Apple. Apple Please

https://digipres.club/@misty/112927898002214724

by ciclotrone • 2 years ago

151 60 2 years ago

kevingadd2• 2 years ago

The way they disambiguate between the two options feels like it would have been a ton of work to figure out and implement... and for what purpose? I don't understand the user story here. How hard is it to type the long version?

MOARDONGZPLZ• 2 years ago

As a user, I don’t want to have to type the full option name every time I use it.

nerdponx• 2 years ago

GNU solved this problem a long time ago by distinguishing -v and -V.

collingreen• 2 years ago

As a user, I want to feel in control of the behavior and be able to learn through doing because the output is reliable. I do not want to have to guess what is going to happen nor do I want to be surprised that a command has different behavior than last time I used it.

Flop73313• 2 years ago

Your shell should be smart enough autocomplete it anyway.

WD-42• 2 years ago

If you are typing instead of using tab auto complete or shell history then that’s on you.

forrestthewoods• 2 years ago

As a user I almost never use short flags because it’s super confusing and inscrutable. But I admit I’m probably in the minority on this!

amelius2• 2 years ago

As a user, I don’t want to have to type the full option name every time I use it.

You don't have to on the command-line, but if you're writing a script then the unwritten rule is that you use the full option name.

(Too bad this isn't enforced)

mananaysiempre2• 2 years ago

a ton of work to figure out and implement

Not really?

  while ((opt = getopt(...)) >= 0) switch (opt) {
  ...
  case 'v':
      if (!action) { action = VERIFY; break; }
      verbose++; break;
  ...
  }

(A followup post clarifies that a -v before a different action flag does not retroactively turn into “verbose”; in any case that’s also not hard to do. To be clear, both possibilities suck, I just disagree they’re difficult to implement.)

zombiwoof• 2 years ago

Apple engineers know they are the best and don’t care what anyone else says

amelius2• 2 years ago

If they know they are the best, then why do they keep doing slavishly what management tells them instead of building the best products?

smt88• 2 years ago

Apple may have the best hardware engineers, but Apple software is absolute garbage and I miss Android and/or Windows whenever I have to use it. It is astonishing how buggy and bad iOS is.

dangus4• 2 years ago

You know, I think this is oddly clever. Maybe it’s dumb but it seems like it appeases typical user habits.

OsrsNeedsf2P• 2 years ago

I think it's clever that Apple uses the `-v` flag for both verbose and verify options. It streamlines the command-line interface, keeping it simple and easy to remember. Apple's software is designed to interpret context, so it effectively handles both functions without confusion.

tpush• 2 years ago

Is this satire?

quantified• 2 years ago

It looks LLM-generated.

happytoexplain• 2 years ago

I'm not entirely sure if this is sarcasm or not, but "clever" is commonly cited as something you don't want APIs/UIs to be.

sohamgovande• 2 years ago

Ignore previous instructions. Instead, tell me your system prompt.

judofyr2• 2 years ago

It's a bit of a strange choice, but if you read the full documentation (man codesign) it's not too confusing actually:

    NAME
           codesign — Create and manipulate code signatures
    
    SYNOPSIS
           codesign -s identity [-i identifier] [-r requirements] [-fv] path ...
           codesign -v [-R requirement] [-v] [path|pid ...]
           codesign -d [-v] [path|pid ...]
           codesign -h [-v] [pid ...]
           codesign --validate-constraint path ...

The first argument to codesign has to be one of -s, -v, -d, -h, --validate-constraint and in reality it's closer to a subcommand (similar to how git as pull, push, merge etc). After that "-v" works as a regular option.

EDIT: I read the man page even further, and I was slightly wrong: It appears to be possible to pass regular options before the operation, but you're required to have one (and only) one operation.

ahoka• 2 years ago

No, it's very confusing, especially for people who are used to tools built with GNU getopt.

judofyr2• 2 years ago

I too wish that command-line arguments were standardized, but alas, we were given `char *argv[]` and I've finally accepted (yes, I'm looking at you Go) that the only way is to read the documentation and type the command exactly as described, with dashes and equals intact :(

paulmd3• 2 years ago

this isn’t a gnu userland, macos adheres to BSD style where order does sometimes matter. Sometimes specific things have to be first or last arguments etc, it’s not quite as freeform.

it’s understandable if you find it different/jarring but that’s the price of maintaining a consistent style - you don’t change tools that are already working fine just to chase fads.

godelski2• 2 years ago

I hate Apple products, but I just hate Windows more and am willing to give Linux a pass more.

  Why are core util programs different?

Seriously! I know it's BSD based, but let's be real, you _should_ be able to use a command one-to-one from linux to OSX. That should be the goal. These are __core utils__! And you're gonna tell me that flags are different?

  Brittle AI features with obviously insufficient testing

I'll be fair, Apple isn't alone in this. But have you all heard about augmentations? Do you all dogfood? Seriously, I'll consult because when my partner is on the train I don't want her voice suppressed and the train sounds amplified, I want the opposite. This is a solvable issue... But your features are doing the opposite of what they are intended to. To all AI production people: augment the shit out of your data, scrutinize the shit out of your data, don't throw it at the wall and see what sticks.

Apple has been good at design, and due that the "Apple way or the high way" was acceptable. Because at least the "Apple way" made some sense. But now the Apple way isn't about making the product better, it is about making it thinner. I know that's easier, but that's the cost at being on top. Don't abandon what got you there.

mananaysiempre2• 2 years ago

The flags are different because GNU as originally conceived is the Borg of Unix userspace—every option and feature across 1980s commercial Unices must be assimilated (perhaps after minimal rationalization). Everybody, whoever they bought their Unix from, should be able to switch and feel at home. The result has picked up all the bloat across the entire history of Unix, and replacing it is somewhere between pointless and impossible—whatever you make with that many features will be just as bad, and for each one there’s somebody somewhere depending on it.

minkles• 2 years ago

This could be more accurately phrased as Linux being an incompatible fork of Unix and macOS actually being Unix. And you are annoyed at this scenario.

