that I love.

arnaudsm• 4 years ago

When Notion had a lot of outages in 2020, my entire 200-employee company stopped working hours at a time.

I didn't even notice, happily using my markdown notes.

Animats2• 4 years ago

And get off my lawn!

Counterexamples - technologies that lasted a long time, then hit a hard dead end.

- NTSC / PAL video.

- Audio on magnetic tape

- Video on magnetic tape

- Manual transmissions in cars

- Daily newspapers

- Mimeograph machines

- Asbestos

dento• 4 years ago

- Manual transmissions in cars

Only in US, in EU about 80% of new cars have manual transmission.

midasuni2• 4 years ago

In the U.K. in the 00s and before automatic cars were really rare. Surprisingly though the last 10 years they’ve increased in popularity and have overtaken manuals for new registrations

Not aware of any eu stats

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/analysis-are-man...

bsder• 4 years ago

This was driven by the cost of petrol rather than convenience.

An automatic transmission is a non-trivial amount of weight--especially on the small cars present in the EU--and affects gas mileage tremendously.

Driving a manual in heavy stop and go traffic, however, sucks rocks whether you are in LA or Palermo. You are continuously playing the "rolling game" in order to minimize stress on your clutch to avoid burning it up.

I presume these same forces will be the ones that cause the EU to switch to electric cars first.

bombcar3• 4 years ago

Either way they’re both going to be gone when everything is electric.

midasuni2• 4 years ago

I’ve used 4 of those in the last month, including two of them today

dredmorbius9• 4 years ago

Those are, respectively, transmission standards (1), storage media (2, 3, 4, 5), a power transmission mechanism (3), a data replication mechanism (6), and a material with various applications (7).

Of the set the two that come closest to being interfaces are 4 & 5, the daily newspaper and manual gearbox with its shift lever. In both cases, the actual interface component --- articles written by reporters and published by a specific organisation, and a rod through which a vehicle's drive mode is selected, are the parts least changed.

Even the mimeograph's function still remains, though in most cases it's either through a smartphone or tablet (which reproduces text ina mobile manner which can be shared with others) or a printer-copier of some sort, usually functioning on either a xerographic or wet-ink jet process. In the latter case, the output (print on paper) remains.

In the cases of video formats, audio and video storage media, and structural materials, the components of the end result (video streaming, on-demand audio and video playback, and various structural members and fabrics with specific properties) have changed, but their fundamental functions and perceived endpoints are ... largely ... what they were previously. Enough so that someone from an age in which the technologies you mention were in widespread use would recognise the current replacements.

Interfaces do tend to be exceedingly durable. In large part because they address not just mechanism, but human interactions. The former may change rapidly, the latter not so much.

ghusto• 4 years ago

Aaaargh, I can not help myself!

* NTSC / PAL video, and audio / video tapes

Better isn't always better. This is a philosophical point, so I'll just give the gist: I believe that advancing something, doesn't necessarily make things for the user better. For example, Netflix is by technical measure "better" than going all the way to a video shop with your friend, finding out they don't have what you really wanted, spending ages deciding on what to watch, going all the way back home, and sitting through the film in one sitting. Which experience did you prefer though, and more importantly, which one was better for you as a person?

* Manual transmissions in cars

What? I know in the U.S.A. most people drive automatic cars, but at least in Europe this isn't so. It's not because they're not available, it's just that nobody wants to drive them. Personally I find them boring and toyish, but I can't speak for the reasoning of others.

* Daily newspapers

There was _a lot_ wrong with newspapers back in the day. One huge thing they had going for them though (which nobody realised was even in question at the time) was that they were written by professional journalists, and they had standards. Now my "news" is given to me by half literate emotional reactionists.

majewsky• 4 years ago

Re examples 1 and 3: Your judgment does not change the fact that those are, as GP put it, "technologies that lasted a long time, then hit a hard dead end".

Findecanor• 4 years ago

News media hasn't deteriorated the same way everywhere.

I live in Europe and still get most of my daily news from the morning paper - a paper with professional journalists and correspondents with standards. The articles are also available on their (paywalled) web site, but I prefer traditional paper.

swayvil4• 4 years ago

I like my manual ford f150 1995. Might retire it for a cheap minimal electric someday.

qbasic_forever• 4 years ago

You won't find a manual transmission in any electric car, for better or worse. At best they would make some fake lever in the console that just tells the ECU 'hrm it looks like the driver wants more torque right now, and maybe play some engine rev noises on the stereo'.

RalfWausE• 4 years ago

Ahem... everything on your list is still very much around, maybe not that popular anymore (e.g. Asbestos) but still produced and used (even if in a niche)

pmarin• 4 years ago

-Manual transmissions in cars

As european I dissent.

swayvil4• 4 years ago

Debian with Mate. As familiar as the back of my hand. Dog simple. Can't recall the last time it broke (without me doing something dumb anyway).

(But "pluma"? "Caja"? Wtf names?)

And none of this "eternal improvements" bs. At least nothing visible in the ui or anything. For all intents and purposes it is evolutionarily flat. Which is exactly the way I like it.

(Except, maybe there is something cleverer than just slapping windows on top of each other willy nilly. I know there are alternatives. I have not been driven to explore there much.)

(Also, the Windows OS is flaming garbage. Possibly literally malicious. I don't know how they stay in business.)

Ygg24• 4 years ago

Also, the Windows OS is flaming garbage. Possibly literally malicious. I don't know how they stay in business.

You don't have to be best, just better than the alternative.

MacOS comes with specialized set of hardware. So good luck tailoring Mac, without it costing like an average Ferrari.

Linux is just worse for average user. Not average HN user, mind you. But people who struggle to figure out print screen.

I fought with Linux in the past. It's death by thousand gremlin bites.

Big part of that is lack of drivers, but there are also major fractures in the space: Gnome vs KDE, X.org vs Wayland, etc.

Eji17002• 4 years ago

I fought with Linux in the past. It's death by thousand gremlin bites.

My experience as well. I wanted to set up a small pi box that i could just keep with me and code on in my downtime. I of course could just use a laptop but this whole setup fit in a small stethoscope case and would get me more used to linux.

