How to Design Software Good - <AUTHOR> https://www.haiku-os.org/docs/HIG/index.xml <comment><USER2> I saw a quick flash of unstyled content (in Firefox) where all the text was jammed into one paragraph with no breaks. And then the page rendered normally.

So I glanced at the source code, and it surprised me to see that it was not a typical HTML document, but instead an XML document with a stylesheet. It is very rare to see a non-HTML page on the web, whether it is the XHTML serialization of HTML, or fully custom XML.

<comment><USER3> Once upon a time, the whole internet was going to be built this way!

<comment><USER4> I still think client side XSLT is a good thing. I write simple documents and it is automatically converted client side. The world's best static site generator.

I gives me the best of two worlds: simple markup with complete control of output and CSS styling and instant changes of all documents without a compilation step.

<comment><USER5> XSLT got an unfair shake. Yes, XML is ugly, and verbose, and painful to write code in, but the _ideas_ were very good. Most users never understood the processing model or the declarative/functional nature of XSLT, and so tried to write procedural code with it, with predictably nasty outcomes (hint: _< xsl:if>_ is almost always a code smell). But those who did _get it_ , could use it to write some pretty elegant little programs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow, this is more like a master class on GUI application design than the usual guidelines you see. I don't see a byline but someone poured a lot of love and wisdom into this.

<comment><USER7> Seems the DocBook XML styler broke; there is a byline in the original source: [https://github.com/haiku/haiku/blob/master/docs/interface_gu...](https://github.com/haiku/haiku/blob/master/docs/interface_guidelines/index.xml#L13)

DarkWyrm hasn't been active on Haiku for some years now (though I think he has an occasionally-updated Twitter account?), so it's a community-maintained document at this point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Good Software Does Not Expose Its Implementation

Excellent goal but way harder than people think. I would say it is not possible in the fullest.

<comment><USER9> I kind of feel that you just read the title here. It's not talking about the 'fullest':

      An example of this would be if a music composition
      program has an easily-reached maximum song size because
      the code monkey who wrote it used a 16-bit variable
      instead of a 32-bit one. *While there are sometimes
      limitations that cannot be overcome*, the actual code
      written and the architecture used when it was written
      should have as little effect as possible on what the user
      sees and works with when using your software.

(emphasis mine)

I think it might be better rephrased as:

1) Don't add unnecessary constraints (or: Don't prioritise efficiency/etc. over the interface).

and

2) A good interface abstracts away technical problems, rather than presenting them in a different form.

<comment><USER10> The most common example I see is the password requirement that it must be between 8 and 16 characters... The 16 character limit is the main issue there... You know it has to do with the wya the data is stored.

<comment><USER11> Between 8 and 16 characters, but only 7 bit ASCII. But there is no error message if you use § in your password, it just kills the server.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks like most of this is derivative of Molich and Nielsen's heuristic evaluation of user interfaces guidelines from 1990. [https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=77486](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=77486)

</comment><comment><USER13> Sorry to be a pedant, but the grammar and capitalization in this guide do not instill confidence. "How to Design Software Good" <\- design well? "How will Your Users Do Their Work?" <\- Seriously?

<comment><USER14> Maybe its meant to be tongue-in-cheek.

<comment><USER15> I thought it was a vague zoolander reference.

<comment><USER16> This is also what I assumed, and I'm fairly sure it is.

Especially since the grammar in the article is relatively OK, whereas that title would be really terrible if it were not a pop-culture reference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I feel these conventions, while written about HaikuOS, apply equally to all domains of software authorship.

<comment> yoz-y Indeed, a lot of these conventions are part of most of the platforms' Human Interface Guidelines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I want to mention the classic book "The Design of Everyday Things" which shares a lot of points with this post, though not about software at all.

<comment><USER18> I read this book a few years ago and was really disappointed by the content. Apparently the version I read was the "revised and expanded edition", so maybe it just got worse with the update...

<comment><USER19> OT, but you are not alone - I also thought it wasn't that good as it was claimed. I've seen it recommended many times on HN.. I can't understand why. Now when I read the title, I immediately think of doors and handles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Haiku is an operating system which is known for its speed and being easy for > anyone to use.

That's a fairly bold claim. Haiku is an OS that basically no one uses for any purpose. Why should I take any sort of design advice from them?

<comment><USER7> Being "known for its speed and ease of use" and "very low user base" are ... not mutually exclusive in the slightest, so I fail to see how your comment has relevance?

By your logic, since macOS has ~1/10 the install base of Windows, clearly this means that "very few" people use it and we should not take Apple's advice on anything design-related.

<comment><USER21> >> Haiku is an OS that basically no one uses for any purpose.

> By your logic, since macOS has ~1/10 the install base of Windows,

Does not follow. MacOS use relative to Windows is not at all a fair comparison. Firstly "everybody" uses Windows, so 1/10 of huge number is still a huge number. Second, except for gaming and some particular areas like EDA, MacOS has a general software library with a broad-base of technical and non- technical users throughout the world. Haiku OS cannot claim to have anything like that.

<comment><USER7> > MacOS has a general software library with a broad-base of technical and non- > technical users throughout the world. Haiku OS cannot claim to have anything > like that.

That was the second half of my comment. Please re-read the first half.

My point in that part, though, was that macOS has ~1/10 the users of Windows, but Windows' UI/UX was/is widely regarded as absolutely atrocious, and macOS' as being pretty good to great, depending on who you ask. So "if it has less users, their thoughts on design are irrelevant" is ... not a good argument.

<comment><USER22> I reread and it didn't make any difference. MacOS may have 1/10 the Windows base but that is not having "very low userbase", while I think it is quite reasonable to say that about Haiku. Reread what I said, the MacOS base is large and it is a _general_ base of highly technical and non-technical users alike that are not all hobbyists. This does not describe Haiku in the slightest.

There is a valid point to be made about verifying usability and the need for a large and diverse userbase.

How much you want to bet that the Haiku userbase is overwhelmingly male? And this is not to make some concerned sexism argument but to illustrate that the community is more representative of the IT crowd rather than the general population.

<comment><USER7> > There is a valid point to be made about verifying usability and the need for > a large and diverse userbase.

OK, that is indeed a valid point, but not one I got from the first comments.

I think Haiku has a diverse enough following that we are past most of these concerns, and a lot of our major paradigms which differ from other OSes were validated in the BeOS days. There are some areas where we still have work to do -- e.g. interfaces for the blind -- but overall we are doing quite well.

> How much you want to bet that the Haiku userbase is overwhelmingly male? And > this is not to make some concerned sexism argument but to illustrate that > the community is more representative of the IT crowd rather than the general > population.

Oh, I know it's true of Haiku, but I practically can guarantee the same is true of Linux/BSD/etc. So then, can only "mainstream" operating systems have anything to say here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Slightly off topic, but has anyone tried Haiku?

We recently ported nbdkit to Haiku and it was a pleasant experience dealing with the developer. However I never actually _used_ Haiku (just reviewed and applied patches).

<comment><USER24> I have. It was a joy to use; fast, cohesive but familiar due to partial POSIX compatibility, inspiration from other operating systems and a GNU command-line environment, with object-oriented design and unique concepts. One of which is its package manager, which installs into a filesystem image that is mounted read-only to ensure the files are incorruptible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I absolutely love long articles like this. This is full of brilliant information. Fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER26> I am not sure I agree with all of this. I worry that the article encourages you to dumb-down software so that your users feel completely helpless. That is the opposite of what you should do. Your users should feel enabled and encouraged to explore and experiment. Sometimes they may encounter jargon, but if it ultimately helps them gain a better understanding if they choose to research it more, I think it's helpful. There is a difference between saying "the file is corrupted, and there is nothing you can do" and "the file is corrupted, and you are too dumb to fix it so there is nothing you can do". Omitting details in the error forces users into the second class; even if most users are unwilling to google for a solution, you need not remove their ability to do so. (And in fact, most of these cases are the developers projecting -- the problem is not that the user did something wrong, but that the programmer messed up the implementation. Why should a file be corrupted when reed solomon codes exist? Very rarely have I seen a case where something was so damaged that it could not be recovered; rather, the engineers chose not to design in proper error recovery. Then they blame the user for a disk sector going bad when the engineers know full well that disk sectors can go bad.)

The other thing I think I agree with is the philosophy on designing complicated operations. Every operation a user performs should leave them with no question as to what the outcome will be when they click the Big Red Button. And they should be able to painlessly undo it. Imagine typing without a backspace key. Your words per minute would be near-zero because of the fear of making a mistake. Undo is essential.

The lack of transparency around state changes is something that makes users hate software. Who will this share button share with? What does "make my YouTube comment publicly accessible" actually mean? Users don't know, then they make the wrong decision based on incorrect information, and get mad -- and rightfully so. We blame the user, but it's our fault for laying hidden traps. You can implement social media without tricking users, but we choose not to.

