alt Hacker NewsFor folks who are wondering:
This post is about Zotero. https://www.zotero.org/
If you are not an academic, you might not know Zotero.
It is such a pleasure to use. Every app should be like this.
I read everything in it, including books I'm going through right now from https://teachyourselfcs.com/
It also does an amazing job of taking snapshots of posts. I use it all the time to grab posts from HackerNews so I can mark them up.
And it automagically syncs everywhere across devices and lets me store way too many files on the web like the ADD packrat I am, without breaking a sweat.
In short, this software just works, and it works well. So when somebody behind Zotero talks about how to develop software, I listen.
And it's a fun post with some history. You should save this post to Zotero, and then read it.
Replies
What I dislike about Zotero is that it's a pain in the ass to self host. In my department I could spin up a local Zotero server for our PhD students and give them basically unlimited sync, but it's really finnicky
I could dig into their documentation but I'd rather ask an enthusiast. Is it still possible to get your own data out in a nice and easy format? I was once all-in on a note-taking app that slowly got worse and worse and it was a hassle to escape, so now I always consider it before starting.
If Zotero ever enshittifies or just disappears would I still be able to access my data and transfer it to something else?
The guerilla advertising on HN is probably the most transparent lol
Unrelated, but I love when people describe software with the phrase "just works".
It suggests a certain... simplicity that I chase in all of my developments. The amount of EFFORT to get software from "works but..." is interesting. You can get something that works 99% of the time, but that never quite fits the "just works" level of quality that we love to see.
Really, there's an immediate feeling of joy I get when I interact with software that "just works" knowing how much effort it takes to get something to that point.