There's just SO many small things that don't quite work right, and the attitude of the userbase unfortunately tilts towards elitist if not downright hostile.

I still want to learn more and get better with it, but I spend enough of my time at work reading doc's and trying to debug, I don't love when my freetime feels almost the same.

anthk3• 4 years ago

Caja -> box in Spanish.

Pluma -> Stylo pen. It literally means feather, but you'd obviously guess why it persisted on that name.

AdmiralAsshat• 4 years ago

The KDE enthusiast would probably note that KDE was originally called the "Kool Desktop Environment". But even the most ardent KDE enthusiast wouldn't argue that it does not change.

noisy_boy2• 4 years ago

I used KDE many years go and then went the Gnome way in search of "cleanliness". Unfortunately Gnome went a bit too far in the same pursuit and I'm now back at KDE. The bulky KDE of yore is gone and Plasma is great!

lmm4• 4 years ago

That's why you stick with the Trinity Desktop Environment.

jeromenerf• 4 years ago

Haaa, the sweet comfort of having everything set up and humming. The sweet Debian stable way of nothing ever changing.

It may not last forever, as kids, or new jobs or new hobbies come to disrupt the harmony, so enjoy your sweet time.

swayvil4• 4 years ago

Why would it change?

The only reason I can see is if they outlaw general computing (including linux) and we're all stuck running Patriot Windows 3000.

And even then it's gonna be underground.

dredmorbius9• 4 years ago

jwz has a comment that addresses this:

Look, in the case of all other software, I believe strongly in "release early, release often". Hell, I damned near invented it. But I think history has proven that UI is different than software. The Firefox crew believe otherwise. Good for them, and we'll see.

HN-safe archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20120511115213/https://www.jwz.o...

Software performance improvements tend to come from hardware (Moore's Law, still-ish), and software algorithm (in the old-school sense of how information is actually processed) improvements. Leaning on the UI for massive performance enhancement is a bit like expecting order-of-magnitude income improvements by increasing your working hours. There's only so much time in a day, and there is only a limited rate at which humans can interact with digitised information --- generally text, images, video, audio, and data.

The Mother of All Demos was fifty years ago ... four years ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31676445

And yet, it incorporated very nearly all the basic human-computer interface principles still used today.

Apple's Macintosh has seen two principle variants of its desktop UI in the 38 years of its existence. And the second, OSX / Aqua, is now older than Mac Classic was when OSX was introduced by eight years. Apple are highly conservative in UI changes.

I'm not principally an Apple user, or fan. But for my desktop, I use an environment inspired by the Mac's predecessor, NeXT, namely Windowmaker. There's been very little development in years, but the product is stable, and still works even on retina-class displays. The fact that I don't have to go hunting down new interactions every few months or years is a tremendous advantage. And if you want, twm is still a serviceable window manager.

My own tools collection strongly resembles Cipriani's. Applications and tools learned decades ago still provide me regular use. I can do what I intended when I want without being buffetted by constant winds of change and shifting fashions. And quite frankly, it's awesome and a bit of a superpower.

NonNefarious• 4 years ago

This article proposes that the user set up (and remember) a bunch of alternative utilities that are no better, or at least no less laborious, than a Web search.

"I’ve combined XMonad and Chrome to get little floating web apps all over my desktop"

WTF, that is the last thing I'd want. The world (even the Mac world) has finally moved away from the asinine floating-window fad.

outworlder2• 4 years ago

Lindy effect predicts that Lisp will be running on our civilization's future Dyson sphere.

throwaway787544• 4 years ago

The best desktop is the one I can customize however I want, and then run anywhere, without jumping through hoops. If I can untar some config files in my home dir and install a couple binaries, and have my desktop just appear the way I want it, that is the best desktop. It's not only portable and easier to set up, it's more likely to be both backwards and forwards compatible.

If, on the other hand, a given desktop depends on some bizarro set of 20 different services, interfaces, libraries and apps which can only work in one way on one platform, and it's near-impossible to move the settings somewhere else, and most apps can't even use it, that desktop sucks.

I don't want a cool desktop, I want a desktop that doesn't suck.

leephillips• 4 years ago

I learned from this that there’s a Debian package that gives me definitions from the justly renowned 1913 Websters, and installed it right away! (The comment on the OA is correct: it’s `dict-gcide`. This is great.

eternityforest• 4 years ago

The Lindy effect is a predictive tool. Whether something is good or not is much more complicated.

For one thing, switching GUI tools has almost no cost, if that tool doesn't have a significant amount of non-ephemeral user content.

It may be different for people with a strong muscle memory, but I can switch calculators or dictionary apps at any time. Basic GUI apps aren't skills you learn, they're things you get vaguely familiar with, the discoverable UIs guide you even if you don't know what you're doing. The learning time is minutes to days at most.

If I have to learn a new app in 3 years, that's fine. It won't take me much more effort than it probably would to maintain the config for enough Vim plugins to get it to act somewhat like I want it to.

I could probably even switch away from something as big as LibreOffice without trouble, if they used the same file formats and actually gave a reason I might want to switch.

Plus, Android itself is still new, and for most things, Mobile is what really matters to me. Note taking is worthless if I can't access or write down the notes when I think of them or want to check them.

Perhaps if I was doing more advanced programming, more of my notes would be taken at a keyboard?

These simple old tools seem really use case specific. Like, speed of text editing is less critical if most of what you do is interact with modern frameworks, where things might change too fast and the projects might be too big to memorize, and you're relying much more on IDE features to help you, and spending 2x as much time researching as actually coding.

hax0rbana2• 4 years ago

gcide-dict doesn't exist in Debian (anymore?)

hax0rbana2• 4 years ago

The author's `spell` script doesn't work either. No suggestions appear, no definitions, and even entering "0" to get the original text does not copy the word to the clipboard despite the script claiming that is does. Tested on Debian 11.

ChuckMcM• 4 years ago

This is very true, you get more out of honing a small set of useful tools that continue to operate year after year, than you do chasing the next cool thing in UX.

sbf5013• 4 years ago

I've been using MWM and the same .mwmrc since AIX in 1991. Same palette, same decor, same .Xdefaults.