I see a lot of people fall into the "great is the enemy of good" trap with regards to undo. They see some operation that creates some immutable effect on the Universe, so the only remedy offered to the user is "email the dev team and we'll try and fix it." This is a pain for the dev team and a pain for the user. Yes, there are certainly permanent changes that software can make. Send an email, launch the nukes. But those should not be barriers to letting users undo. If they want to undo something that sent an email, you'll just have to send another email apologizing. That is all the development team is going to do when they have to manually fix it. Nukes can be killed while they're in flight; better to have some fallout near the launch site than to start World War III. And yet, we consistently fail to offer undo in most applications, so users learn to be very scared of doing anything, and that fear prevents them from accomplishing their goals. That's our fault, not the user's.

I have seen this all in action at work. We have something that is a "big red button" (we're an ISP, it's the "change service plan" button). People will not click this, and it's because they don't know what it will do. If we said "clicking this will cause the customer to pay $x a month, with the next invoice being sent on 12/01 (click here to see a preview), and their bandwidth profile will be set to XMbps in the next 30 seconds", then people would click the button, because they know it will solve their problem, rather than create a problem.

Anyway, you have to give your users understanding and the ability to safely experiment (which is how you gain understanding). That is what makes software a tool to enhance productivity, rather than an annoyance that makes the user do extra work. Just dumbing down your error messages isn't going to cut it.

<comment><USER27> > We blame the user, but it's our fault for laying hidden traps. You can > implement social media without tricking users, but we choose not to.

Aside from the fact that it's a minefield of dark patterns, how did social media get into this discussion?

<comment><USER9> > Aside from the fact that it's a minefield of dark patterns, how did social > media get into this discussion?

"Aside from [the thing that makes it relevant to this discussion], how is [x] relevant to this discussion?".

<comment><USER27> The layout of casinos is also a minefield of dark patterns, but I'd have been surprised to see it crop up in the middle of that comment without explanation or follow-up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> A great talk on the topic - John Ousterhout: "A Philosophy of Software Design": [https://youtu.be/bmSAYlu0NcY](https://youtu.be/bmSAYlu0NcY)

</comment><comment><USER29> Given:

> Good Software Uses Everyday Language

I'm curious why keyboard shortcuts are called accelerators.

Overall looks like a pretty good set of things to think about as a UX designer.

<comment><USER30> That's what keyboard shortcuts were called in some systems like BeOS, early Windows and probably others. I would guess it's because they provide faster access to a feature or function than going through menus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> > depend only on the formats installed by default in the system.

Funny fact I've actually "invented" this philosophy (drivers for every file format being installed, managed and exposed to applications and scripts by an OS) when I was a child. I was amazed to see somebody has actually went implementing this idea (as far as I understand it works approximately this way in Haiku)

> As an aside, MP3 is a format which requires licensing for decoding and > encoding to be legal,so depending on the MP3 format is not a good idea > unless your program deals specifically with it.

This is not true, the patent has expired AFAIK and every desktop Linux distribution can play it out-of-the box for quite a long time already (and even if it would not have, people living in countries that don't have software patenting should be let to make use of their advantage). In fact MP3 is a great format to depend on as this is the only lossy audio compression format that really plays everywhere. AAC is better and can be played on the majority of modern devices and OSes but still not really everywhere, OPUS is the best but there still are so many devices and apps that don't support it unfortunately.

<comment><USER7> > as far as I understand it works approximately this way in Haiku

Yep, it is indeed. You can of course write your own translators for custom file formats and install them along with your application; but then anything which already handled whatever representation they produced (e.g. PNG/JPG/etc. images -> BBitmap, Haiku's image buffer class) could then handle those filetypes also.

> This is not true, the patent has expired AFAIK

Only last year, and this document was mostly written a decade ago :)

Haiku can now play MP3 out of the box also (and since the servers and buildbots are mostly in Germany, we don't really pay much attention to U.S. patents anyway at this point.)

<comment><USER32> Some in Germany do. For example the owners of the aforementioned mp3 patent.

[https://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/ff/amm/prod/audiocodec/audi...](https://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/ff/amm/prod/audiocodec/audiocodecs/mp3.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> With a title like that, at least it wasn't an article about "How to Speak English Good"

<comment><USER34> The title's intended, it's meant to poke fun and be light hearted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> > Writing good software can be hard, but it is worth the time and effort.

Is it? I want this to be true because I want to write good software. But I've worked with some very senior developers who would disregard all software engineering and user experience concerns and just spew large quantities of low-quality code that made the managers just as happy, especially since it got done quickly. And the end-users in many niche industries are used to being shipped garbage, so they're just as happy too.

<comment><USER36> Disclosure: small-ish company (~100 employees) in France

You know, I kind of went through the same questioning: at my current company we have an employee that has his niche/historical role on one of the key infrastructure of our product.

The guys works from his home and whatever hours, commits 300+ lines per commit (90% of which is unrelated to the commit name, just commenting things or uncommenting others). The code is a spagetti of if else if else, it has monstruous "client specific" code (like: if the current client is this guy, then do that, otherwise for all other clients do this).

There's even a load of "if the program runs in test, answer what the test expects, otherwise in prod send something else".

Every time I look at the commit tree (a balance of wanting to have fun and wanting to see what is going on), I'm in horror. The guy __rewrote __the java.lang.string, the java.lang.date, and some other base classe of the language to incorporate his own version of the Date handling.

Fun fact, at one point his date parsing code "wasn't happy with october"... why? because October contains the letter 'T', and he botched his ISO date parsing (format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss) by checking the presense of the letter T..

I have many many stories of him commiting some bad code, only to spend 12h in a row trying frantically to correct the bug by adding ifs and elses.

The last time I looked at his code, he was __rewriting __a huffman compression algorithm by himself (NIH syndrome) to compress his on disk data. Complete with loads of code to handle per-bit operations that he wrote b y himself instead of relying on a battle-proof library.

Management-wise, they accept his behavior because this guy, working from his own home, often can work at scandalous hours and be on the bridge when he pushes a botched version to production at 2AM. At the time of this comment, his last 4 commits on master are at the following time: 08:57PM, 10:40PM, 12:11PM, 01:02AM

I know I'm venting hard, but this guy is probably be the best paid engineer of the company, he is a huge liability IMO, and is present at all-hands meeting maybe once a month. So yeah, why bother coding great code, making sure that your tests and CI are green, when some other guy with a bit more history in the company can get away with doing shitty work and having poor life balance, as long as he shows "commitment" when he botches his software releases.

This is really some life-long questioning of mine: should I care about things or should I focus on politics and disregard others. Aren't those on top of the pyramid the more "sharky" people that climbed the ladder not by pure skill but by showing the appropriate (bad) behavior when needed and correctly compartimentalized their own questions about ethics and got away ?

<comment><USER37> I bet the cost/benefit for the company is positive, and as long the clients are happy and paying, how this guy works is irrelevant. he was rewriting a huffman compression algorithm by himself because he's bored and he wants to learn and experiment. I bet is not a good life he's living. There's a great disorder in working from your home at odd hours, it's not healthy. He would be happier working normal, fixed hours, and with a manager to guide him.

<comment><USER38> > There's a great disorder in working from your home at odd hours, it's not > healthy

I'd be curious in hearing you elaborate on this. I've been in a WFH setup like this for about 4 months, and while I enjoy it right now I do wonder if it'll be something I might regret after 2-3 years on this schedule.

My primary reasons for working like this are that: 1\. I hate being in the corporate office environment, it feels very artificial and constraining 2\. I tend to have my most productive coding sessions very late at night anyway

<comment><USER39> I did the WFH for a year, and while the freedom is enjoyable it is very easy to slip into working very late going into 'hermit mode'. You have to be very diligent in training yourself to be productive during normal hours so you can be social in the evening.

My new situation is categorized as flexible office hours. I go into the office 2-3 days a week, enjoy good rapport with the people I work with, then WFH on Mondays and Fridays (typically). I find this to be a good balance - I have enough structure Tuesday to Thursday that I can continue this trend Monday and Friday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Is the grammatical error in the title intentional?

<comment><USER41> I blame English. That language is always up to no well: [https://www.smbc- comics.com/comic/noun](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/noun)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Love the idea of starting with "what will the user be doing?" and prioritizing based on that question.

</comment><comment><USER43> _...You can also make Tracker show a window for a particular folder in order to show the user where a particular file has been stored and give him access to it directly...._

 _...By removing unneeded items from the file navigation window, you are reducing the number of choices the user must pick from and also preventing him from opening the wrong kinds of files..._

 _...Good feedback just means making sure that the user knows what your program is doing at any given time, especially if the program is busy doing something which makes him wait..._

 _...An even better solution would be to select a good default choice for the user and give him the option to change it..._

 _... In short, a user will learn only what he must in order to do his job..._

Ctrl-F "her", "she": 0 matches

Another tip to design good software: don't assume all your users are male :)

This is an okay stab at a HIG, although it is severely lacking in examples and screenshots, for a document that deals with _graphical_ user interfaces.

