It’s such a nice coincidence that your path matches mine as well, going from Turbo Pascal to IntelliJ.
When I started on Java, I was disappointed at the quality of IDEs so much that I resorted to coding in Notepad instead. I was so used to the seamlessness of Borland IDEs. It was only when I did a 30-day trial of IntelliJ that I started using an IDE again.
Ten years ago, JavaScript was my go to when I wanted to expose others to coding. It still is today, but now that comes with the caveat that the most popular libraries and framework require a significant amount of prior knowledge to understand and to start using.
I haven't done this exercise in a long while, but the last time I tried to start a project from the "most current and stable releases and recommendations", I ended up not being able to get anything running. In the end, I had several hundred megabytes of libraries downloaded, a complicated configuration, and a non-working application.
Today, there are toolsets to get you started with everything and produce a running application, but it's almost totally opaque. I'm afraid to use them because the first time something breaks, I don't know if I would be able to resolve the issue.
I would still rather have a decent understanding of how things connect.
I can understand NextDoor at least. It’s very neighborhood based, and they need some way to verify that you live where you say you live. If people keep seeing membership in their neighborhood has included those who don’t love in their area, the main attraction of NextDoor will disappear.
True, but you can say that for any company. At least in this case, you can consider their past 5 years, see what moves they make and what statements they have released, and judge whether their words and matching their actions.
Artificial scarcity successfully implemented is still scarcity. For example, trading cards printed in low numbers can drive the prices for those cards high.
I have noticed this with our purchases as well. Because of Prime, most of our online purchases are Amazon-first. Only when they don't carry it do we check elsewhere.
We recently cancelled because of customer service issues with Amazon, but we are close to signing up again. I'm on the fence, but my wife just assumes we'll be back on the wagon, that it's our 'default state'. It makes me wonder whether that by itself is good or bad.
> patrons were happy knowing that this change will send more money to creators.
That could depend on how they asked patrons.
If I was asked if I were in favor of more money going to creators, I would say yes.
If I was asked if I were in favor of paying more to make this happen, I would say no. If I want to send more money to creators, I would opt for a higher patron tier.
I'm pretty sure I remember getting that far. We even figured out how to actually win. I don't remember now how we got the knowledge - this was waaay before the internet and in a third world country.
My kid only used to be exposed to touch screens. Her daycare then introduced them to more traditional computers with a keyboard and mouse, and they adapted fine.
> having users is at least some sort of reward. When you have the revolutionary breakthrough, add that to the app
Actually this approach "MVP" works well with web applications, but it doesn't work too well with mobile apps. In fact, it's quite the opposite. With mobile apps, you have to make a big splash in your launch, get most things right, and just minor tweaks once you're launched.
The alternative approach is to launch your MVP in a small and/or isolated market (a non-US country), hash it out there, and once you have your approach all figured out and your "revolutionary breakthrough" working, then do your main release worldwide.
Not to mention, when they load up on all the new stuff, they try it out on fairly modern machines and it loads well enough, with a load time that's just good enough, so there's even less motivation to trim down.
I also would love to have leaner websites and less bloat, but I recognize that good enough still passes for good enough. It's only when they go past a tipping point do people pay attention, such as when iMore got called out by John Gruber.
I grew up in the Philippines knowing about the Bataan Death March. Not details, but the fact that it happened and the general idea of it. Now that I think about it, I didn't learn it at school, I learned it because it was taught to me by my older brothers and sisters, and it was likely taught to them because this is how our grandfather died.
Looking back now, I realize it was never taught to me in school. The only time I remember discussions about it was when I brought it up in a university discussion - after the teacher allowed us to research a topic of our own choosing and present on it.
The problem could be the VBA hurdle. It's enough of a hurdle that you would need an actual developer to go beyond basic functionality. At that point, a developer would just recommend you use whichever hammer the developer is holding or is most interested in at the moment.
The exception to this seems to be MS Access. I have come across multiple situations in which business users end up using MS Access for applications. I don't know if it was set up for them by developers initially, but it was clear to me that they continued to enhance it based on their needs without developer assistance.
This is definitely possible now. In fact, this is possible now even with the existing Apple TV - using the TV Out feature which many games already employ.
I wonder how many developers will stop promoting their products to other developers based solely on the subscription model? I know I would.
Also, I never would have tried their products if they were already on a subscription model. That would have been a showstopper for me. I may continue to use them now, because I'm already hooked. However, they'll probably lose a lot of potential customers who'll never give them a try just because of their pricing model.
On my own personal projects, I get very limited time. For these, I go straight to the keyboard and put in as many characters as I can.
However, every now and then I come across something beyond simple. Going in without a well designed plan ends up costing me time. Here, I take out my notebook and start sketching diagrams. I've tried this with various digital alternatives, but analog still works best for me.
I have stopped responding to Amazon recruiters because of workplace issues I keep reading about through the years. There wasn't a lot in the article that I found shocking.
I'm not saying that every department would be bad, so you could opt to continue to join them and see if you can run one of the more humane ones. Be careful though - you might not realize it if/when you slip into the ones described in the article.
When I started on Java, I was disappointed at the quality of IDEs so much that I resorted to coding in Notepad instead. I was so used to the seamlessness of Borland IDEs. It was only when I did a 30-day trial of IntelliJ that I started using an IDE again.