I've yet to see a GUI (FVWM, KDE, Gnome) that offers something X/Athena/Motif didn't nail 30+ years ago.

cyberpunk• 4 years ago

Got a screenie?

sbf5013• 4 years ago

https://imgur.com/a/pYKiP2Z

Instead of virtual desktops, I just start another VNC session because I don't like losing everything if one session goes down. macOS already has virtual desktops, so no need to reduplicate the effort.

burrows• 4 years ago

What does it even mean to say that vim is 30 years old? The vim program I use is compiled from source code that is completely different from the vim people used 5 or 10 or 20 years ago.

Symbiote• 4 years ago

'units' can also do currency conversions:

  $ units 100EUR USD
  * 105.88302
  / 0.0094443845

In which case it is useful to enable the service to update the exchange rates:

  sudo systemctl enable units-currency-update.timer

(or something like that...)

anthk3• 4 years ago

Emacs' calc too.

shadowofneptune3• 4 years ago

Interesting that the author singles out using a search engine as a calculator as a bad idea. I do use proper calculators sometimes, but what makes google attactive as one is that it can handle both unit conversions and natural language. "30 milliliters * 50 in ounces" is an example. It's surprisingly flexible in what it recognizes.

the_af• 4 years ago

I find myself siding with the author of TFA, even if I don't use the tools he uses, but...

... the search engine complaint strikes me as odd. For me, Google doesn't break my flow at all. I find myself searching the web all day long, as part of my job (and basically everything else, as well). My flow is searching the web a lot, typing some code, googling, typing some more, etc. So it's a completely natural extension of my flow to have Google do my calculations and unit conversion for me.

When people talk of futuristic scifi interfaces, they think some disembodied human voice (frequently female) complying with voice commands. But the reality is that Google is already here and I can have it convert between units, do calculations for me, even roll some dice! And I accomplish this just by typing natural language sentences!

Eji17002• 4 years ago

I literally have command line commands that search google and yt so that i can quickly pull up help on whatever my current issue is.

jchw10• 4 years ago

GNU units may be of interest here.

shadowofneptune3• 4 years ago

That's what the article would prefer people to use. Google though is usually already present when I am at a computer, its output is easier to read, and its input is more forgiving.

rawoke08360014• 4 years ago

Agreed: One thing I do wish Google-Forex-Conversion will do is to show the exchange rate "both ways"

Say I want to do ZAR (South African Rand) to USD, Google is quick to provide an answer, But somehow I always managed to mess up the order.

I say ZAR To USD in the search box, But I really want (and should have learn by now) is USD to ZAR.

bredren• 4 years ago

I saw a product someone had created to help preserve flow state. It let you record and play back your last programming work session so you could quickly pick up your prior context.

Anyone recognize this? I can't remember the name of this product.

njharman• 4 years ago

This is not an argument for unchanging tools. It's an argument for becoming a power user. Pick good, powerful, customizable tools. When they were made is immaterial. Learn them to expert level.

The "innovations" toolmakers try to push on you will almost never be worth the cost of losing all your knowledge, customization to your uses, and muscle memory.

qayxc• 4 years ago

I honestly fail to see how using a different terminal, typing "spell word", looking through a list of suggestions and then entering a number followed by another keypress to copy said word into the clipboard and finally pasting the the result where I actually want it - all providing I actually know and notice potential spelling mistakes - is in any way shape or form superior to a system that highlights spelling mistakes automatically and presents fixes with a single click.

Pick good, powerful, customizable tools.

In other words: know ahead of time what you need and how to achieve it efficiently. Discoverability on the command line is atrocious, which might be the reason it feels like such an achievement to finally learn that "tr" stands for "translate or delete characters" or how obscure command line options of grep or cut work to massage text files.

The "innovations" toolmakers try to push on you will almost never be worth the cost of losing all your knowledge, customization to your uses, and muscle memory.

One could just as well argue that the mental resources and time needed to acquire these specialised skills are better spent to solve actual problems as opposed to do the same thing over and over again manually (otherwise they won't become "muscle memory") using archaic tools designed for completely different systems.

There's another side to the story and I remember vividly that programmers in the late 1980s and early 1990s argued the exact same way when defending their continued use of assembly language versus high level languages.

jchw10• 4 years ago

Don’t fear the Wayland. Wait patiently for the pain points to be worked out, and then reap the reward of a smoother and more robust desktop.

I’ve been running SwayWM for multiple years and it’s been great. There’s not anything I’m aware of that I can’t do in wlroots compositors; I even have Zoom screenshare working on my work computer under SwayWM. Most stuff, like WebRTC, doesn’t even require manual tweaks; just need the right packages installed. And you get the typical Wayland benefits, like great support for heterogeneous DPI, reduced jank, and potentially better robustness. (Depends on compositor for now; but there is a path towards compositor crash recovery, which should make things far better.)

A comparable Wayland compositor to Xmonad will likely rise as a good successor in the future.

octoberfranklin• 4 years ago

Wait patiently for the pain points to be worked out

Efficient remote desktop. Won't happen, ever. Simply cannot happen.

Blits from offscreen to onscreen surfaces bypass the compositor, so it can't implement them as RDP commands and instead has to push the whole image across the pipe every time.

This is why xorgxrdp is so crazy fast and responsive compared to every single Wayland RDP server.

I use sway (a Wayland compositor) on all my machines. But all of my headless machines run xorgxrdp because there is nothing in the Wayland world that is even close. This is a fundamental problem with Wayland that cannot be fixed until there is a perspective change on the Wayland committees. Sending surface-to-surface-copy commands through the compositor clashes with their worldview, but without it we will never have decent remote display -- even (as they say) as "the task of a higher-layer protocol".

jchw10• 4 years ago

That’s fine, but applications that can efficiently do that are slowly disappearing in favor of direct hardware acceleration, with software rendered offscreen rendering as the fallback, so those days are quite numbered now.

That said, the best way to go in the future is probably going to be something more like waypipe.

edit: People seem skeptical, but…

GTK4: https://discourse.gnome.org/t/gtk4-efficiency-and-performanc...

Qt 5: https://forum.qt.io/topic/67371/x11-forwarding-slow-on-qt-5-...