Good past attempts that are worth the read if you're into this kind of stuff include the original Macintosh HIG, as well as NextStep User Interface Guidelines. I also quite liked the _Hypercard Stack Design Guidelines_. Gnome once had an okay-ish HIG (which I contributed to), not sure how well up to date it's been kept through the years. KDE, despite being better on the eye candy front compared to Gnome, was always lacking behind in terms of actual concrete guidelines for developers.

<comment><USER7> This document was mostly written almost a decade ago, and by someone who I think went to a prestigious institution. So the "rules of style" back then aren't what they are today.

You're right, we should update it, though.

<comment><USER44> > You're right, we should update it, though.

No, you really shouldn't, it's not a real problem. The only people who keep tallies of gender pronouns in documents are internet trolls; don't indulge the trolls. Anyway, switching up pronouns every other time breaks continuity and makes documents harder and painful to read.

<comment><USER43> No need to keep a tally; in 2018, any document that exclusively uses masculine pronouns for genderless subjects reads as outdated.

When writing on technical topics, the chief concern is to be clear, accurate, and straightforward. Anything that might distract your reader is undesirable. By referring to "the user" as "he", you're already distracting roughly 50% of your potential readership (if you're writing the documentation for a Do It Yourself Vasectomy Kit, perhaps you get a pass).

Switching up pronouns every other time is a strategy, but it is indeed one that can hurt the readability of a document. This article covers various strategies nicely:

[https://www.herodios.com/pronouns.html](https://www.herodios.com/pronouns.html)

(Note that this document was written over 20 years ago, so the "rules of style" when this document was written were roughly the same as they are now)

<comment><USER44> > By referring to "the user" as "he", you're already distracting roughly 50% > of your potential readership (if you're writing the documentation for a Do > It Yourself Vasectomy Kit, perhaps you get a pass).

Do you have any research/data to back this up? I'm a male and I am not distracted when people use "she" (or "he" for that matter). I have never heard anyone in person complain about not being able to focus on an article because they used "he" instead of "she".

> Anything that might distract your reader is undesirable.

Concision is of utmost importance in any language. Many of the examples in your link sacrifice readability and concision for the purpose of avoiding pronouns. What really distracts me is when people use "(s)he", "s/he", "he or she" (oh no -- which one should be first?), or periodically switch between "he" and "she" absolutely _everywhere_ \-- all for the purpose of filling a contrived equality quota.

<comment><USER45> We need an "it" that can be applied to a person.

<comment><USER46> English has had one for a long time, "they".

Elitist prescriptivists who wanted English to be Latin because of bizarre linguistic fashion tried to purge it, but never did from general use, and prescriptivism, especially on points that have never aligned with common usage,has fallen out of favor, so there is little reason not to use it now but adherence to a particularly archaic elitism.

<comment><USER45> It's useful to have a singular and plural form, required probably not.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fabchannel - The Reasons Why We Stopped - <AUTHOR> http://www.fabchannel.com/

<comment><USER2> As a longtime user of Fabchannel, I'm disappointed by all this. The future looks bleak for labels unwilling to embrace what their real customers, music fans, want. Instead of turning to fear and taking defensive measures, they should be taking advantage of the changing times.

Related: <http://muxtape.com/story>

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice, well-thought out communication about why the business stopped (albeit poorly laid out). Also a great example of pg's comment that for startups _"If you can just avoid dying, you get rich."_ [1]

It's always a shame to see a business you know _could_ work ultimately discover that they can't. Without knowing much more than what this blog covers, I can imagine this is a business model that will work at some point.

My best guess about the difference between that future, successful site and Fabchannel is that the next site will come from much closer to the major labels - leveraging solid relationships into an acceptable product, instead of creating a solid product but not being successful at generating the required volume of relationships needed to make it viable.

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html></comment>


Robots are wealth creators and taxing them is illogical - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/42ab292a-000d-11e7-8d8e-a5e3738f9ae4 <comment><USER2> Again with the Robotics-is-good-for-the-ruling-class thing!?!

Jobs are wealth creators and taxing them is illogical.

How about we at least don't subsidize them: don't let corporations amortize the cost of the robots. I realize this has a lot of the same problems that "tax the robots!" has, in that what's a robot and what's not? is a damn good question, but still...</comment>


Linode outage in Fremont - <AUTHOR> http://status.linode.com/

<comment><USER2> From Hurricane Electric: "A utility failure is affecting much of Fremont, CA, USA, damaging some electrical equipment. We are currently working to restore power."

<https://twitter.com/#!/henet/status/66466691856601088>

</comment><comment><USER3> Dont they have backup generators? I thought all datacentres did, although I have known them to fail too...

<comment><USER4> We used to be colocated at HE in Fremont. Real nice building. They have a track record of power outages going back several years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fremont keeps going out, this annoys me. I routinely have problems w/ Linode at this data center. :(

<comment><USER6> If you already had downtime at this datacenter, transfer your linode to another one. It will only take ~20 mins.

My linode is in Newark and it has been a long time since I had the last problem there. Also, Linode is based on Newark.

<comment><USER7> I've been on linode for quite a while and never had issues with Newark.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Power appears to have been restored and we are working on bringing Linodes up now." [http://status.linode.com/2011/05/outage-in-fremont- facility....](http://status.linode.com/2011/05/outage-in-fremont- facility.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting. Does the Fremont facility have inadequate backup generation/UPS?

</comment><comment><USER10> "We skip the backup generators and pass the savings on to you!"

</comment><comment><USER11> Again! :(</comment>


EU Court Of Justice: No Copyright On Computer Functionality Or Languages - <AUTHOR> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120502083035371 <comment><AUTHOR> In my view, the Oracle v. Google case may be headed in the same direction.

Judge Alsup has let the case go to the jury to determine whether the "structure, sequence and organization" (SSO) of the Android platform infringes either the compilable code or the documentation of 37 of the 166 total API packages constituting a part of the Java platform. But the judge has reserved for his exclusive determination, after a verdict is entered, whether such SSO is even protectible under U.S. copyright law. In instructing the jury, the judge merely told the jurors to _assume_ for purposes of their deliberations that the SSO was protectible under copyright and to decide the case based on that assumption. This means that, if Oracle loses on the verdict, its copyright case is dead. If it wins, then and only then will the judge need to address the ultimate legal question of whether the SSO can be protected by copyright at all. If the case does reach that point, he will be able to decide the question based on a full presentation of evidence by both parties and that in turn will make any decision he renders far less vulnerable to being overturned on appeal.

I am not saying that the judge will necessarily support Google in its claim that APIs should not be covered by copyright. I do say that Judge Alsup is nobody's fool and is playing this smart, letting Oracle play out its case in full and only then stepping in to say whether its case is even legally supportable.

Of course, the judge could also have rendered a definitive ruling one way or the other in the pretrial phase. But there are some areas of law where the principles are pretty clearly articulated but get knotty in their application and this is one of them. Yes, U.S. copyright law, like EU law, specifies that something that is functional or a system or a method of operation, etc. cannot be protected by copyright. But what exactly does that mean in the factual context of APIs and programming languages? Maybe those extremely well-versed in what APIs are and what they do can answer that clearly for others who are also well-versed. But in a court of law, a lot can get lost in translation and, in the absence of a clear factual record, skilled lawyers have all sorts of room to confuse and confound the issues as they apply abstract legal rules to a murky factual record. Because of this, the judge is letting it play out through a full jury verdict while reserving the right to rule definitively on the issue until after the verdict.

In this context, Oracle has plenty of reason to be nervous. If it loses before the jury, it loses; if it wins, it still may lose. And, as for the case being a bad precedent, that remains to be seen depending on how the judge and any appeals court may ultimately rule on this issue. For the moment, U.S. law remains sane on this point and nothing bad has happened as yet apart from an overbearing company _attempting_ to pour vast resources in hopes of gaining short-term advantage to the long-term detriment of the developer community.

<comment><USER2> > This means that, if Oracle loses on the verdict, its copcyright case is > dead. If it wins, then and only then will the judge need to address the > ultimate legal question of whether the SSO can be protected by copyright at > all.

Isn't this bizarre though? I'm not a lawyer so I guess I am ignorant of how US courts work, but shouldn't it be clear whether there is even a relevant law for something before a jury is asked to make the effort of figuring out if a law applies in a particular case? It won't be just a matter of SSO is copyrightable yes/no, it will be more complicated. But the jury won't hear any of that before saying yes or no.

Shouldn't what the law is be first determined, and only then whether it applies to a particular case?

<comment><USER3> In the case where APIs are not protected, it doesn't matter what the jury thinks, there was nothing for Google to infringe. So there's no need to ask the jury about that and you can have them just assume that APIs are protected, because that's the only time when their verdict will matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is ultimately more by luck than judgement. Because the main legal perspective is utterly, fundamentally flawed. The notion that there is a principled difference between idea and expression simply does not work with software. In software _everything_ is an abstraction, which means _everything_ has some generality. There is no dividing line anymore.

