mdiep

"Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it." –Alan Perlis

ScreenHero.

Slack built it their app, but made it way slower and ruined the simple UI. What used to take 3-5s now takes 30-60s.

What we've done with GitHub Desktop is very different than the write-an-entire-app-in-JS approach that a lot of apps have taken. There's a small piece of custom UI that's built with HTML, JS, and CSS; but even it is controlled by native code. GitHub Desktop is still mostly native code on both platforms.

This actually has nothing to do with our startup performance, at least on OS X. The comparison graph doesn't have a substantial impact on it. :)

Also, any similarities to Atom are superficial at best on OS X. We use WebKit (where Electron/Atom use Chromium) and most of the app is native code.

I'm less knowledgable about the Windows side, so I can't comment on it.

That is something that we've considered. Both Mac and Windows clients predate Electron (but maybe not the initial versions of Atom).

Rewriting from scratch in an unfamiliar environment would have taken a lot more work. There are tradeoffs to both approaches, but using the existing native apps let us ship a less buggy release more quickly.

I really liked the sound of Crashlytics. Then Twitter bought it. Now it's free. I don't trust Twitter and I don't trust free, so I'm less likely to use this.

If I don't understand why something is free, I grow suspicious. I want to know how a company plans to make money before I sign up for its services.

I think the argument is that if Apple made a calculator that looked like the Braun one it would be stealing. But since it's not the same type of device, it's a tribute. I'm not sure if this is a valid legal argument, but I understand it.

Let's not confuse arguments that benefit Apple with blind support of Apple. Intentionally making a phone that copies the iPhone is clearly wrong, IMO. This clock issue is quite a bit murkier.

I think we can all agree that Marco overreacted: he says as much in his blog post.

But this doesn't affect my confidence in the Instapaper service. I think it says a lot about Marco that he was willing to admit his fault and reverse his decision—much more than the mistake itself said.

The article does not say that downloading it over your wi-fi connection will result in $2.58 in delivery fees. It says that the average delivery fee for the book was $2.58.

Is there a reason I should care about GCC anymore? Admittedly, I mostly code ObjC on OS X, where GCC is no longer relevant, but LLVM seems to have leapfrogged GCC so dramatically that I'm unsure why I would even care about GCC.

LLVM integrates better with tools, has an amazing static analyzer, and AFAIK generates code that is on average as fast and small as GCC. (I believe who wins depends on the code.)

Absolutely. I read GEB in high school, and have often thought of reading it again, but it's a hefty book to carry around.

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll see an eBook edition too soon. Hofstadter describes himself somewhere (in the GEB preface, maybe?) as very picky about the layout of his books. I remember him saying that he would sometimes rewrite sentences in order to make the layout better.

As a tea neophyte, I strongly suggest that you add a link to recommended equipment for brewing loose-leaf tea. I have considered trying to get into tea several times, but could never figure out exactly what I should buy if I want to brew loose leaf tea. (I'm sure I could find something, but I only like buying things off of recommendations.)

This could do 2 things for you:

1) You could earn some money off of an affiliate program.

2) People like myself who are new to tea are unlikely to subscribe to your service without some help. Tell me what I need to enjoy tea (include brewing directions if they don't come with your tea), and I'm much more likely to subscribe.

I would specifically recommend that you recommend a single product with a direct link—not a type of product or brand.