Electron/Chromium: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/5243

Even my terminal emulator of choice; only fallback is software rendering.

Hope you can stomach video codecs, because that’s where we’re headed unless you stop updating your software.

Gigachad• 4 years ago

Been using Wayland for about 6 years now. I'm not sure X11 is ready for use yet. Every time I try it I get terrible screen tearing and can't set the DPI scaling correct for my second monitor. The trackpad also seems to work much worse for some reason.

lproven3• 4 years ago

Har de har har.

This is part of the thing that annoys me about Wayland boosterism: people complaining about the need to fix stuff I can't see, don't care about and honestly think does not matter to 80%+ of people.

Screen tearing? Never seen it. Don't care.

Different DPI on different monitors? Can be fixed on X. Works in Cinnamon. Also GNOME and KDE but I find them unusable.

HiDPI support? Don't care. Don't own a HD monitor. Don't use anything with a 3D card in it. It's for gamers AFAICS. I'm old and grumpy.

It works, there are games, Steam works on Linux now.

Trackpads? Oh, those toy things on cheap plastic laptops? Don't care. I use Thinkpads. I turn the toy pointer thing off.

For me, this all falls under:

Here's a nickel, kid, go buy yourself a console.

rawoke08360014• 4 years ago

Don’t fear the Wayland. Wait patiently for the pain points to be worked out, and then reap the reward of a smoother and more robust desktop.

I hear you, and I know there are good parts in Wayland (I just dont know them yet) but dammit, it feels like the Linux desktop has just in the last few years started to become "nice and stable" and predictable compatible with many things, and now we starting from scratch :(

jchw10• 4 years ago

Good news: we aren’t really.

When I first started using Linux, graphics drivers were mostly drivers for XFree86. Today, the modern Linux graphics stack with kms/drm is used by most drivers, and now Xorg can use kms+drm instead.

Same for input drivers… but now most people on Xorg are using libinput, which is what Wayland compositors use, too. Libinput handles your mouse, graphics tablet, touchpad, keyboard, etc.

Even Pipewire! When pulseaudio started, a huge obstacle was indeed just buggy audio drivers. Undoubtedly we still have those. But also, it’s a much better situation today than it was. Also, a lot of the ideas already existed in JACK, Pulse, etc.

So while a lot of stuff is indeed newer and still needing to mature, the typical Wayland desktop shares a lot in common with a modern Xorg setup thanks to gradual improvements.

rawoke08360014• 4 years ago

This Wayland Vs X11 reminds me of that saying:"The last of the old tech is usually better than the first of the new tech".

Sorta like how the state-of-the-art "Ox Cart" was probably better than the very first generation of an automobile.

I think we that is where the Wayland-vs-X11 currently is.

For what it's worth, I love my Ox Cart with years of patches and bells and whistle that I know just how to kick-and-push to make everything work, even those nvidia-drivers that came of course straight form hell !

akho• 4 years ago

Wayland has been around for 13 years now. That’s an eternity in software years. It still hasn’t caught up with X11 for many use-cases. There’s clearly some sort of problem (I suspect that it’s not a technical one).

mgraczyk• 4 years ago

I stole the calc bash function from Addy Osmani in 2012 and have used it daily since.

Do yourself a favor

  # ~/.bashrc
  function py {
    python3 -c "from math import *; print($*)"
  }

  $ py 3 + 3
  6
  $ py "sqrt(7)"
  2.6457513110645907 
  $ py pi / 5
  0.6283185307179586

mixmastamyk5• 4 years ago

This is very neat at the CLI. However I always keep a terminal tab/pane with ptpython open. Add math, os, sys, datetime, work libs, etc. to your startup file (see below). With pip, it’s incredible.

https://www.assertnotmagic.com/2018/06/30/python-startup-fil...

LanceH• 4 years ago

I write out calculations in an emacs lisp buffer. This lets me adjust them, correct typos, or save the whole thing.

noisy_boy2• 4 years ago

I often forget to quote * which results in multiplications not working when done using the function approach mentioned above. No such issues with the startup approach. Plus I can store the results in variables and play with them (anything more complicated is more suited for LibreOffice Calc).

ImprovedSilence• 4 years ago

why not just use bc -l ?

remram5• 4 years ago

(not OP, but I have a similar shortcut)

Mostly because I am familiar with Python and I don't want to learn the syntax for the advanced expressions I will seldom use. c() s() etc instead of cos() sin() is not too bad, but if I have to do a specific rounding/truncation/modulo, I probably know how to do it in Python and I definitely don't know how to do it in bc syntax.

Of course a similar shortcut can be defined for your language of choice, if that's JavaScript/Ruby/R/... then you probably want to use that.

kretaceous• 4 years ago

I have a similar one!

    m () {
       node -p "$*"
    }

Not as elegant because it doesn't import all the Math functions but serves me for small calculations!

tmlb• 4 years ago

I suppose I'm hedging my bets by using vim in VSCode.

Multicomp4• 4 years ago

I find the vimmaxxing message common enough but I disagree with it.

Not because vim vs nano vs emacs etc. Just that plain text is not enough.

I want to be able to encode more of my memory and context to my notes with a minimum of fuss, and therefore want to embed images (gasp!), tables, hyperlinks, and even file or sound embeds in my documents.

Yes, open simple file formats are better than closed complex formats (and doing text vs binary formats has something to say for it as well).

No, I don't like that Onenote's .ONE file specification is super complex and therefore only semi-open.

But I'm not about to lock myself into a DEC dumb terminals 80x24 limitations where I have to learn some greybeard's key bindings for everything, all for the privilege of losing all my ability to embed multimedia combined with said gatekeepers tut-tutting me that I should just make a link in my terminal to the local image file, nevermind that you can't copy/paste an image into a bash terminal and have the file be saved to that directory (ok it probably exists but is some obscure something).

So I watch Xournal++ very closely, specifically [this issue](https://github.com/xournalpp/xournalpp/issues/937) because it will have the total package, multimedia embeds, ink support, text support, file embeds, all in one file that I can syncthing save to wherever else I like.

