[HN Gopher] An app can be a home-cooked meal
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An app can be a home-cooked meal
Author : mkeeter
Score : 177 points
Date : 2020-02-15 02:14 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.robinsloan.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.robinsloan.com)
| spiderjerusalem wrote:
| Putting the 'personal' back in computing, this is great!
| gklitt wrote:
| "Home-cooked" software is such a lovely analogy. I've used the
| same comparison to explain my unease about ad-hoc spreadsheets
| being replaced by domain-specific software [1]. Often the new
| software is "better" just like restaurant food is "better" than a
| home-cooked meal, but it's also great when people can build
| small-scale, super flexible software that works perfectly for
| just their own needs.
|
| 1: https://twitter.com/geoffreylitt/status/1177607448682582016
| myself248 wrote:
| I loved TFA's callout to HyperCard, like your own argument
| about spreadsheets being "flexible generic tools".
|
| I feel like IFTTT is approaching the same level of utility,
| though it exists in a space where it's incredibly vulnerable to
| change against its users' interests.
|
| A few more tools like spreadsheets and HyperCard, and a whole
| lot of people with home-kitchen level of software competence,
| could free us from a lot of expensive restaurant dining. And
| we'd be more self-sufficient, to boot.
|
| What's it take to get HyperCard back? Or something like it? Not
| just functionality, but ubiquity -- being a tool that every kid
| is one click away from, nothing to install, no permission to
| ask, just start learning...
| vertex-four wrote:
| The problem is that the tasks we ask of our software are
| harder - we now expect them to talk to other computers, not
| all of which really want to be talked to by random people
| writing one-off bits of software.
| ChrisKnott wrote:
| Imagine a world where the ability to make a personal app like
| this is actually as easy as making a home-cooked meal; a skill
| passed from parent to child in the natural course of growing up.
| FearNotDaniel wrote:
| That's pretty much the way life was for me in 1982. Of course,
| you couldn't make an app 'like this' in the 8-bit days - no
| networking, no onboard camera, no touch screen - but my Dad & I
| sat literally at the dinner table and wrote home-cooked apps
| together. We learned to code together, but he taught me how to
| make the computer do _useful_ things: as a language teacher he
| created quiz games that he could take in to use in his high
| school classroom. I seem to remember designing custom fonts to
| get the accents right on the French words (did I mention, no
| Unicode?)
| saagarjha wrote:
| Cooking is orders of magnitude harder for me than making an
| app, so I'd think we're already there...
| machtesh wrote:
| Gosh I wish it was the opposite to me! Cooking seems fairly
| easy and making apps seems daunting.
|
| I started a newsletter with very quick tips on cooking if you
| ever want to learn. It's easier than you think!
| https://aldente.substack.com
| nine_k wrote:
| You normally finish cooking within a few hours.
|
| Making a worthwhile mobile app in a few hours is still mostly
| a dream.
|
| When cooking, you make a fresh copy of a meal according to a
| recipe. A fresh _copy_ of an app is of not much use; it 's as
| if you needed to invent a new recipe and then cook it.
|
| Cooking really tasty dishes takes experience; but the same
| holds for software engineering.
| mattkrause wrote:
| Do you want to learn? If so, here's some advice.
|
| 1. Start with an "easy" cookbook. There's a whole genre of
| cookbooks for people starting out in their own or newly
| single dads. One of my first was "Dad's Own Cookbook", which
| has decent recipes that aren't a huge production. After that,
| get the "Joy of Cooking", which has a huge number of recipes
| from many cuisines. Also, take a look at Julia Child's
| "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". You may not be
| interested in many of the recipes (e.g., aspic) or even
| French food, but I found it very helpful to see how a
| "master" recipe could be forked into many different dishes.
|
| 2. When you make something for the first time, follow these
| rules. - Read the ENTIRE recipe carefully before you start.
|
| - Follow it _exactly_. Don't substitute anything or "add your
| own twist". You gotta eat every day, so you'll get a chance
| to do that soon.
|
| - Prep everything in advance. Dice the onions and put them in
| a bowl. Open up the can of tomatoes. Peel the carrots, chop
| them, and put them in another bowl. Measure the spices out
| into a shot glass. Yes, you will have to do a few more
| dishes. Yes, you will have some dead time while the oil heats
| up or the onions soften. When you've more experience, you can
| start interleaving things but in the meantime, you'll avoid
| burning things while you learn how much time and attention
| various things take.
|
| - Clean as you go. Having a cramped, cluttered counter
| stresses me out and often leads to mistakes.
|
| - Try new recipes out under low-stakes conditions, not when
| you're hosting your boss and girlfriend's parents.
