hn_ltl-ftc

OMG, it's just a 'sheepsfoot' blade shape (as TFA mentions, but doesn't emphasize enough, IMO). That's the kind of thing you would have seen in hardware store knife displays, or scouting manuals, when I was a kid. It IS a good shape for cutting hand-held fruit. Or for cutting round-ish objects NEAR the EDGE of a hard surface (like a cutting board). But it is a bad shape for cutting meat or hard vegetables on a plate. You want a decently curved blade for that latter use. Both for ergonomics, and to keep your fingers & wrist ABOVE the surface of the plate or raised rim. This is not rocket surgery...

As mentioned in TFA: "Beyond form, there is function: Both Rich and Blease say their French knives keep their edge longer than other table knives, meaning they require far less frequent sharpening. Rich says he has replaced a few sets of steak knives, while his Lannier knives have been in action since 2018."

That's it. It's a cost-saving play by the restaurant (sharpening is time-consuming if your staff does it manually; and increasingly expensive if you out-source it to a sharpening service).

The stuff about the 'form', and the artisanal knife production is mostly PR for the restaurant.

Though I've heard of that knife-maker; and positive things about them. And the Thiers region is historically a major area for edged tools.

==== FWIW: I'm not a Chef; but I have a nephew who is; and I discuss restaurant knives and sharpening with him. But, more usefully, I'm a woodworker, and I have whole books just on sharpening, and tools from Thiers. Again, this is not rocket surgery, but hopefully one or two readers will be today's "lucky 10,000"!

==== ETA: grammar fix.

Well, I’m much closer, at 66, to having to deal with the dreams and realities of retirement, than the (much?) younger author of TFA is. All that follows, BTW, is from a USA-centric perspective. (Immodest request: kindly refrain from saying how much better retirement and/or old-age is, in your country-such comparisons are largely unproductive; yet annoyingly tedious.)

I’m still working full time as a Software Developer and systems analyst, and largely by my own choice. Though I admit my lifestyle would be curtailed a bit (or maybe a LOT, if I live long enough!) if I had to live off my current savings plus whatever level of social security I’d be entitled to.

I’m still healthy enough to do the work, but I definitely feel like I don’t have the energy level and stamina that I used to. Nor as much motivation to focus on the job and my career.

Those last two challenges were most apparent during my previous two jobs, which were at software or hardware start-ups. I simply don’t want to deal with that level of stress and time pressure anymore, regardless of whether or not I can work at that pace. (Which is increasingly doubtful, admittedly.)

Currently I’m working at a sort of ‘biotech startup’ except we’re embedded inside a giant pharma company. And the work pace is wonderfully relaxed (and low-stress), compared to my previous employment (in high-tech startups). From my current viewpoint, and career needs, it’s a good match. I get a solid salary (+ bonus and stock), but (unlike software/internet/AI startups): a PHENOMENAL benefits plan. Though not FAANG money; but, then again, I never made that kind of money when I worked for Internet startup companies, so…

The good news, for my current career, is that I’m still mentally sharp enough to have, say, an in depth discussion of the differences between React, Vue, and other UI frameworks. And I’m teaching myself the finer points of TypeScript, as well as applying it on the job. The bad news, is that I’m having a serious of health issues. Nothing catastrophic so far; but gradually increasing in significance or frequency. At this point I feel like it’s a race between when my body gives out, or when I simply lose interest in writing code, and can convince myself that I’ve got enough savings to retire on.

Assuming that I can retire in reasonably OK health (if possible, in 3-4 years, around age 70, when I’d max-out social security benefits), I’m thinking that I have a low boredom threshold, and will want something to keep me engaged (and to help me maintain a healthy regular schedule). I’m not sure what that is yet. Maybe something just for fun (for example, I like to do woodworking)? Maybe something part-time, or freelance; but enough income to make my retirement less financially worrisome)? I’ve thought of: substitute teaching; being a teacher’s assistant (both at secondary education level; college adjunct faculty; sound or TV production; or maybe trying to sell some of my woodworking (which would make it a much less fun hobby, sadly)? Possibly an (off-season) estate caretaker gig?

I’d love to hear from others here, on HN, who are retired (or about to) and have: experience reports, cavests, or tips to convey. Or constructive feedback on my own retirement ideas…

May I take advantage of your (presumed) typo, to henceforth refer to myself as a JavaScript Devil?

That's good enough for a business card/avatar tag/equivalent, IMO--yeah, I love it!