But until then? Onenote desktop, sorry but not that sorry.

mixmastamyk5• 4 years ago

Terminals have improved a lot since the dumb. Think your comment would do better without the slight. However, I use CUA keybindings myself.

retrocryptid5• 4 years ago

or you could use xterm's vt240 mode (from 1989 or so) and use emacs or vim extensions that embed sixel data in text files. just because you didn't read the manual doesn't mean it can't be done.

yCombLinks• 4 years ago

There's a million things with manuals to read. I would rather grab something that just works in an obvious way.

pxc3• 4 years ago

I want to be able to encode more of my memory and context to my notes with a minimum of fuss, and therefore want to embed images (gasp!), tables, hyperlinks, and even file or sound embeds in my documents.

I do this stuff with my notes in Emacs and it's really nice. Emacs is a graphical application and its notetaking facilities are really outstanding. It even supports syntax highlighted, executable, exportable code snippets, as well as all the basic text formatting, hyperlinks, tables of contents, tables, etc. It's a great tool for developers and sysadmins to use for notetaking.

If you know Emacs isn't for you, that's totally fine, but I wanted to throw this out there for bystanders that when someone suggests to build your notetaking workflow around a great text editor, the proposition is not at all to somehow confine oneself to an 1980s terminal.

nextos• 4 years ago

Same here. I use Emacs to write tons of notes. I rely heavily on tables, hyperlinks, timestamps and tags. Images are also possible, just not part of my workflow. All this is trivial, out of the box and I know it will still work many years down the road.

Even custom hyperlinks and text notes that refer to chunks inside PDFs are easy to do.

radarsat1• 4 years ago

As far as I can tell, embedding images into org documents still requires saving them to a directory and linking them. I can't seem to find a way to get it to actually embed the image data into the document, for example like a base64 data URL or something.

rawoke08360014• 4 years ago

I want to be able to encode more of my memory and context to my notes with a minimum of fuss, and therefore want to embed images (gasp!), tables, hyperlinks, and even file or sound embeds in my documents.

Yea, you will get a lot of Emacs and Emacs with Org mode answers here. To be fair they not wrong :) As a complete emacs newb, start with something like "doom emacs" ! It's brilliant for beginners.

Emacs is a graphical application

Too few ppl know this.

Siira4• 4 years ago

I have images, audio, and backlinks using UUIDs in my terminal emacs. The image support is the worst, as I have to open the image and then it takes over the screen until I dismiss it, but it’s usable.

metadat• 4 years ago

CUA bindings, for the initiated (like me!):

https://wiki.c2.com/?CommonUserAccess

jjoonathan3• 4 years ago

Agreed 100%. My core workflow is "snap a picture, draw on it." I deal with hardware, and the bandwidth with which this lets me get physical information into the computer is so far beyond any Markdown-based workflow that I can't go back. I suspect this result would hold for many non-software professions.

For now, I've settled on GoodNotes because it's good enough at PDF Backup, OCR Search, and drawing. I have given solid tries to Evernote, ZoomNotes, Concepts, and Notion, and they each are amazingly better than GoodNotes in at least one major respect, sometimes multiple, but none of them are good enough on those zero-compromise requirements and GoodNotes is. FWIW.

EDIT: Oh, while I'm flamebaiting, I also use my ipad camera to take pictures of screens. Life is too short to schlep screenshots between computers, especially the ancient ones that run scientific equipment (lots of 68000, XP on some recent ones). Printer emulators and java applets can get bent. Runs everywhere, my ass. Moore's Law has given us gigahertz and megapixels, and if I can use them to eliminate painful asinine pointless busywork that's my god-given right and nobody is going to convince me otherwise. Sometimes I even use my ipad camera to take a screenshot of something on my PC and toss it into the mix. Sue me.

spiderfarmer• 4 years ago

Shift+CMD+5, adjust rectangle, CMD+C

Paste on your iPad

Clipboards are synced through iCloud.

momojo• 4 years ago

I want to be able to encode more of my memory and context to my notes with a minimum of fuss, and therefore want to embed images (gasp!), tables, hyperlinks, and even file or sound embeds in my documents

I swear I'm not shilling for Google Keep, but I've found myself using it more and more over the last couple of years; it hits a sweet spot between "limited enough that I don't get distracted" and "advanced enough that I can still express myself".

The biggest praise is its ubiquity. It's just there when I need it. Interesting article + my in-the-moment thoughts? Google Keep-ed. Want to add a reflection at the end of the day with a picture? Google Keep-ed. Need to remember an address in the car? Toss it in the Keep and open it on my phone.

popcube• 4 years ago

notion/joplin or another note software

usrbinbash2• 4 years ago

and therefore want to embed images (gasp!), tables, hyperlinks, and even file or sound embeds in my documents.

And exactly which one of them can't I do in asciidoc?

Arcanum-XIII• 4 years ago

I guess he means in a wysiwyg way. That's all fun and game till you have to open a different editor for multimedia stuff, render the document and update it "blindly" in the source so everything works...

suzzer99• 4 years ago

iOS notes has changed my life. It's available on my work Mac, home Mac, and iPhone, and is always synced. It has everything I need and nothing more.

withinboredom2• 4 years ago

I stopped using it when I needed to work in Windows. I use InkDrop these days which is cross-platform.

JohnBooty2• 4 years ago

I like Bear.app (MacOS, iOS, iPadOS) even better. Specifically, I love that it's Markdown-based and has support for code blocks with syntax highlighting. Only problem is that it uses iCloud Drive for syncing and my employer has blocked that. :-/

I agree with you, though: Notes is really quite good. I'm not sure how Notes syncs, exactly, but for whatever reason it's not blocked by my employer.

spyke112• 4 years ago

Worth mentioning that it's also available on web at icloud.com. I don't have a mac, but have an iPhone and iPad, and i love the Notes app for quick things and lists that I want to remember - and it's accessible from anywhere.

i2shar• 4 years ago

Yes, same experience, but I wish there was code formatting in Notes. A lot of my notes are code snippets and Notes fails there. I've recently switched to Obsidian with the iCloud drive backup and trying to get used to it.

pantulis2• 4 years ago

Beware: there is not an easy migration path out of Apple Notes.

