You’re right that lots of Windows apps were designed with Keyboard only workflows in mind. It’s a shame that MacOS has so many points where if you don’t have a mouse you’re out of luck.
There is one major improvement you can do on Mac, at least for menus:
If you're interested in keyboard navigation of websites, consider a browser or extension with link hinting support! It worked really well in my experience a few years ago, although I've since became much more of a mouse guy and stopped using it.
Qutebrowser was my favorite browser for keyboard navigation but firefox, chrome, etc. have extensions for this as well.
I get that this might annoy you, but there is a direct trace all the way back to the original Mac in 1984 that required a mouse. As time went on and the two other OSes we still have gained mouse support (Windows, Linux) from their keyboard roots, they brought forward their ethos of keyboard navigation. Mac OS resolutely stayed attached to its mouse only roots.
I really feel like this used to be the default. That's how I always did it in macOS going back to the early 2000's.
Only in the last two versions or so did I notice it was no longer the default. I'm glad to see here that I can now re-enable it.
Edit: I see that I do have it enabled. But for some reason there are a lot of programs where it doesn't seem to work anymore, no matter what the settings. Off the top of my head: Half the Adobe programs I use for work.
Hi! I was a high school student in your exact position a year ago. I just finished my first year in university (Computer Science). I don't think anyone here can give you a definitive answer, but for me personally I think I'm still making the right choice: (this is what I tell myself)
1. learning stuff is fun. even if AI drastically changes what it means to be a software engineer, as it stands, we still need software engineers. You can go to university, learn CS/Coding by hand, and on the side keep up with what it means to be productive with AI tools. That way, you're still employable and you get the gift of getting to learn stuff (perhaps at great cost, but maybe you live somewhere where the education is affordable)
2. the underlying principles aren't changing. Computer Science is still Computer Science. computers still have memory and the basic data structures are always going to be what they are. I think it's important to know what we're building on top of. (ie. a React developer should probably understand the DOM. A C developer should understand what their code is compiling to). I don't think it's any different with using AI to write code. Learning programming/computer science will still be important even with AI because it's important to have people who understand the full stack that we build technology on top of.
3. you could work on the AI. People still need to understand the math that builds AI. You could be one of those people.
4. AI is great at making things that already exist. but we will still need to make _new_ things. Humans do that.
my main thing is, if I wasn't in school to learn Computer Science, what would I be doing instead? I certainly don't want to be a someone who's job is genuinely replaceable by an agent. I don't think all programmers will be like that.
Excellent points. It's also worth noting that many people don't wind up working in the field they studied at university. CS grads have probably been the exception in recent years, because the industry has been booming, but the two most successful entrepreneurs I know studied philosophy and art history. A friend who is very senior in recruitment studied economics.
It still doesn't reflect the design philosophy at all, though. A wacky approximation of early MacOS that offers nonfunctional UI affordances doesn't fit my bill of No obscurantist programming languages and styles, or simple, maintainable software akin to machines that need to work under all circumstances in the far north.
I was also a little disappointed with the philosophy's goals in general, which seem to be mostly the personal preferences of a lone-wolf style open source developer, not a universal approach to software design.
When you describe my programming and design philosophy as "the personal preferences of a lone-wolf style open source developer, not a universal approach to software design", I consider that the absolute best compliment I could have ever hoped for!
A "universal" approach to software design is the problem I am addressing, not the solution. Coming up with your own philosophy of design and implementation that works for you, and hopefully works for others, is how we get better software.
I'm not arguing with that, I think; I agree with your general sentiment and apparently read many of the same books you read as well. Yet I still believe there's value in a shared understanding of what quality software is, and what ideals to strive for in its conception.
> I was also a little disappointed with the philosophy's goals in general, which seem to be mostly the personal preferences of a lone-wolf style open source developer, not a universal approach to software design.
How would a universal approach to software design be in any way appropriate for this?
I like the general concept of software that treats its users as responsible adults, in the sense of not restricting them in how they can use the software; the analogy to machines that must work in remote areas with an extreme climate and no connection to the outside world is an apt one. Rejecting complexity in favour of maintainability, allowing to reach into and modify if necessary, those things I feel could be sharpened into proper, and universal guiding principles.
I wonder what people think about session replay, ethically. Is it okay to do? Do you think visitors should be informed about it? Would you use a website differently if there was a big red banner saying your cursor movements and viewport are being livestreamed to HQ?
Genuinely curious, because it's not something I think most people are aware of when they browse the web.
I've worked on such a product for ~8 years (one of the most widely adopted ones) and find that most of these sessions are used in practice to fix bugs or improve UX by such a vast majority that even if there's some voyeuristic aspect I don't think it's super important to care about. The product I worked on made no effort to try and bypass ad blockers or browser settings like DNT, and a lot of sophisticated users wouldn't be recorded anyway due to those settings. We didn't even do any fingerprinting and auto-masked all fields. Overall it was less privacy invading than walking in a shop while being recorded by a security camera in my opinion. I don't work in this field anymore but would do it again.
In a reductionist view yeah but blog generators and agent harnesses sit at a different spectrum than an EHR/Excel/whatever other insanely complex edge case ridden work you can think of
I personally like Blender’s Gitea theme better than the rest but I guess that’s subjective. In dark mode I do not like the low contrast Codeberg theme or the default Forgejo theme, but all of the instances custom themes look great.
As far as Git forges go in general though.. tangled is very pretty https://tangled.org/tangled.org/core I think more power user oriented software should be comfortable with compact interfaces
That Blender Gitea theme is really nice! I wonder why exactly it's so much easier on the eyes? In a lot of ways all of these are "just Github" with minor changes, so the one that is actually better really stands out.
There is one major improvement you can do on Mac, at least for menus:
https://varun.ch/posts/macos-keyboard/
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