The idea/expression rule of thumb only made sense because it was a simple proxy for actual market effect. And there is the nub of the matter: no-one really wants to measure what the real market effects are for any of these rules. The law is unhinged from reality. It is just stupid.

For copyright to make sense, we should get rid of all the lawyers and remove it from the legal domain. Copyright is really a matter of data measurement and analysis. If the negative effects of restricting and paying for movement of information are outweighed by the positive effects of creating information, let us measure that . . .

We built the internet, but then we want to rule it as if it were a small stack of manuscripts. It is ridiculous.

<comment><USER5> The difference between idea and expression of software: Idea=the abstraction Expression=the code, UML diagram, compiled binary, etc.

It's really not that complicated.

<comment><USER6> When two people independently construct the same code with only trivial naming differences, what then? Is that a copyrightable expression or is it an uncopyrightable idea?

The problem I think GP is citing is that it's unreasonable when one piece of code violates copyright for carrying out some function, and another piece of code does not violate copyright for carrying out that function, even though after being run through some automated transformations (for example, an optimizing compiler), the machine code for the two pieces of code is near identical.

One person uses a for loop, another uses do while, another uses recursion. Copyright law doesn't care that they all do the same thing; one could be a copyright violation while the others are not.

If you abstract copyright to apply to the functionality of the code, you turn copyrights into patents. If you don't, anyone can tweak code to be literally different while having the same function.

<comment><USER5> The _code_ is expression. Neither can enforce the code against the other; both can enforce against third parties (with registration).

Machine code cannot be copyrighted under U.S. law. It is not an issue in the Oracle/Google case.

You cannot abstract copyright. It is a codified legal doctrine (i.e., an expression), not an abstract set of ideas. On that note, however, the abstract idea behind copyright law (protection of intellectual property) is the justification for patent and trademark laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3918443>

</comment><comment><USER8> This is great news

<comment> excuse-me It's irrelevant- the non-copyright status of an API/language specification is already well established in europe.

The war is over whether you can subsequently block these with patents on the concepts underlying the API

<comment><USER9> Copyright and patents are entirely 2 different issues.

This trial is very important because Oracle is suing for both and because copyright protection is much, much stronger than patents.

The differences: patents expire in 20 years, copyright is basically unlimited; patent infringement is hard to prove, copyright infringement is easy; patents are easily invalidated, while copyright is pretty clear (except in this case); getting a patent is expensive, while copyrighting something is essentially free, etc...

<comment> excuse-me And copyright protection of interfaces to block interoperability has been struck down so many times it's explicitly written into the EU convention (article 4 IIRC)

Oracle could conceivably get a ruling on the 'Java' name but using copyright to block somebody else doing an interoperable implementation has been defeated before

I'm sure Oracle knows this and is simply going to trial in the hope of a random verdict (it happens) or to get Google to reveal lots of documents that can be used in a future patent / monopoly / trade case

<comment><USER10> Except that Google isn't trying to interoperate with anyone.

So not sure if your points apply.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: JSON Editor (Beta) for MacOS 10.12 - <AUTHOR> http://christian-kienle.de/apps/jayson/ <comment><AUTHOR> I have been working on this little free JSON editor app for a few weekends.

Personally: I like it.

I will continue to work on it each weekend until it is perfect for me and maybe others. What do you think so far?

</comment><comment><USER2> Can you elaborate on the technical reason for being Sierra only?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is no technical reason for Sierra only.</comment></comment>


Mystery of Prince Rupert's Drop at 130,000 fps - <AUTHOR> http://richannel.org/mystery-of-prince-ruperts-drop-at-130000-fps

<comment><USER2> Slow-mo exploding things for the win. Also this is a super good, interesting explanation of nothing I never would have cared about before.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, that's pretty damned cool.</comment>


Joplin – A note-taking and to-do app with builds for desktop, mobile, terminal - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/ <comment><USER3> Currently I am very happy with my note taking setup, it consists of 3 modules:

1\. Black Moleskine notebook where I write down ideas, and explain myself some complicated code for example. I use it more as a "mind-organiser" if I may say so...

2\. Emacs' org-mode, where I write down my dev. progress on weekly level, lay down monthly plans and goals and write down some of the random stuff that I like to order into lists. And I use it more since I found out really good iOS app for org mode called "beorg". It is really awesome, I sync it with Dropbox and it works really, really well.

3\. Apple Notes as my scribble kind of thing since synchronization works instantaneously between my iPhone and Macs. I use it mostly as my iPhone on- the-go noting system, and later on if I find something important I pass it to the org file or write it down into the black notebook.

<comment><USER4> I love org-mode, though I struggle with emacs itself. Can you give me an example of how you layout your weekly org mode so that it interacts with beorg well?

I've used the format for a year where each day was a heading:

* <2016-12-12 Tue> __Task1 with notes if needed __Task2

and it does not work great with beorg.

<comment><USER5> You might also find org-journal [fn:1] interesting, if you commonly take date- stamped notes.

[fn:1] [https://github.com/bastibe/org- journal](https://github.com/bastibe/org-journal)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just installed ([https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/releases/download/v0.10....](https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/releases/download/v0.10.28/Joplin- Setup-0.10.28.exe)) on Windows 7. Went straight into Options to see what's what...noted that geo-location of notes is on by default and wasn't able to switch this off. I know generally where I am when I take notes...I don't need this on by default. Uninstalled.

<comment><USER7> There's a weird bug at the moment in the Option screen - if you click on a checkbox, the change is registered but the checkbox will still appear as ticked (That can be verified by exiting the Option screen and going back to it). So if you disable geo-location and for example auto-update that should already work.

The Option screen display issue will be fixed in the next release. The backend of these apps is quite reliable (I've never lost a synced note for instance), but there are quite a few ugly bugs like this one in the front end. That's in part because I wasn't planning to release this officially just yet (it got picked up somehow by omgubuntu and then here).

<comment><USER6> Thanks for response. I assumed it was a bug and i'm sure there are quite a few start outs which find themselves on here via the power of copy pasta. That said it was the idea of having geolocation on by default which irked me. Is there a reason for this?

<comment><USER8> Is there a reason it shouldn't be? When i take notes i would like to capture as much metadata as possible. So when i reference them later i get full picture.

<comment><USER6> Yes. I like transparency and I would like to live in a world where the products I consume don't assume and give me the choice of what data is sent on the back of my actions. In this case because the option was binary it was assumed I wanted geo-location data being sent. Let's consider the scenario where the data store containing these notes and their associated metadata was breached and owned. You then have the potential for learning additional facts about people which wasn't their intended choice. If you chose to allow for certain data to be sent then ultimately the onus is on the you. Because you want as much metadata attached to notes doesn't mean everyone does and therefore we should be given the option.

<comment><USER9> But you _are_ given the option. I bet the app also stores timestamps along with the posts - should that be off by default as well because some are uncomfortable with divulging _when_ they created their note?

<comment><USER10> Does a set of timestamps have the same informative value of the geolocation history of a user?

Would you affirm this in a formal risk assessment?

<comment><USER9> > Does a set of timestamps have the same informative value of the geolocation > history of a user?

It depends on the user, which is why they are given an option.

> Would you affirm this in a formal risk assessment?

Are we still talking about a free, open-source note-taking app or is this a medical device now?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wish this app's creator had a Patreon so I could donate to it's development. Money is far more portable than development time especially since there is a sunk cost in starting up.

Please set one up and msg me and I'll gladly contribute. I'm a daily, heavy Evernote user and I would love some competition to this great app and the ability to have an open-source option.

</comment><comment><USER12> This looks great. I hope you might prioritize adding a web clipper. For me, the Evernote Web Clipper plugin/extension is the killer app. The rest of Evernote isn't great, but their web clipper is incredibly useful to me.

<comment><USER13> My Evernote file is over 20GB, thanks to Web Clipper. I've saved everything from recipe to interesting articles, dating back almost 10 years ago. For me, it is cool to be able to save web pages without worrying that the page / link will disappear in the future.

The only other alternative is DevonThink, which is pricey, but well worth its cost.

<comment><USER14> pinboard.in does it for $25 a year.

> For a small annual fee, Pinboard can download and store a copy of every page > you bookmark, for your own private use.

Enabling archiving will also enable full-text search for your bookmarks. How does it work?

Each time you save a bookmark, or put something on your toread list, Pinboard will crawl the URL and store a permanent copy of the page to your account.

[https://pinboard.in/upgrade/](https://pinboard.in/upgrade/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been using Typora to make my todo lists recently. It's a markdown editor too. Super simple to type, and you can really got some professional looking layout, with headings and titles quickly too. Recently they built in a file browser. Open one file in a directory, and it will show you all the files in side panel. Which in my case are just todo lists for day of the week. But it could be any type of notes. Highly recommend it. For Example typing ###Title would give a large title typing - [ ] will give you a checkbox, and so on

<comment><USER16> That looks nice. Does it have keyboard shortcut with fuzzy searching to open other files in side panel?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Still waiting for a nice rich text note taking tool that can compete with the likes of DevonThink and EverNote. I don't get the underlying fascination with using markdown.