Also sync is not that great for massive datasets: I tried to sync my 22k-ish Evernote notes to Apple Notes and it took days and I never got the same number of notes on all the different devices. If you are currently building your notes you will probably not encounter this issue, though.

nicbou• 4 years ago

Notability will pop your block off

DysodiumRecut• 4 years ago

I totally agree with you. One Note is fantastic and I would like to use it but not being able to open the notes in linux makes me avoid it. Do you know if there is a way of opening One Note notes in Linux without using the webapp? (I don't even need to edit them!)

In the meantime, I'm using stylyslab write [0] which uses svgz and is a good replacement for OneNote and a compromise I'm willing to make to not be locked in but tbh the OneNote app is just so much better.

[0] http://styluslabs.com/

Multicomp4• 4 years ago

You are correct, I have write3 installed on my phone and need to use it on the desktop too for that same reason.

I keep having dreams of making a linuxnote for OneNote files since the file format is technically open specs, but as they are super complex and I've barely opened a hex editor before I just don't know what I'm doing enough to actually try parsing the bytes of an arbitrary file yet.

dirkc2• 4 years ago

Rough, hand-drawn diagrams and spreadsheets are where my text-based note taking system falls apart.

dotancohen2• 4 years ago

Org mode has a table feature that does most of what I'd do in a spreadsheet anyway.

https://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/org-spreadsheet-intro...

kzrdude• 4 years ago

I guess the tweet about it is a joke but funny though. It says even use Vim for tweets, but then it also says sent using IPhone.

rscho• 4 years ago

I want to be able to encode more of my memory and context to my notes with a minimum of fuss, and therefore want to embed images (gasp!), tables, hyperlinks, and even file or sound embeds in my documents.

On my scale of highly upvoted uninformed opinion, this ranks high up there, next to Bill Gates microchip vaccines...

oblio• 4 years ago

On my scale of highly upvoted uninformed opinion, this ranks high up there, next to Bill Gates microchip vaccines...

Is this comment auto-generated? What do you mean?

neurostimulant• 4 years ago

What about running wordpress locally instead? It does sounds like suitable for your needs. A single docker-compose.yml is all it takes.

dgb23• 4 years ago

Sounds like HTML to me, or at least the output of it.

hoseja• 4 years ago

Sounds like TempleOS is the choice for you!

joe8756438• 4 years ago

I wrote a library to parse plain text notes, sowhat [0] that delivers a lot of semantic and structural information. Notes for me solve lots of problems in my routine that wouldnt work with a markdown implementation: tasks, budgets, time management, reading lists, work log, simple calculations that operate on the global notes environment, etc.

Sowhat handles transactional data well, you could implement double-entry for example with relative ease. Other things include: links, events, quotes, tasks, formulas and a few organizational elements. I combine these elements in different ways depending on the problem.

[0] https://github.com/tatatap-com/sowhat

bee_rider3• 4 years ago

Does calc do something neat that

bc -l

is missing?

It is a funny omission in an article about using old programs -- it is arguably older than vi (not vim).

badkarma1963• 4 years ago

You can do a lot of this in Spotlight

motohagiography2• 4 years ago

I have always done everything in vi, and it will likely be around in another 30 years. Just recently got an ubuntu laptop after being on macbooks since probably 2006 - and FreeBSD on latops from their first laptop distros in the 90s to then. I can't believe how much I missed a *nix environment, I had forgotten. It's actually beautiful to see it now. Strange to say it, but using a *nix laptop again makes me feel like myself in a way I hadn't felt in a long time. There's something intrinsically hopeful about using linux as your primary environment. As though it's part of the real internet that is still there.

Anyway I actually found myself looking around at Enlightenment as a desktop environment just to see if I could get that old HR Giger theme going again. My .fvwmrc from those days has to be around somewhere as well. Some of these tools don't so much become obsolete as converge on an essential form. Not old, perfect.

jen203• 4 years ago

macOS is literally a certified UNIX, so I have no idea what could conceivably make it not a "*nix".

motohagiography2• 4 years ago

I use macOS because it is unix and nominally BSD-like in the sense it has bash and a package manager. However, I'd argue we use macOS to manage things, but working with a FOSS OS comes with a feeling of particpation. A bit handwavy and fuzzy, but trying to articulate the appeal.

rawoke08360014• 4 years ago

. It's actually beautiful to see it now. Strange to say it, but using a *nix laptop again makes me feel like myself in a way I hadn't felt in a long time. There's something intrinsically hopeful about using linux as your primary environment. As though it's part of the real internet that is still there.

I too enjoy Linux Desktops and MDMA :D (/s /s /s)

ruuda• 4 years ago

The Gnome desktop environment must be uncool then, it changes its looks and the location of its buttons every six months.

3np• 4 years ago

On the topic of tiling window managers, has anyone been using Qtile on Wayland extensively? Can't seem to get used to the i3/sway flow and Qtile looks promising in having a very flexible tiling model and being easy to customize, while working across X11 and Wayland.

This talk is from 2011 so that should hopefully make it pass the Lindy threshold ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_8om4dsEmw

EDIT: Wayland support seems to be on the way but there are some outstandings: https://github.com/qtile/qtile/discussions/2409

vivab0rg2• 4 years ago

Nice to see Qtile on Wayland. But I'm personally waiting for xmonad on Wayland.

https://github.com/waymonad/waymonad

squarefoot• 4 years ago

Another candidate to his list in place of the calc script is bc, which conveniently is 46 years old:)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bc_(programming_language)

I use it also for the most trivial stuff and is way more immediate than firing up any X based graphical calculator.

xnacly2• 4 years ago

I use the build in math command in fish[0] on a daily basis. Its always faster and way more comfortable to just type an equation in instead of waiting for a gui calculator and possibly clicking operators together. Id say for such tasks cli tools always win at the end in terms of user experience and speed.

0. https://fishshell.com/

j7ake• 4 years ago

What if you want to take notes that are not just text ?

Diagrams, photos, images, equations.

How do you vim your way out of that?

If they are going to use Lindy arguments on note taking, then it should be pen and paper.

