software stack

Tantacrul dissects the UX and UI of Avid's Sibelius music notation software, going through a long list of bad design choices. The review is both a comic rant and a practical lesson in interface design.

Internet of Bugs analyzes Cognition's Devin demo frame by frame, arguing the video did not show Devin completing paid Upwork jobs as claimed, and showing what the task required versus what Devin produced.

Casey Muratori responds on-stream to a dismissive Twitter post by demonstrating how slow Visual Studio's startup and debugger watch window are, comparing it to much older software and machines. It is a long rant about software performance and bloat.

Tantacrul gives a detailed UX and UI design review of the MuseScore 3 notation software and compares it with Sibelius. It examines visual appeal, navigation and notation quality.

A follow-up review of using e-ink devices, such as Onyx Boox tablets, for productivity and as a second monitor. It covers software tips and tweaks and long-term impressions after months of use.

Brian Will makes the case for procedural programming over object-oriented programming, arguing that OOP's promised encapsulation and decoupling are largely illusory. He analyzes real code examples and the problems of tying data to behavior in classes.

Austin Meyer, developer of the X-Plane flight simulator, explains how he was sued by a patent troll over a trivial claim about an app's license server. He walks through how the shell-company litigation works and why ignoring the suit makes things worse.

Brian Will follows up his earlier anti-OOP video by walking through four short code examples, including Java code in the style of Uncle Bob, to show how object-oriented design complicates simple programs. It argues that OOP hides and scatters state and adds needless indirection.

Razbuten has his wife, who has never played games, try a sampling of titles and shows where she struggles. It highlights unspoken game conventions that experienced players take for granted.

Valve News Network goes through over twenty accounts from ex-Valve employees, mostly from Glassdoor, about what it is like to work at Valve. It covers the company's flat structure and culture.

A Thunderf00t video debunking Energy Vault, a gravity-based energy storage scheme that stacks concrete blocks with cranes. He argues it is impractical and compares it to pseudoscience.