<comment><USER18> Simplicity, freedom to really migrate your data.

Sure, you theoretically can migrate your notes from, say OneNote to Evernote (and vice-versa), but doing so is a great experience in frankensteining. I'm not even very confident there isn't outright data loss in some places, and with a high volume of notes, it's not feasible to check manually. Even with no loss, lots of stuff look ugly and/or do not work anymore, even if there is an equivalent on the target platform.

<comment><USER19> writing your notes in markdown is a bit ass-backwards though - it's great as a storage medium but having to manually reformat a markdown document because you're not live-editing the output is a needless pain. I'd much rather write using your usual rich text interface and have that export markdown for me.

<comment><USER20> There are some editors that live preview your markdown. It's pretty nice.

Take a look at Bear on Mac & iOS, and DayOne (my favorite but lacking full markdown support). Also Dropbox paper is interesting and live previews markdown and has nice table support

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is very close to ideal for me. I've been moving away from Google Keep (and google in general recently, using Fastmail, microg fork of LineageOS on Fairphone 2, orgzly, vim org-mode Nextcloud etc etc) and the one thing that I missed was easily been able to dump photos and images into notes.

I've had a play with this briefly and I will be using it full time. As soon as it offers nextcloud sync it really ticks all of my boxes. The terminal client is a really nice touch.

<comment><USER22> How do you handle syncing in orgzly? My current approach is "remember to hit the sync button", but apparently I suck at that. :) At least it's easy to fix sync conflicts in Emacs using ediff.

<comment><USER21> I think newer builds have an auto-sync feature. I got mine recently from f-droid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Since I can't test it right now: Does this use some kind of database to store the notes? The readme talks about syncing, including to the file system.

Why are the notes not simply stored as files in the first place? Would this not be much easier than constant exporting/importing to various providers?

<comment><USER7> Hi, I'm the author of this app. The notes on each client are stored in an SQLite database for performance reason. If they were stored directly as text files it would be slow to query them, it would be very hard to make it work on mobile (and even slower), and you wouldn't be able to easily create relations between notes and tags, notes and notebooks, resource links, etc.

It's when exporting them or syncing them that all the app entities (notes, but also notebook metadata, tags, etc.) are converted to plain text files. One advantage of this is that the notes are not locked into an obscure format - <USER2> shouldn't take more than 1h to create a script that read and convert these text files to any other format.

<comment><USER24> _> If they were stored directly as text files it would be slow to query them, it would be very hard to make it work on mobile (and even slower), and you wouldn't be able to easily create relations between notes and tags, notes and notebooks, resource links, etc._

Zim uses plain text files and folders. You can have images, tags, link to other notes, links to the filesystem...

Maybe I am not using it with enough files for it to be a problem, but I cant say that it is slow.

<comment><USER25> I think Zim uses a two level approach, storing text files but also keeping an index database for doing full text search.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why is this better than Orgmode? Orgmode is human readable, opens in any text editor, handles everything from bullet points to tables, and Github even has a Markdown-like renderer for Orgmode files.

<comment><USER27> First, it's markdown based. That's probably not an advantage for you, but it's a syntax people are used too.

Secondly, syncing is built in. Sure you could use git on your org mode file, but that's requires effort.

Thirdly, this handles attachments and images.

Fourth, the user does not have to learn EMacs.

Fifth, it runs on phones.

So it does have advantages for some people. If your already an orgmode master, it may mean less for you.

<comment><USER28> 1) Granted.

2) You can put your org file in Dropbox, all the mobile clients support that too.

3) Org-mode probably does this too.

4) Granted :)

5) orgzly for Android, beorg for ios.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Interesting app. I'm currently using todo.txt [1] and am quite happy with it. It's not really a note taking app (although I could use it that way) but rather a todo app and it uses a pure text file and syncs with dropbox nicely. I use an Android app as well [2].

There's a bunch of plugins for it but I haven't used any of them yet.

[1]: [http://todotxt.org/](http://todotxt.org/) [2]: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.mpcjanssen....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.mpcjanssen.todotxtholo&hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER30> Question for the people here ... are there any good SOCIAL apps like this?

I mean, for example, being able to assign tasks to others (like in Redmine / JIRA) and be notified of progress/completion.

Or collaboration on notes and permissions etc. Straight from your phone instead of some google doc.

And maybe turning those notes into tasks later.

What would you use?

</comment><comment><USER31> I recently went farther down the note-taking rabbit hole than I care to admit. I wanted the app to be cross platform (macOS/win10/Arch (Gnome)). What I found was that by separating my two use cases -- web clipping and Markdown/Gist-like notes -- I was able to find a sweet spot (for now).

the abbreviated version of my setup is this:

AmazonBasics dotted notebook as my primary note taking device. I use a system similar to a bullet journal.

Microsoft OneNote for web clipping. The web client is good enough if I need to read notes on linux. I use Boostnote for programming notes / Markdown. Then, at the end of the day, I type my notes from my physical notebook in to OneNote for searchability.

I know that my setup is not earth shattering. But that's kind of my point. I spent a lot of time searching high and low for a fully digital solution. I assumed that I would find several excellent cross-platform note taking applications to choose from. I was wrong. They were either not very good at taking notes, or the few that are good, are not cross platform. Honorable mention to Simplenote and Quiver. Quiver is solid if you're only on a Mac.

</comment><comment><USER32> I honestly just think that org-mode should receive more widespread adoption and attention, especially within the developer community. It does everything. All those new products are sort of reinventing the wheels, and in a 100 times less feature-rich manner.

The only gripe I have with org-mode is its awkward mobile support. But Orgzly does a decent job on Android and I rarely type on mobile, which is hugely ineffective anyways.

</comment><comment><USER33> May I suggest QOwnNotes as an alternative to this? It's also cross-platform (not sure about mobile) and it's not another shitty electron app.

<comment><USER34> To counter this a bit, I would rather run an Electron app than be greeted with this as the default interface: [http://www.qownnotes.org/var/bekerle/storage/images/_aliases...](http://www.qownnotes.org/var/bekerle/storage/images/_aliases/frontpage_slider_full2/qownnotes/frontpage- slider/qownnotes-main-screen-linux/374-25-eng-GB/QOwnNotes-Main-Screen- Linux.png)

I'll take an app that uses a bit more resources over something that looks like an IDE instead of a note-taking app any day.

Currently using Inkdrop[0], which is not open source (but subscription based) and has a rather basic Android client, but it's cross-platform (macOS, Windows, Android, iOS, Ubuntu and other Linux-based distributions), has a pretty intuitive interface (as in, doesn't look like an IDE), backs up its database to my Nextcloud instance, and supports dragging and dropping images.

[0] [https://www.inkdrop.info/](https://www.inkdrop.info/)

<comment><USER35> The default interface of QOwnNotes has pretty much everything turned off in it's "minimal" workspace (that is used by default).

<comment><USER35> I made a screenshot for you ;)

[http://www.qownnotes.org/var/bekerle/storage/images/qownnote...](http://www.qownnotes.org/var/bekerle/storage/images/qownnotes/frontpage- slider/qownnotes-main-screen-minimal-linux/4706-1-eng-GB/QOwnNotes-Main- Screen-Minimal-Linux.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Side question: why did you name the application Joplin? (My hometown is Joplin, MO and I'm curious if you're also from or living there.) My other two guesses for its etymology are Janis Joplin and Scott Joplin.

<comment><USER37> Not the author here, but my guess is that it's named after the composer since the software deals with notes.

Also, though Scott Joplin's ragtime musical style has a lot in common with some very informal music, his own approach was more educated, sophisticated, and precise. Every note was in its place for a reason, and he was known to prefer his pieces to be performed exactly as written. So you could say that compared to the people who came before him, his notes were more organized.

<comment><USER7> Good guess, that's exactly it :) I love this composer and was listening to him a lot while developing this app. Additionally I think this is a name that's easy to remember and type, so it felt like a good choice.

<comment><USER38> I agree, its a great name =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> OK, once: "Coming features All: End to end encryption" is implemented then I'm up for giving this a try. The plain text format and markdown support is good features.

<comment><USER40> Check out Standard Notes: standardnotes.org

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I take notes like this:

        vim ~/documents/notes

<comment><USER42> I just send an email to myself. If it's something ongoing, I'll leave a draft open for a few days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Every time I see a post like this on HAN I think of this guy... [https://www.flickr.com/photos/hawkexpress/sets/7215759420049...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/hawkexpress/sets/72157594200490122/)

<comment><USER44> Wow, that's amazing. I've been following the GTD related space since I first got on IRC (about 15 years ago) and find more analog solutions (Hipster PDA etc.) so fascinating, but this one really wins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I've played with a bunch of note tools, but once you need collaborative and painless synchronisation across platforms, your options really shrink. (I ended up with Google Keep, but it's not ideal.)