If you still want to se technology, then use pen and paper to take notes then take a photo of the page afterwards.

suction• 4 years ago

The author is just another young guy trying to get attention - but not realizing that there's a big world out there and not everybody works the same job with the same workflows as he and the people in his bubble do.

11235813213455• 4 years ago

as calculator `node -p "15*15"` works well too

wink• 4 years ago

If nothing ever changed I would probably still be using awesome. But some new distro version (maybe it was Ubuntu 10.04?) broke something (not blaming Ubuntu, could as well just be a new awesome version that wasn't backwards compatible) and I snagged a coworker's xmonad config. That xmonad config is still running on my x220 (funny, yes, it's also been 10 years) and has lived through quite a few Debian upgrades, but this time I did invest some time to keep it running every few years. But that's just my travel laptop - on the machines I use productively I've been using i3 for... not sure, probably 7 years? And I think it was again some non-working/incompatible xmonad in the distro I was using at the time (or after getting a new laptop)

So not sure if 3 different tiling WMs in 12 years is now good or bad, but apparently I'm open to some change after all, but usually only if pushed.

vivab0rg2• 4 years ago

You should try spectrwm, a "fork" of xmonad not written in Haskell. It effectively replaced i3wm on all my laptops.

sclangdon• 4 years ago

I don't really understand this idea of never taking your hands off the keyboard. Maybe people program differently to me, but most of the time I'm not typing anything. Most of my time is spent thinking. When my thoughts are clear and the problem is solved, then I type. And when I do, it's usually no more than a dozen lines at a time.

I get the impression from these people that they are constantly typing things. In fact, they're typing so much that they can't possibly waste valuable seconds using a mouse. I must be misunderstanding what they mean because that just can't be right.

And what's with the "you can achieve the same thing faster, without breaking your concentration" in regard to using a spell-checker or a calculator or whatever. Are you being serious? I can achieve the same thing faster? I mean how long do you think it takes to check the spelling of a word? Even if I must look it up in a physical dictionary, how long are we talking here?

Guys, seriously, slow down. You're going to burn out. I don't want to judge because I don't know you. Maybe you're a rockstar, but I'd guess that if you're really going this fast, the quality of your code is suffering.

vector_spaces• 4 years ago

I am similar to you with regard to process and how much I output at a time, but in my case having to fuss with the mouse a whole bunch makes it that much easier for me to lose my train of thought.

That said, I don't optimize heavily against this the way some folks do. I use emacs and org-mode and GNOME (well, whatever the System76 folks are calling their reskinned GNOME desktop :)) which I think provide a nice balance. Emacs lets me switch between files with a couple keystrokes rather than having to dig through 10 tabs, and GNOME I think encourages an alt-tab based workflow. I still use the mouse for most other things though.

aidos• 4 years ago

If you’re thinking, you don’t even need to be at the computer.

I can’t speak for others, but I keep my hands on the keyboard a lot of the time because I’m reading. As a (neo)vim geek, the key is to be really good at moving through the code. Being able to jump from where you are to where you want to be in a file far away without stopping allows you to read the code in a more linear way than it’s written.

jraph• 4 years ago

It's also about doing less movement with the arm. I just got a big screen and my desire to avoid the mouse just increased a lot (increasing the cursor speed mitigates this a bit however). An external keyboard (that has a numpad) may force you to spread the arm a bit more than what is ideal.

It's also less cognitive load when the keyboard shortcuts are internalized. This may be worth it for operations you do a lot.

Even if I must look it up in a physical dictionary, how long are we talking here?

This, however, takes an infinite time.

boudin• 4 years ago

It's not really about speed, it's more about preferences. I'm a keyboard type of guy, I just find using a keyboard nicer, that's it. I don't like having to move windows around with a mouse, I find the keyboard experience better. Same with scrolling, I find using up and down keys much nicer than a wheel as well. It doesn't mean that one way is the right way and the other is wrong, it's like taste I guess.

alexalx666• 4 years ago

Magic Mouse continuous scroll experience was a game changer, if I had to go back to basic mice I would prefer keyboard for everything

tbiehn• 4 years ago

The whole thing actually goes back to smoking weed. The ‘no mouse ethos’ goes at least as far back as the ratpoison window manager and this historic post: https://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/inspiration.html Tiling window managers, living in terminals, vi, that Firefox with vi keybinding - all part of this THC cult. I recall some other ideologically foundational work where the author talked about being able to work one handed with this type of setup, in this case I think performance is taking a back seat to joint-smoking ergonomics.

rewgs• 4 years ago

Did you miss the part in the link you posted where he says that he’s joking?

blackbear_• 4 years ago

In fact, they're typing so much that they can't possibly waste valuable seconds using a mouse. I must be misunderstanding what they mean because that just can't be right.

Yes, you are misunderstanding. First, it's not only about typing but it's generally about doing whatever you are trying to do without unnecessary delays, including navigation between functions, files, windows, etc. Second, it's not just about saving seconds here and there: the end goal is to stay in the flow state, avoiding unnecessary interruptions and context switches. Every time you reach for the mouse and move the cursor or scroll a document you stop thinking at the problem at hand because you're focusing on the motion, and when you're done with the mouse you waste mental energy resuming your previous train of thought, maybe even forgetting something.

Even if I must look it up in a physical dictionary, how long are we talking here?

This is actually a good example because it seriously disrupts your thinking by forcing you to pause for some seconds and completely focus on something else. I am sure proof-reading a long document in this way is much more mentally exhausting (and slower, but again speed is not the point).

Bost• 4 years ago

Every time you reach for the mouse and move the cursor or scroll a document you stop thinking at the problem at hand because [...]

... because I have well over 200 of own keybindings in my spacemacs dotfile already and quite a few of them don't do what I need in some particular situation or some underlying package got broken or, or, or...

you're focusing on the motion, and when you're done with the mouse you waste mental energy resuming your previous train of thought, maybe even forgetting something.

That's because it's already half past 3 p.m and except having two or three coffees, I haven't eaten anything yet.

Besides, I highly doubt if I don't get any Nobel- or Turing-Award it's because I don't keep my fingers on the home row.

marssaxman2• 4 years ago

Your experience is very different from mine!