|
| 3. Get a decent knife and learn how to use it. You don't need
| a $500 Japanese Santoku, but get something decent and keep it
| sharp. There are standard ways to dice an onion (etc). Do
| them smoothly first and the speed will come. If you've got
| friends in food service, they might be willing to help.
| (Exception: tourne is fairly silly)
|
| 4. Have fun and don't take this too seriously. If all else
| fails, just order pizza.
| sevencolors wrote:
| Dunno what you learning style but some folks appreciate this
| site
|
| http://www.cookingforengineers.com/
| gwd wrote:
| I've cooked _lots_ of tasty, nutritious food in half an hour,
| and I rarely spend more than an hour cooking. I can only
| dream of a world where I could write an app in an hour that
| would be as enjoyable to use as the food I can cook in an
| hour is enjoyable to eat!
| notduncansmith wrote:
| I think game jams probably get closest to this proportion
| of work:enjoyment in software.
| 101008 wrote:
| I think the hardest part of an app is distribution, sharing,
| etc (I am not talking about being popular, but signing the
| app, upload to a marketplace, etc). I think theere could be
| an analogy about cooking for yourself in your ktichen
| (developing local, the app works on your phone), or cooking
| for a lot of people in a enviroment which you dont know (a
| friend's kitchen, etc). You know that i fyou don't use your
| utensils, or your favourite pan, or your hoven (you know
| exactly the times and temperature), it won't be the same.
| brundolf wrote:
| With kids today playing with things like the Swift Playground
| on iPad, I don't think we're far from it
| z3t4 wrote:
| I've been wondering lately if there is any business opportunity
| in personal IT... More and more technology is entering our
| homes... We hire people to do plumbing and electrical
| installations, maybe we should also hire people to do the
| software...
| jon-wood wrote:
| Its nowhere near the level of everyone hiring plumbers and
| electricians, but if you're really interested hunt down some
| home automation companies (or start your own). If you can find
| the right clients you can easily make five digits a job setting
| up Home Assistant to run someone's new house.
| userbinator wrote:
| _roughly half of that time was spent wrestling with different
| kinds of code-signing and identity provisioning and I don't even
| know what._
|
| It's worth noting that in the early era of personal computing,
| companies did not view users as idiots to be herded and
| restricted by their technology, and computer magazines contained
| source code listings.
| samatman wrote:
| It's also worth noting that in the early era of personal
| computing, viruses which caused considerable data loss were a
| commonplace occurrence.
|
| These days, ransomware and other malicious software are very
| much an ongoing concern. I welcome efforts by OS providers to
| limit the damage these can cause; the minor annoyance it causes
| developers is more than made up for by the increase in security
| for the end user.
| the-dude wrote:
| TV's and radio's used to contain their schematics on paper.
| orf wrote:
| And at a certain complexity level it's not with printing out
| reams of minute schematics about the thousands of components
| inside a modern flat screen that nobody will ever read.
|
| Go get them via PDF on the internet, if available.
| myself248 wrote:
| The "if available" part is the problem. I'd be 100% fine
| with electronic delivery, if they were simply available.
|
| Having to go to dodgy websites with my browser in paranoid
| mode just to find documentation to try to keep my gizmo out
| of the e-waste stream a little longer, is suboptimal.
|
| Learning and fixing should not feel like a crime.
| mopsi wrote:
| Have TVs become more complex? I recently peeked into mine,
| and it had only two major boards, one for power, the other
| for AV stuff. Not mine, but similar:
| https://i.imgur.com/1uHsfYI.jpg Hardly anything there, and
| very easy to replace a blown capacitor or a whole board.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I think his point is that back in the day manufacturers
| were happy to provide the resources needed for users to
| repair their products (or delegate it to a third-party of
| their choosing).
|
| This is not the case anymore. You are not going to find a
| manufacturer-approved source for schematics for most modern
| consumer products. The only way these schematics surface on
| the web is by being stolen and leaked by factory workers
| and this could take considerable time from the release of
| the product.
|
| Manufacturers also try to corrupt the law to their
| advantage by lobbying against bills such as the right to
| repair with completely insane arguments (often involving
| safety, etc - the typical "think of the children" nonsense)
| which sadly work against clueless senators (or whatever the
| people at these hearings are called in the US). You can
| check out Louis Rossmann's YouTube channel for recent
| examples of this.
| yc-kraln wrote:
| Modern flat screens are actually far more simple than the
| TVs of yore; that actually makes them more difficult to
| repair. You will typically have a power supply (and if not
| an LED backlight, then a high voltage one as well) and a
| "T-Con" board, which usually has one honking big SoC on it
| which is both Vendor and TV specific. There isn't that much
| to repair aside from the power supply, and honestly you
| don't really need a schematic for that to repair it.
| orf wrote:
| It's not necessary about considering users idiots. As with
| anything, once a critical mass of users was reached people
| started creating malicious software, and code signing is a way
| to help prevent that.