As soon as we get Keybase FS on Android, this kind of tool becomes extremely interesting.

<comment><USER46> I'm using Dynalist, which is definitely an improvement over Google Keep, but I'm starting to find it quite restricting that everything has to be in bullet point lists. What I really want is something thats between Dynalist with its Zooming mechanism, and Typora with its super nice markdown editor.

<comment><USER45> I haven't heard of any of those! Forcing dot points for everything would be tiring. Clearly list-focused rather than note-focused, and that's okay. For tasks I use trello, and occasionally the separation between notes and tasks is a bit blurry. Ultimately long-term storage of knowledge is stored in my personal wiki, so the whole suite is not entirely seamless yet.

Typora looks like a lovely interface, but appears to be non-free, no support on mobile, not collaborative.

<comment><USER46> I just wanted to point out Typora as a nice interface for a markdown editor, it's not really a note taking app.

<comment><USER47> How is a markdown editor not a note taking app? Sometimes leaving search and sync to the system/other programs (grep, dropbox, syncthing) is a valid approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> trevor-e This looks very nice, well done. I'm surprised that nobody mentioned Workflowy in here, it's what I mainly use and found it fits my frame of mind the best. It's just infinitely recursive lists that let you zoom in on a particular subset. Next up on my list is learning Emacs + org mode to see how I like that.

<comment><USER44> You may like Dynalist.io which is inspired by Workflowy. I never used the latter but I really like the former.

<comment> trevor-e Wow, this looks amazing, thanks for the suggestion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This is great! I'm happy that more apps are converging on what I've started doing already anyway (keep plain markdown files on my disk). I got burned a few times too many trying to export/migrate my notes from some service's proprietary format.

</comment><comment><USER49> I like the idea of an app with integrated notes and todos, and love that its open source, but this is really lacking in the todo department. No drag-and- drop reordering and no deadlines/grouping by date makes it pretty useless for anything approaching a decent workflow.

I've tried pretty much everything and still haven't found anything with the features/ease-of-use/good design of Wunderlist (which is still lacking in features, and has a fast approaching EOL). Considering todo apps are the modern version of hello world I would think we'd have a lot of good options (or does that reasoning actually mean there are a lot of half-baked options?)

<comment><USER50> I used [https://ticktick.com/](https://ticktick.com/) for quite some time and then moved to Memorigi - [https://tinbits.io/](https://tinbits.io/) (Android only). I have tried wunderlist, todoist and some others but nothing clicked except these two. Recurring tasks are what I use todo apps most for and these two supported it best

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Does it support inline images?

I'm using Quiver for Mac, but really a cross platform solution would be more appropriate.

I tend to take notes/drawings on paper then take pictures of the useful stuff and put it into Quiver so I can see it in context

</comment><comment><USER52> Any tips or recommendations for a "note-taking and to-do" mobile app that would allow dictation, speech to text?

My use-case is recording quick notes and TODOs, which often come at the weirdest of moments (no computer, no paper).

I feel there's a market for something super simple: a speech recognition fast enough and good enough that I can later read _and understand_ what I said.

Everything I've tried so far was either too cumbersome (I need it to start recording fast, just like taking a snap picture) or its transcriptions too crappy (no idea what was said, even conceptually).

<comment><USER53> > "no computer, no paper"

Sounds like you really just ought to make a habit of keeping pen and paper near you, or your mobile phone. Either of these fit your use case nicely at (probably) no extra cost.

<comment><USER54> _or your mobile phone_

Well, Radim is looking for a mobile app, so I'm assuming there's one around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Interesting to see AppImage actually in use. [https://appimage.org/](https://appimage.org/)

</comment><comment><USER56> Good God - it's a note taking app that installs sqlite, sharp, and more than 300 other things... well into the millions of lines of code.

</comment><comment><USER57> Good job. A bit too clunky on Windows for me (e.g., setting an alarm for a task), but I like the concept and the multi-environmental access aspect.

I've recently started using TickTick ([https://ticktick.com](https://ticktick.com)) and been pretty happy with it, thought not accessible from a terminal.

</comment><comment><USER58> Not supported on my chromebook. Please allow me to install the chromebook app on android.

</comment><comment><USER59> This is something I have been wanting for a while a note taking app with a terminal app and syncing... unfortunately installing all these tools from an unknown source makes me a bit leery.

</comment><comment><USER60> While we are at it. Has anyone tried Dropbox Paper for note taking?

<comment><USER61> I have. It works fine, just like a myriad of other note-taking methods.

I don't know that I'll ever settle on just one note-taking method. I'm too everywhere to have a single system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> the only thing I want to ask is weather these apps will last about 30 years+. When the support for a note taking app dies it causes a lot of head aches. Remember google notebook?

</comment><comment><USER63> Just downloaded it and was checking it out. What is the difference between a todo and a note? Am I missing something? I am just using the UI not the terminal at this time.

<comment><USER57> I'd think a todo is a task that needs to be completed, whereas a note is just a set of information that needs to be stored.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Bit of a left-field question here: how hard would it be to integrate with Google Home where you could dictate your notes, listen to them or mark todos as completed?

</comment><comment><USER65> If you're working in a terminal, all you need to take notes is vi or emacs. No need to complicate things.

<comment><USER57> For you.

As one example: Those notes are unlikely simple to access when you're on your phone away from your terminal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> The one thing missing: web. Esp. in places with restricted installs, having a web front end would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER67> Windows issue: The installer assumes you want it on your c drive. grumble grumble.

<comment><USER68> ....most, if not every single windows application makes this assumption.

<comment><USER69> That's not my experience at all. _Most_ installers let you choose your installation folder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Neat app...but where is the sqlite database located on a windows installation?

</comment><comment><USER71> Is it possible to export a note? Are notes sharable?

</comment><comment><USER72> I've used www.simplenote.com in the past.

</comment><comment><USER73> I want to try notion.so, some friends use it at work with great success. But would prefer something like it but with a business model other than freemium SaaS.

</comment><comment><USER74> Please change the name))) "Jopa" means ass in Russian... And, well...Joplin sounds like a resident of "Ass"-town

<comment><USER61> Janis Joplin was an icon of American music culture. I wouldn't be surprised if this program was named after her.

Not to be insensitive to other cultures, but "this name sounds vaguely like this vulgar thing in another language" is not a strong reason to rename a project of this kind.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I was thinking Janis Joplin, too. Another musician, Scott Joplin, also comes to mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> thank you. this is something i've wanted to make for a long time.

will look forward to helping contribute.

</comment><comment><USER76> What about recurring to-dos?

</comment><comment><USER77> why does android app have to access user location at time of installation.

</comment><comment><USER78> Nice work

</comment><comment><USER79> Good job, @laurent22!

</comment><comment><USER80> Electron, no thnx.

<comment><USER61> Just use the terminal client then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> I'm currently using Apple Notes on my Mac and iPhone. It works just great!

        It synchronises perfectly
        I can drag and drop images to it, no problem.
        Cmd + C, Cmd + V, Cmd + B, Cmd + I all work as expected.
        I can even add to-do lists and cross out "Done"
        I think it even supports tables, But I don't use them.
        Export as PDF, html, airdrop, email whatever, works easily

What doesn't work:

        If I ever get out of Apple ecosystem, it won't work.
        Apple has my data, and I need to trust them.

Give me something with the same ease of use, and make it self-hostable without pain. I'd be happy to pay. I don't need Markdown or anything else. Text + Drag & Drop images support are a must for me.

<comment><USER69> Useful tip (that I didn't know until recently) is you can also access your notes via any modern browser at [https://www.icloud.com/](https://www.icloud.com/)

I recently moved to a Windows machine as my day-to-day home machine and thought I'd have to abandon Apple Notes (which I use on my phone and my work Macbook) but the web interface is basically identical to the apps.

<comment><USER82> That's great to know. I found how awesome Notes had become in Sierra, and now have hundreds of notes - this is an app I use every single day multiple times a day. But I don't like the new offering of MBP's and wanted to move off the mac ecosystem, so started work on something just as easy to use and as secure as Notes, coupled with sharing notes. It's just a mobile first web app hooked up to firebase with nothing making it to the server that hasn't been encrypted on the client first. Shared notes will require users to share a password, unless I find a better solution.

But if iCloud Notes is just as good, maybe I'm wasting my time. I trust Apple's security, and Notes really is _exactly_ what I want as a dev (their limited markup is nearly as useful as markdown, and I love that it is limited to a few choices).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> I refuse to install any more Electron apps on my desktop.

<comment><USER84> Since the number of Electron apps probably isn't going to decline anytime soon, I think I can save you some work. I could write you a little application that scans HN a few times every day and if it finds a discussion about an Electron-based project it will post a comment letting everybody know that you won't be installing it because it uses Electron.

If you are interested, let me know. I can knock it out in a day or so and it will work on any platform you use because it's based on Electron.