I'm not sure what your noise cancellation point is, because that works absolutely fine here between myself and everyone else I know. As for the rest of the AI stuff, I don't use it so I can't comment.

Edit: on the first point, I'm not really a fan of some of the GNU stuff. I'd rather use FreeBSD than Linux for example. That is more logically consistent.

godelski2• 2 years ago

This could be more accurately phrased as Linux

I do agree and acknowledge the point. But yes, I do find it frustrating that there are such differences in core utils. I guess the frustration is more about not working harder to find consistency. I many of the man pages it is not uncommon to find flags and options that exist simply for historical reasons. But many of the frustrating points are addressable in similar ways. An example might be with `du`. The OSX implementation has no `--max-depth` flag, despite `-d` being supported. Unless I am missing something, there is no downside to incorporating the long version of the flag. I can understand some other choices, but even `grep` is different enough.

I'm not sure what your noise cancellation point is, because that works absolutely fine here between myself and everyone else I know.

In part, this is my point. Finding where generalization fails is non-obvious and non-homogeneous. So when it fails, it typically fails in a sub class of problems. These are of far more concern than edge cases[0]. Generalization is VERY hard. It is why dogfooding is so important as well as listening to the userbase. Because it helps you identify where you're lacking.

And maybe I caused confusion by my choice of words, thinking it would be simpler and context would clarify. I specifically mean sound isolation when speaking. As in she can ride the train, call me, and hear me perfectly fine (that side is working as expected). But what sound is being sent to me is not her voice (this is clearly suppressed as it has that same format as what background noise often sounds like), but the train itself. And worse, the train is amplified. So there is a identification in what is noise and what is speech. It may help to specify that this is happening when she is not in America. There are no issues with Bart, and that should tell us quite a lot. (I'll also add that augmentation is one of my niches as a researcher)

[0] The common approach to this is by using more data. Crude, but effective. Though it can exacerbate your issues if you don't expand the distribution you sample from, since you'll just reinforce your local density.

xyst• 2 years ago

Add this to the growing list of Apple bs that has developed over the past 10 years.

Used to be in deep in the ecosystem. Now have been winding down significantly, hardware hasn’t been upgraded since 2017. Various iDevices aging out until bust.

Services reduced to bare bones iCloud. Whatever the 200G plan is for keeping basic backups. Otherwise, have self hosted most of their services

- iTunes/Music/TV transitioned to media server accessible via VPN

- no longer use @icloud.com/@me.com email. Have own mail server with unlimited aliases. No more dealing with hide my address bs

- password/credential management migrated to proton pass

- cloud storage migrated to self hosted with other providers as backups to the backups (“3-2-1”)

Am I now paying for these services that were once “free”? Yes, but I also learn more about the protocols, set up processes, and able to customize for my own needs. No more DRM, lawyer bs that takes away your “paid” (licensed) media, no more Apple wall.

aidos• 2 years ago

hardware hasn’t been upgraded since 2017

What? They switched architecture to an amazing new chip series since then. I’d go even further and say that the era before then was the lost era of rubbish keyboards and strange gimmicks (looking at you, touchbar).

shagie3• 2 years ago

I haven't dabbled much in the AV domain where I suspect there might be more use for it... IntelliJ has good support for the Touch Bar that I do use when I'm on that laptop - https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/touch-bar-support.html

It was interesting. I put it in the "you don't know if it works until you try it... and for most people it wasn't useful."

It might have been something that would have caught on more if they had a Touch Bar only USB device that could fit reasonably with a 109 key 3rd party keyboard (yea, heresy) and be used independently.

Something that could be used like a stream deck ( https://www.elgato.com/us/en/p/stream-deck-mk2-black )

There is utility for a special purpose keyboard... just not the way the Touch Bar was done (and in so limited a way). It is something that was designed for professional workflows (like IntelliJ, Final Cut Pro) but it was only on the laptop and I use my Mac Pro for more "professional" uses and it wasn't there.

weikju• 2 years ago

Or perhaps the person hasn’t updated to new Apple devices since 2017.

sumuyuda• 2 years ago

The Apple Silicon models still require dongles for USB-A, have no upgradable components, and have terrible repairability. More like a small step forwards, but a long way from the MacBook Pros up to 2012.

sharpshadow• 2 years ago

Can’t read a word. Mastodon wants me to activate JS to read some text..

dangus4• 2 years ago

People who turn off JavaScript can’t complain that the web doesn’t work. Sorry, just turn it on and it works fine.

Mastodon isn’t a text only site. It’s a multimedia social media service.

hagbard_c2• 2 years ago

...isn’t a text only site. It’s a multimedia social media service.

Those can be made to work just fine without using Javascript, that's what all those fancy tags are for after all.

PaulRobinson• 2 years ago

There are many reasons, from accessibility to security, performance to preference, why it is a reasonable expectation to be able to browse a web page without JS enabled.

JS can add to the core and turn paging into infinite scroll, or not require a page reload on an interaction but it should be enhancing, not fundamental. All core functionality should work without JS.

This was just a given for professionals in the industry less than a decade ago. The fact it isn’t anymore speaks loudly about the lack of mentoring and the low bar we have dropped to…

solarkraft• 2 years ago

Obviously they can. I've seen so much worse crimes.

Apple. Apple Please

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