this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (6 children)

I don't think old=good is a good mentality though, lot of people seem to have it

All the old software I know and use is exceptionally good, however I've heard about and chosen to use it because it's survived the test of time (also because it's still actively maintained and has had thousands of bug fixes over the years)

Vscode and obsidian are pretty good and they're electron, discord's alright, pretty sure steam uses some kind of web wrapper as well.

Real issue is electron is very accessible to inexperienced developers and easy to do badly, but I imagine people back in the old Unix days got an equal amount of shit bloated software

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

If you want to get a glimpse of the hate against Unix in the early 90's, give "Unix hater's handbook" a read. It's a funny piece

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Survivor bias is a thing and part of the reason people are nostalgic for old media.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

For every There Will Be Blood, there exists an Alien vs Predator: Requiem

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

I mean avp requiem is a cult classic because it's so bad so maybe not a good example. You need a movie that is immediately forgettable which is difficult because I forgot their names....

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

Old=good is a great mentality specifically when standing the test of time is an important factor. For the most part, the old code that's still used today is only still used because it's proven good, whereas it's a grab bag with newer code. And that's the cause of the unwarranted nostalgia thay you're rightfully criticising.

It's like with music. "Oh, the X's were the best decade for music, today's music is garbage". No, 90% of everything is crud but unless you're an enthusiast, once enough time has passed, you'll only ever be exposed to the 10% that isn't. 50 years from now nobody is going to be listening to Cardi B.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I listen to music on a new music radio station - the good new music really stands out

Most people just like the (better bits of) stuff they listened to when they were young

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

That isn't the whole picture. I was born in 1988. The sampling of music from the 70's that I've been exposed to is completely different to the sampling of music from the same period that someone born in '58 was exposed to in their lifetime. They got to listen to a bunch of bad stuff (and probably some great stuff) that I don't even know exists.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

People only remember the good stuff. They don't usually think about all the software that sucked.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago

I reminisce for the days when spyware was cute 😞

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

A fucking calculator needs megabytes to run? And I'm not talking about a full fledged graphic scientific calculator. I'm talking about a basic one.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

Gnome calculator uses 103m, it's loading style sheets for themes, UI libraries that make it look nice and modern, scientific calculator features, keyboard shortcuts, nice graphical settings menu, touch screen and screen reader support etc

I don't think in this day and age for all the niceties people are used to that's unreasonable.

Also other calculators are available, some are bloated but I'm sure there's a rust or C one out there somewhere that uses a fraction of that with the bare minimum feature set

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

bc is 91 kilobytes and can work with seriously big numbers.

You want to know what 2^99812 is? bc will tell you. Hint: the result is so big I could not paste it in here. bc does not care, bc just delivers.

Not saying there is anything wrong with a GUI calculator using 103m of RAM and looking fancy while only working with tiny numbers, just saying.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago

I mean personally if I need a heavy duty calculator I'll just use python or something

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

Discord is garbage software lmao. Has been from the beginning. I can't stand using it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago

And I had to stop using vscode because of its ridiculous resource usage. I got tired of it filling up my home dir and just went back to vim.

An intern was using it, but I saw that he had set it up to run locally and connect to the ETX we were using and figured he had found a way to avoid that. Nope, turns out it runs a server on the ETX that also likes to fill up the home dir and he also just uses vim now.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago

I'm not saying it's phenomenal but it's generally pretty well featured, running in a browser it's not that heavy resource wise and the API/developer features are very good

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Seconded. The only reason I have it installed is because my buddy refuses to answer his cell while we play games.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

You want to... be on the phone for video game chat?

I cannot fathom this mindset.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I'd rather do a phone call on speakerphone while playing games...yes. I don't wear headphones unless they're wireless and I only put in one ear.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

So like... do you play the game with no sound? Does your gaming partner hear everything coming through your speakers into your phone's microphone?

I'm just struggling to understand how that could be a good experience for anyone, including you. Am I just missing something?

Edit: oh, I missed the wireless earphone on one side thing. Is that for your phone or for the game?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Headphone would be for the phone. And background noise cancellation is perfect now days so it's not an issue with speakers playing at a reasonable level

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Interesting. Can't say that would ever work for my circumstances, but I at least get where you're coming from a bit better. Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago

I'd rather do a signal VoIP call than discord