<comment><USER85> Really made me laugh!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Download-free screensharing for better customer support - <AUTHOR> http://usefirefly.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I'm Dan Shipper one of the co-founders of Firefly. Just to answer a few likely questions:

1\. It's download free because it runs completely in the browser with Javascript

2\. We're differentiated from other similar services like GoInstant because GoInstant has a completely enterprise strategy. They're not self-serve and they work with big companies. We're tackling the lower end of the market.

3\. We're helping to solve the distribution problem inherent to marketing to SMBs with a screensharing API. The API basically turns us into a _Twilio for screensharing_ meaning that anyone can introduce our screensharing technology into their customer support apps with just a few lines of code.

Any feedback about the product you have would be incredibly helpful. Thanks!

<comment><USER3> I think this is pretty cool but you're sharing a Web page rather than "screen sharing", right? That is, it's good for webapps but not for Excel, etc? It'd be cool if HTML5 got an API to do proper screen sharing one day though..

<comment><AUTHOR> Technically it's co-browsing software. So basically what we do is grab the DOM from the customer side and transfer it to the representative's side. There's no screenshot involved which gives us a number of advantages

1\. It's more private. The rep doesn't see your whole screen, just the contents of the page. 2\. It's more secure. We can redact DOM elements with sensitive information like passwords so that they never hit our servers and are never seen by the rep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Firefly fits in perfectly with the North Inc. (and Dan's) mentality, I love it:

\--1. Address an outdated market: customer support for enterprises. Business doesn't need to be sexy.

\--2. Make money now, not later. Sign up, pay now. For those willing to send an email, there's a demo available.

\--3. No need to accept funding. North Inc. pushes products. Period.

\--4. All the while, they're all still in school learning philosophy, finance, management, and much more.

Congrats to North Inc. on a successful launch. I can't wait to hear the numbers and read the many articles.

<comment><USER5> Thanks! After spending the summer building the product, we're really excited to publicly launch Firefly. Your comment definitely captures our mindset - <USER2> many times do you call into a customer support line today and it just sucks? We think support is ripe for disruption and being able to see your screen instantly makes the lives of customers and reps that much easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting service. Couple of small issues:

#1. <http://usefirefly.com/learn-more> (Our script tag will add a support button to the right side of every page it is installed on.) … but the image shows it on the left side

#2. <http://usefirefly.com/pricing> says ie9+ and <http://usefirefly.com/learn-more> says ie8+ under highlights. Which one is it?

#3. I don't understand why you use requirejs to load your js. This causes 2+ hits and a larger download. Instead, you should be wrapping it with almond for less overhead. While you are at it, how about also async loading your js too.

<comment><USER7> This is Justin, another Firefly co-founder. Dan's correct in that those screenshots are outdated. Our javascript is compiled down to one file (other than our loader) and both are loaded in asynchronously, so everything is fast with only two http requests.

<comment><USER6> cool. thanks.

Hardcore...

* NOTICE: All information contained herein is, and remains * the property of North Incorporated and its suppliers, * if any. The intellectual and technical concepts contained * herein are proprietary to North * and its suppliers and may be covered by U.S. and Foreign Patents, * patents in process, and are protected by trade secret or copyright law. * Dissemination of this information or reproduction of this material * is strictly forbidden unless prior written permission is obtained * from North.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sorry, but the demo video is almost unwatchable. Very slow paced, and when screenshots are show, they are quickly faded back out to a blue screen with some text. The narration is slow paced and the background music is not necessary.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, admittedly we're hardly video experts :). We'll get that sorted out in the next few weeks or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I hope you've thought about security. There should be a simple point-and-click way for agents to block call requests from a single end-user IP address or a range of IP addresses. Otherwise you'll get a DoS attack from the first bored teenager who decides that clicking "Call support" repeatedly on your client's website is more fun than making prank calls.

You should probably use SSL for something like this -- at least the business end that actually hosts the scripts and handles the DOM exchange -- but I'm sure you've already thought of that.

<comment><USER7> Yes, we're always thinking about security and we take it very seriously. Great suggestions! As you guessed, we do use ssl to encrypt all transmission of data that powers the browser-sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This brings up the esoteric piece of knowledge that I have about Microsoft squatting on firefly.com for over a decade and a half now, and not doing anything with it.

Maybe you can reverse hijack it eventually.

</comment><comment><USER11> Don't you feel that "Screen-Sharing" is a bit of a stretch? I don't see where I can share anything other than the current browser window's content.

This would be confusing for the client and the end user trying understand what they are agreeing to.

A more appropriate title would be something that would allude to the fact that really you are just sharing the page the user is browsing.

Am i wrong in this assumption?

<comment><AUTHOR> We chose screensharing over a word like "cobrowsing" because we felt that people understood more clearly exactly what was going on. It's definitely not an exact term, i.e. you can't see the whole screen, but it is screensharing in the sense that you absolutely see part of what's going on.

We'll definitely have to go back and reconsider though, if people feel like it's misleading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Amazing product idea!

You should also be able to buy connectivity by the hour. To me, this makes more sense than the bulk pack.

I do like the idea of having a pricing option to target the lowest end of the market -- experiments, prototypes, one-man startups, and the like, which might not need the service very often, and might not have a big enough budget to justify $30 per month.

</comment><comment><USER12> If there is a market for this, great. But even though I do user support on a daily basis, I don't see myself using this anytime soon. I rather create screen casts or take screen shots. It's exactly the same thing, but I only have to do it once and then it can be viewed by everyone. I also like to have instructions written down, either in a support forum or in an e-mail. The user can go back and read the instructions again, if he struggles with the same problem the next time. Also, I can write most support e-mails in less then five minutes. Phone calls take way longer most of the times.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great point, we're thinking about allowing you to record sessions down the line and re-use them. For many companies screensharing is an integral part of the support process already, it's just slow and requires downloads. We're solving that problem for them.

There are definitely many companies that don't need this. E-commerce companies for example tend to get support requests that don't require screensharing e.g. "Can I get free shipping?" That reality is totally fine with us, because it allows us to concentrate our efforts on a small group of companies that really need this.

Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Assuming you're not in the HFJ webfonts beta I'd replace Gotham (with Proxima Nova, maybe?) before you get sued into oblivion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip. We'll get that sorted out today :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> When I see headlines and webpages like this, I am instantly turned off. I know I'm in a minority spot, but there are conflicting claims.

Screen-sharing and plugin-free are not compatible. This is webpage-sharing or DOM-sharing. A very cool take on this, but until I read the comments here, I was scouring your site for that detail. You don't need to hide it, or call it "DOM-sharing", but something.

Even just a screenshot example... your "learn more" page has everything but a shot of it in action.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the feedback! We'll clarify our copy. I don't know if you got a chance to see our video (available on our homepage), but it gives a demo of all the features of the product in action. We're also more than happy to give you a demo over the phone, if you'd like. Just give us a call at 213.784.0273.

Best, Patrick

<comment><USER14> I missed the video, sorry, I have Flash set to load on demand in Chrome and the box is hidden entirely.</comment></comment></comment>


Welcome to yr world - <AUTHOR> http://ambientehotel.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/welcome-to-yr-world/

<comment><USER2> Reading some Baudrillard lately?

[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/baudrillard/](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/baudrillard/)</comment>


Show HN: Website to see all Businesses that received SBA PPP Loan with amount - <AUTHOR> https://ppp-loan.info/ <comment><AUTHOR> Created a small website to find businesses in my city that received SBA PPP (Payment Protection Program) Loan. For now the you can find businesses that received loan above $150K filtered by Name, city, state, amount.

I'll be adding some more visualizations and statistical summery. Any suggestions on what kind of summery would be helpful?

</comment><comment><USER2> Why do you say "all" in your title when you are really only listing businesses that received $150K or more?</comment>


Ask HN: Why are academic websites so bad? - <AUTHOR> Many syllabus website I see from top universities or university program webpages are plain HTML. Is there an underlying reason why these sites don't use a basic design template and refined layout? <comment><USER2> Plain HTML is preferable, if you don't need anything fancier.

The real reason may be that universities hire students (who may or may not know anything about web design) to work on their main pages, and course pages are usually maintained by professors. However, ultimately, if you want your page to be accessible to people with crappy computers it makes sense to avoid the kind of bloated nonsense that passes for "good web design" these days.

</comment><comment><USER3> That's one of the reasons I like 'em. And this is a designer talking! Sure, a nice simple base CSS could fix line width, letterspacing, general kerning... but I'd much rather take plain old HTML that I can access from pretty much any browser on any OS anywhere in the world, than the Javascript-fueled "immersive" websites laaaarge images and fancy effects anyday.

Having said that, of course, I should concede that the choice isn't binary. Still.</comment>


Why 8chan will not be getting Infinity Next - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ItsJoshProbably/why-8chan-will-not-be-getting-infinity-next-d8116d162c7#.2zecdot8e <comment><USER2> After reading the first few pages of text, I still have no idea what this is about other than being related to *chan...