Using a mouse does not distract me at all. I don't think about it, consciously, any more than I think about the motions my fingers make as I operate the keyboard. I'm not thinking about the tools, I'm thinking about what I'm doing through the tools; my hands move automatically.

I suppose it is like learning a musical instrument. At first you have to learn how to operate the instrument, practicing the motions to build up muscle memory. Then you start learning to play notes through the instrument. Eventually you stop thinking about the instrument, or the notes, because all that has become habit, and you just think about the music you are making; the instrument feels like an extension of your body.

If you have had a long-standing preference to use only the keyboard, and not the mouse, perhaps the mouse feels distracting for you because it is not part of the instrument you have learned to play. Of course this could be a self-perpetuating tendency.

marssaxman2• 4 years ago

I have long wondered the same. What are people doing which makes them so concerned with the efficiency of their editors? I spend the great majority of my work time reading and thinking. When it seems that solving a problem will require me to change a great deal of code, that's generally a sign that I haven't done enough thinking yet. On the rare occasion that I do need to write a lot of new code at once, it's not that big a deal to just... type it out!

I have had a few co-workers who seemed to spend a great deal of time typing, but I have not generally been impressed with the quality of their work. In fact, the most incompetent developer I have ever met, an enthusiastic proponent of his favorite editor and its automation features, was also the most prolific, routinely churning out hundreds or even thousands of lines of awful, bloated, bug-ridden code a day.

The field of software development is large and varied, so of course it is possible that there are competent people doing solid work which really does involve a tremendous amount of fiddly editing, thereby justifying the otherwise inexplicable degree of attention given to sophisticated editors; but I cannot imagine what their working lives are like, and I hope I never have to find out.

rawoke08360014• 4 years ago

Subject + Article aside. I love how personal and passionate we all are about our desktops / workflows.

Lol we up to 330+ comments and we talking mostly the correct way to edit text files and where/how those windows should live and behave etc.

Of course i3 + 'doom emacs' is the correct answer but happy to continue to hear all the other options, even if they are all wrong /s :P

forgotmypw17• 4 years ago

Cool desktops don't change without the user's consent.

It's why I left first Windows and then Mac.

My computer is my workstation, and I don't want anything changed without me asking.

With FOSS, that's what I get. With Win/Mac, I was at the mercy of the landlords.

Still miss how keyboard-accessible early Windows was out of the box, however.

ricardobayes• 4 years ago

It bogs the mind out of 7 billion people only one single company is capable of building both aesthetically pleasing and well-functioning laptops (Apple that is). I wish Lenovo (or someone else) did the right thing and built a Thinkpad-like heavy duty bento box machine with modern internals.

aembleton• 4 years ago

I have a Macbook for work and a personal Xiaomi laptop. I think the quality of the Xiaomi laptop is just as good. Fingerprint reader doesn't work on Linux, but everything else works as well as on the Macbook. If I were to buy a new laptop now, I'd go with Framework because the ease of changing components appeals to me.

elxr• 4 years ago

well-functioning laptops (Apple that is)

And even they had a ~4 year period (2016-2019) of putting out sub-par, handicapped laptops.

Nowadays, framework's making some pretty great laptops. Repairable, linux-friendly, and nicely proportioned. Don't like them sticking a giant logo in the middle of the lid though, ruins the look a little.

einpoklum• 4 years ago

I am still dumbfound by the fact that no manufacturer seems to have produced a decent laptop after x220, which the author mentions. And by decent, I mean with a decent keyboard, and which doesn't break easily.

What is the deal with all of that think junk? ... I mean, ok, ok, I know many people like thin laptops. What about all the rest of us? I need to type, damn it!

lawl• 4 years ago

This is true, I like apps that stay the same and just work.

The problem is that github encourages the exact opposite. Constant code churn, because if people see a project with last commit "2 years ago", they assume it's dead instead of just complete. Why do I know that? Because I have also caught myself doing that.

reacharavindh• 4 years ago

As a systems engineer that works with command line and Linux closely for work, I find myself at the opposite of some of this. As good as VIm/Nano/text editors are, they are simply not the most powerful when dealing with modern data formats. I use Apple Notes on my Mac as the universal notebook. I toss just about anything into it(drag and drop images, links, tables, etc) and it indexes them smartly. I can even search for text that was in one of the screenshots I stored there. To take it further, I can markup something on an image in Notes using an Apple Pencil on iPad and continue to take notes on Mac. Tools evolve - if you resist change, you miss out on modern conveniences as well.

samrocksc• 4 years ago

Me: screenshots => desktop, forget to cleanup for 3 years.

theK• 4 years ago

What did he mean with "when Wayland finally happens"? It happened ages ago! :-D

0daystock• 4 years ago

I don't get it. Is the author literally just flexing about using vim and other basic unix command line tools we've known about for decades? Man, the post quality is really going downhill.

5220• 4 years ago

I use Notes.

aftergibson• 4 years ago

Plain text is cool and all, but I want to embed rich media, that's how my brain/the world around me works.

Yes org-mode, but I've tried multiple times to pick up org-mode but all the concepts and keyboard shortcuts that need to live in my brain just get wearying, maybe I take on too much too soon, but onboarding say Obsidian or Logseq just isn't such a cognitive drain.

People use Google/ddg for calculators/weather/etc because the search engine can work out what their intent is. Remembering a bunch of cli app names and how args are parsed etc, is again more cognitive load. There's no discoverability other than reverse searching your shell history and trying to remember the thing.

I used to envy people like the author who have this workflow that totally works for them, it's lots of Linuxes, lots of CLI, some tiling window manager, cool stuff. I'd love to be like this. However, it all involved cognitive load that GUIs, Search Engines and human focused design abstract away to reduce that load. So use whatever works for you and ignore what's cool.

I have a Thinkpad X230, the model up from the author, running Silverblue and Gnome. Works great. Things will probably change along the way, that's fine, the cost of managing those changes is still lower than learning to live in a CLI.

roguas• 4 years ago

The problem with bash utils is that they require further context. Where I can write any problem i have to google in one box rather than via 7 bash utils.

Cool desktops don’t change

Related Stories