I'm going to have to say that I'm generally, but only _partially_ in agreement with your list of examples. When talking about "best designs", I would definitely (but respectfully) disagree with the inclusion of StackOverflow, and GitHub. Specifically:

StackOverflow

     Issues: mind-boggling bad layout (poor visual hierarchy, no clear organizing principle); inconsistent typography; too many fonts; weak affordances for useful functionality (filtering/sorting replies); hard to tell obsolete or ancient replies from newer ones

GitHub

     Issues: quasi-random screen layout; hard-to-discover functionality; mystery-meat navigation; low-level behavior/affordance inconsistencies.  (Editorial aside: this looks like the side-effect--or result(!), of a slavish application of an agile feature development model to the UI design of an application.)

'useSyncExternalStore()' -- Gack!

Now...that "little" it's-not-a-framework-it's-a-library whose scope is supposed to be confined to just the "view" part of MVC (by which I mean: "React") is inserting it's tentacles (along with a quirky architecture and proven to be error-prone coding patterns, cough, hooks) into the _model_. And it's already corrupted (at least partially) the "controller" part of MVC through React's synthetic events. But hey, at least React doesn't have one of those nasty DSLs, like those Web application libraries/frameworks that use a simple templating syntax on top of plain HTML. Oh wait, JSX is a . . . DSL, and a pretty nasty one at that, given that it's ever-confusing as where JavaScript syntax is legal vs. where HTML is legal; and, oh yeah, the bracketing rules fight each other all day long. But hey, what do you expect when you combine the careful syntax design of JavaScript with the terseness and simplicity of, umm, XML?

So now React's about to ship version 18, which provides functionality which is _roughly comparable_ to version, ummmm, _3_ of Vue.js??? Well, let's see, the React folks have _already, in just a few years_ deprecated (as best I remember): Class-based components, Mix-Ins, Higher-Order Components (HOCs) . . . what's next--let's deprecate hooks?, in favor of, oh I don't know, . . . .sheesh!

Please just STOP now. Wind up the company and give the money back to the investors. (Yes, I know that React is Meta-sponsored FOSS; that last comment was just pure snark...)

On a personal note, I'd like to rebut a comment made elsewhere on this page by '0des': "The JS ecosystem skews younger, not in age, but in years programming." As a counter point, I've been doing Web application development since the early 2000s. Yes, I've worked with Web app. libraries and frameworks that many Front End Developers have not used, or maybe even heard of. Backbone, sure. How about GWT? Or maybe ES4, by which I mean Adobe Flex? How about TIBCO General Interface?

Have you heard of Vitamin C? Trick question--it's not a Web view/app library or even a GUI library--it's a TUI library from the late 1980s/early 1990. Which is to say, I shipped my first front-end code in 1984. And even though I also do full-stack coding, and UX stuff, most of my career has been in front-end coding, both desktop applications AND web applications. Which is to say, at least anecdotally (and possibly egotistically), that I think that I have a pretty well-informed opinions on what makes a good front-end framework.

React impresses me not-at-all; except in a: look-at-me-I'm-so-clever way--now new-and-improved--with extra _functional_ goodness(TM). Conversely, I've scaled Vue.js and Flex applications with so little stress (but with tremendous productivity) that I could laser-focus on the feature set, and on delivering a top-notch user experience.

I need a Web application framework (or at least a View/Rendering mgmt. library) that has these things: - Strong support for UI componentization - CSS isolation - Clean, orthogonal, basic abstractions for change handling and local state management - Tractable to scale - M, V, and logic aspects are (easy to) decouple

Also very useful: - One-way data binding - Robust, but low-ceremony approach to centralized state management - Flexible, but type-safe way to marshall/un-marshall data going out/coming in

I'm open to assessing other/new libraries, but the last five years of my career have almost wholly involved coding with Vue.js or React. HOWEVER, I only learned React because I thought that the job market demanded it--not because I ever thought that it was a great library! I'm open to learning other/newer libraries, if they are promising enough, AND if if looks like there is job market demand for them. But the previous version of Vue.js already gave me all five of the needs that I mentioned, above; plus one-way and pseudo two-way data binding. So all I need is Vuex5/Pinia for state management (but I'd be willing to also look at something like a Vue-specific alternative to Tanner's React Query), and there is an increasing wealth of solutions for data marshalling with or without GraphQL.

So, bottom line, in my current job search I am taking a hard line: if React is required, then I'm out. And if you're already using Vue, or are at least open to modernizing your current front-end coding approeach, then I'm interested.