</comment><comment><USER3> 8chan is one of the boards full of people too toxic for 4chan, why would anybody be surprised at this drama.</comment>


The Strange Death of Europe - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-strange-death-of-europe/id1225746449?mt=11&ign-mpt=uo%3D2 <comment><AUTHOR> No book has made me more uncomfortable or challenged my views more in along while. Literature at its best

<comment><USER2> Did the author offer any practical solutions?</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Advice from my fortune cookie - <AUTHOR>

"If you keep too busy learning the tricks of the trade, you may never learn the trade."
This was the fortune I received today with my lunch. I thought it was a good reminder and a nice phrasing of the importance of getting things done.
It can be easy to waste time spinning our wheels learning one paradigm after another. For many of us, we already know enough to build anything we'd like. At some point, it's time to stop learning and start building something people want.
For many of us, that time is now. <comment><USER2> A similar lesson is passed along in Starcraft playing circles, which is stop teching and go kill your competitor.

</comment><comment><USER3> Your Chinese restaurant must have a good fortune cookie supplier. Mine are always completely useless (and often false) statements like "You appreciate fine art".

<comment><USER4> I have found the fortunes (and the cookies themselves) from Golden Dragon Fortune Cookies, in Chicago, to be the best I've encountered. Not only are they interesting and enjoyable; their diversity and number are kind of astounding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Except in bed.</comment>


I'm Still Going Long and Hoping the Markets Go Down - <AUTHOR> http://blogmaverick.com/2008/10/10/im-still-going-long-and-hoping-the-markets-go-down/ <comment><USER2> [http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/how-long- before...](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/how-long-before-the- market-bottoms/)

> Some may also wonder how long it will take the market to "recover." It > depends exactly what is meant by "recover," of course, but one measure might > be when the market returns to its pre-crash peak. The historical data is > somewhat more distressing in this context.

> After the Great Depression, it took 29 years — until 1958 — for the market > to reach its pre-Depression, inflation-adjusted peak. After the 1970s > recession, it took 24 years — until 1992 — for the market to make a full > "recovery" by the same measure. So no matter whether you start from the > recent 2007 peak, or from the market's absolute inflation-adjusted peak > during the tech bubble in 2000, we may still have at least a decade to go > before full "recovery."

Although of course some of that time will be 'going back up', so won't be so bad. it's not like 74-92 were all bleak and tough, difficult years.

<comment><USER3> Well, the Great Depression had both the New Deal and the WWII to suffer through. Even if you support the former, you still have to admit that the later was a downer.

Hopefully, we won't have to worry about either of those for time being.

<comment><USER4> I think you've got your history wrong. WWII was what ended the Great Depression. From Wikipedia:

"The end of the depression in the U.S. is associated with the onset of the war economy of World War II, beginning around 1939."

Also from War Economy entry:

"On the supply side, it has been observed that wars sometimes have the effect of accelerating progress of technology to such an extent that an economy is greatly strengthened after the war, especially if it has avoided the war- related destruction. This was the case, for example, with the United States in World War I and World War II."

It didn't suffer through it at all, it got fixed by it.

<comment><USER5> WWII ended the depression if you define "the depression" by its characteristic unemployment levels. In terms of quality-of-life, WWII was much... _much_...worse than the depression. Rationing, regimentation, agit-prop, scam war bonds, not to mention having to march off to war...all worse than the depression by far.

The notion that WWII fixed the depression is the "broken window" theory writ on a grand scale.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window>

<comment><USER4> Well, I'd say that whether or not life during WWII might was worse than during the depression is a very complex question, and you'd get very different answers from different people at the time. It was clearly a lot better for some, a lot worse for some, etc.

Even if it was worse overall, it gave us an economy and nation afterward that was far better than before the Great Depression. It is, of course, impossible to say where we'd be without it today, but things like the GI Bill greatly educating the American workforce or women entering it significantly undoubtedly changed us for the better.

The ramifications of that war are so complex that we're still finding new ones, but I was just pointing out that it is generally considered the end of the Depression, and much of the reason for our following prosperity.

<comment><USER6> The fallacy is that you don't know, can't know, what our economy would have been after that period, absent WWII. What if we were on the cusp of recovery anyway and we had spent 5 years building railroad and machinery rather than tanks and bombs? The end result would have been a more efficient application of industry over time, resulting in a more abundant society, right?

But I can't say that was the case, would have been the case, any more than you can say the opposite, because we don't know what would have happened if we had tweaked x or y, and can't test it. That's why economics is a social science, not a science. That's why economists are still arguing over what caused the great depression, as well as what ended it.

<comment><USER4> It's not a fallacy because I specifically pointed that out. You can, however, point to all of the various technologies and cultural shifts that impacted our economy, and the 50+ year period of unrivaled prosperity that occurred afterward and say it most likely was for the best.

Very few nations ever achieve a period like America did from that point to probably about 9/11/01. If we had to make the decision again from a purely economic standpoint, given the benefit of hindsight, we'd make it the same way.

<comment><USER6> You did state rather unequivocally that WWII fixed the economy:

> It didn't suffer through it at all, it got fixed by it.

And now, you're attempting to declare post hoc, ergo propter hoc? The whole point of what I'm saying is that there are thousands or millions of changes in policy, technology, demographics, sentiment, which had an impact on the economy, we don't know which did what.

I could just as easily explain the post-war years by saying that it's natural that any country which does not get bombed to smithereens will experience relative prosperity, whether or not it participated in bombing other countries, as we did in WWII. Perhaps it was only that advantage which overwhelmed the tax of war spending.

Again, I can't say for sure, but neither can you. I'm inclined to think you're wrong though, from the simple perspective the the allocation of resources over time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I hate being such a sook about the markets. I want to sell now and buy when it's lower, but I'm worried we're at bottom.

That said, I thought we'd hit bottom yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that.

<comment><USER8> If you didn't have a risk management plan in place, for shame.

Anyways, here's some stuff that will take the fear out of you.

[http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/10/10-bullish- si...](http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/10/10-bullish-sign.html)

<comment><USER7> I have risk management in place, of course. I'm not concerned about my losses, just wish I had the balls to capitalize on the falling market.

Good link, thanks. So perhaps time to start buying soon...

<comment><USER9> Balls?

I don't understand. The simplest tenant is "buy low, sell high". Most stocks are low, way low now. No need to time the bottom. Buy and hold. Buy quality companies whose business/products you personally understand.

If you already have stock, it's a nobrainer perfect time to buy more of the same. Dollar cost averaging.

Bought a stock at $20, now it's at $15? buy another. Your cost is now $17.50. Stock has to go up half as far for you to be making return.

<comment><USER7> Yes yes, buy and hold, blah blah. But you're missing the sell part. Monday was when I should've sold high, but I don't want to mistime the bottom, so I do the lazy investor's approach and leave my stocks alone until a bottom has been established and I start buying back in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Good entrepreneur does not necessarily means a good investor.

<comment><USER4> He did run and sell a successful hedge fund.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You are all missing the key point of Mark's whole reasoning. DON'T BUY STOCKS BECAUSE SOMEONE ELSE WILL BUY THEM. BUY STOCKS _YOU WANT_ TO OWN, forever if need be. Why? Because they pay dividends! Mark doesn't care if the Dow goes to zero or infinity, he's got an acceptable yield on his stocks and that's all that matters.

<comment><USER12> There are some stocks that don't pay any dividends. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Current Share Price of the Company = 5 x Book value Per Share of the Company.

Current Market Capitalization of the Company = 10 x Quarterly Revenue/Sales of the Company.

Anything beyond is either irrational or manipulation.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's a great time to buy.

I haven't been in the market for a couple years, but I'm salivating over this downturn. Sorry for all those losing money, but in my opinion this is a buying opportunity like there never was before.

<comment><USER15> The markets will probably bounce in the next week or two, so there's a trading opportunity, but the historical record says you're a fool if you buy to hold now. Ignoring that stocks probably have more to fall, the behavior of falling markets is that they bottom and then stay at the bottom for a long time. Things trade sideways for a long time before any secular bull kicks off. You do not have to worry about missing the boat.

<comment><USER16> You do have to worry about missing the boat. Historically, there are a few days in the year for which the daily return is huge, say 4 or 5%. You cannot guess in advance. If you miss a couple of very good days, your return might be much lower than the market's.

<comment><USER15> In a secular bear the annual return is probably negative. By miss the boat, I mean miss the start of a secular bull. We were talking about buy and hold investors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Long agricultural commodities Short equities</comment>


23AndMe's Lark App - Your personal health coach is here - <AUTHOR> https://www.lark.com/lark23andme <comment><USER2> Is it a personal health coach or simply another way to get people to give up their DNA to be used by drug companies and cops? Both are part of the agreement when you give them a sample and Glaxo just bought into this company.

<comment><USER3> I'm happy others are thinking/saying the same thing I would. Came here to say this. ++</comment></comment>