|
| Of course you can run your own self-signed APK on your own
| phone, nobody is preventing you. But use the Apple App Store as
| a delivery medium? Come on. Code signing is a bare, completely
| responsible minimum.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| > Of course you can run your own self-signed APK on your own
| phone, nobody is preventing you.
|
| Unless you have an iPhone - it's becoming a bit more
| difficult then.
| orf wrote:
| Took me about 5 minutes after installing Xcode on my Mac.
| What's so difficult?
| saagarjha wrote:
| Nit: this app was distributed via TestFlight, not the App
| Store. (It still has similar signing requirements.)
| brundolf wrote:
| Please don't ruin a heartwarming post with a rant. HN has
| enough of those.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| Well, the quoted sentence comes from the article. Of course
| with time it gets easier, but the first time you submit your
| app to App Store an awful lot of time is spent on the
| provisioning aspect.
| brundolf wrote:
| I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying it gets brought up
| plenty and is tangential to the point of the article
| jayd16 wrote:
| I do miss the haphazard personal website of yore. That said, it's
| probably quite a bit less secure to run this stuff yourself.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Now, this is wholesome.
| sevencolors wrote:
| I really identify with his home cook metaphor. I love cooking for
| folks and often get compliments that I could be a chef. Mostly
| because I've been cooking since I was a child. Ironically I've
| become a "software engineer" in a similar manner, 10 years of
| just trying things out and making things for friends and family.
| I do agree we're getting to a space in software development
| that's making it a bit easier to play and experiment with ideas.
| I think it would amazing if folks could get a BlueApron like
| expenience and make an app that would be useful
| ramoz wrote:
| I like thinking about coding with these type of metaphors.
| Coding, imo, is more like a puzzle. I get cooking but it's a bit
| too abstract for something as deterministic as most coding is. I
| do see it applying to the experimental side.
|
| Relating to puzzle... - Design: you "know" what
| you want your outcomes to look like - Software: you "know"
| the type of pieces you're dealing with (there can be variants)
| - Compile: pieces can only fit to exact tab/blank structure(per
| piece variant) - Iterate: your entire design is systematic.
| In complex puzzles, your early decisions can greatly alter future
| state. How you progress and build in later states is important
| to. - Can be good, eg like puzzle-solving strategies that
| are very specific in the beginning, but enable rapid/seamless
| building in the future. - Can be bad, eg it may seem like
| you're mostly complete in the later states, however, there are
| holes and holes left ignored are a liability for the acceptable
| state. You might find that you've incorrectly placed pieces that
| seemed viable in the past, but leave you in conflicted situations
| in the future.
| brundolf wrote:
| Something about the personality of a programmer draws us towards
| that ever-fleeting siren of The Infinite. Infinite scalability,
| infinite reusability, infinite growth. It's this lust for the
| Bigness that our code _could theoretically reach_ that causes
| most of us to pass right by the myriad of opportunities for
| small, more meaningful, more human software.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| I remember the fantasy that more and more people would be able to
| develop simple basic apps for their own very personal customized
| needs. It was a vision of a more accessible and democratic
| compute infrastructure, where we'd all be 'makers' creating the
| compute environment we lived in. Things like hypercard were part
| of this vision.
|
| Those days are gone. The article doesn't explicitly mention the
| fact we all know: Very few people have the capacity to create a
| 'home-cooked meal' like the OP, for their own use.
|
| In fact much fewer than could create a little hypercard app. It's
| a world where there are pretty large barriers to most people
| being software 'makers', and instead we are just consumers who
| can choose from what is offered to us by various companies trying
| to figure out how to monetize our needs and desires.
|
| Part of it is the increased complexity of app development. Part
| of it is the walled gardens of our suppliers.
|
| > I distributed the app to my family using TestFlight, and in
| TestFlight it shall remain forever: a cozy, eternal beta.
|
| Indeed. Because the very infrastruture ignores the needs of one-
| off "home cooked meal" apps, it assumes they don't exist, you
| have to pretend it is some kind of "beta" of a mass market
| commodified product instead (and be glad our suppliers still let
| you do that for 'free'). Our computers (increasingly the
| phone/device is people's primary computer) are no longer ours to
| do with as we will.
|
| It is sad. If those who created the computing revolution 30 years
| ago (including prior versions of us) could see where it wound
| up.... the level of technological sophisitication of our pocket
| audio-video-geolocated-self-surveilling-communicating devices is
| astounding; the lack of 'empowerment' or control we have over
| them is utterly depressing.
| akavi wrote:
| Maybe dumb question: How does he specify whom the message is sent
| to? Or is it broadcast?
| brundolf wrote:
| I assume it's hardcoded to broadcast to all users
| kgraves wrote:
| So an internal tool?
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