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preg_matchtoday at 7:52 PM2 repliesview on HN

Where this falls apart is commercial software. The issue is we use off-the-shelf frameworks and tools for commercial software. And then we don't train developers on how to write high-volume software.

Commercial software is THE power user use case. Your users will be using your software 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for years. And still, the software is obtuse point-and-click garbage. Meanwhile commercial software from 25 years ago could be navigated at light speed.

That's part of the reason Excel can't be dethroned. Excel is from the old age of software, and that means that users can input and navigate at light speed. All these fancy tools claim to dethrone Excel, but when you actually use them you realize it's a goo goo ga ga Fisher Price level UI. Extreme amounts of whitespace, buttons hidden behind submenus of submenus (which you have to navigate by eye, by the way!), features stripped, UI constantly shuffling around between updates.

Look, that works fine for a website on the open web where you assume your users have never touched a computer before. That does not work for commercial software.


Replies

red_admiraltoday at 8:48 PM

> UI constantly shuffling around between updates.

and then 365 came along ... an option to pull stock market data here, a LinkedIn connection there, oh look a wild copilot button appeared.

NooneAtAll3today at 7:55 PM

I think you vaaastly overestimate how excel is used by most users

if anything, excel exceeds in being MOUSE-driven - it's intuitive in what you press and what you drag

and that's kinda my problem with the TFA - author is not representative of typical user. Mouse interaction is the king

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