[HN Gopher] Making Software
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Making Software
Author : calme_toi
Score : 605 points
Date : 2025-04-14 04:48 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.makingsoftware.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.makingsoftware.com)
| frank20022 wrote:
| wow, excellent job here!
| felipemesquita wrote:
| The subtitle "A reference manual for people who design and build
| software" seems at odds with the description:
|
| > This book won't teach you how to actually make software [...]
| It's a manual that explains how the things you use everyday
| actually work. You don't need to be technical to read this -
| there are a lot of pictures and diagrams to do the heavy lifting.
| You just need to be curious.
| chromanoid wrote:
| yeah, I totally agree.
|
| It's like there was a shift in goals after the author made the
| title. Maybe explaining the basics was so much fun, that the
| initial idea got lost... I also don't think knowing how a crt
| monitor works is instrumental for people who want to make
| software. The domain is cool, but it doesn't match the content.
| whatissoftware.com might be better.
|
| when it is explained how pixel, gpu or llm work, I would at
| least expect some intro to Von-Neumann-Architecture.
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| A thing _for a specific audience_ , not a thing _with a
| specific purpose_ , is how i read the subtitle.
|
| the subtitle doesnt say what the reference manual is a
| reference for. just that software people might like it.
| jaapz wrote:
| Audience: people who design and build software
|
| Subject: how the things used every day by people who design and
| build software work
|
| Not the subject: how to design and build software
| martin_henk wrote:
| Really rad!
| cjr wrote:
| looks great, i'd definitely pay for a coffee table style version
| of a book like this!
| Apfel wrote:
| Stunningly beautiful landing page. I would never normally comment
| on the aesthetics of anything in the dev sphere but that
| completely blew me away. I'll preorder for sure.
|
| I'd echo the other comment mentioning that a coffee-table version
| of this would be great.
| neogodless wrote:
| Looked up the author's main site:
|
| https://alcohollick.com/
|
| > Dan Hollick.
|
| > Design, technically.
|
| Blogs about using Figma to create things (like this).
| dimal wrote:
| Agreed, it's aesthetically beautiful. It _should_ be a coffee
| table book. But for the web, it has terrible usability. Really,
| really terrible in multiple ways. My comments will be harsh,
| but since the creator is obviously very skilled, he should know
| better.
|
| Why multicolumn text? So it looks like an old printed manual?
| At first view, it's not clear where the first column ends. This
| is not something we see on the web (because there's no need for
| it), so it's not clear that the content flows from one column
| to the next. When the viewport is sized to two columns, I need
| to scroll down to finish the first column, then scroll back up
| to read where it continues on the second column.
|
| Justified text is bad on the web. We're starting to get some
| better features to make it usable, but it's not widely
| supported, so right ragged text is always more readable.
|
| There are numerous animations that never stop. This is highly
| distracting and makes it very difficult to read the text.
|
| I'm sure there are more issues but the site is so unusable for
| me, I won't continue trying.
|
| So, yeah. It's gorgeous design. I love it. But it's for the
| sake of aesthetics, not for the user's sake. It's completely
| unusable to me. Since this is the first installment, I hope the
| designer will keep the aesthetics but improve the usability in
| future installments.
| dsego wrote:
| > Justified text is bad on the web.
|
| Is there any reason why justified is okay printed but not on
| the web.
| wavemode wrote:
| Beause in print you would typically use your publishing
| software to adjust various things, like where hypenated
| word breaks should happen. This is much trickier in digital
| media, and usually just isn't done, resulting in ugly word
| spacing.
| bsoles wrote:
| > Justified text is bad on the web. ...so right ragged
| text is always more readable.
|
| I disagree. I like justified text on the web as well as
| in print. To me, jagged right hand side of the text
| column is more disturbing than uneven spaces between
| words. So, you cannot universally declare that justified
| text is an accessibility issue.
| layer8 wrote:
| Accessibility issue doesn't imply universality. Ideally,
| this should be a user preference setting.
| vunderba wrote:
| I'd like to see some sources on this. I've seen good and
| bad examples of justified text, and it's also highly
| dependent on the font as well.
| salomonk_mur wrote:
| Disagree on the animations. They are both beautiful and
| detailed, clearly illustrating the point.
|
| Your other criticism I agree with.
| dimal wrote:
| I agree that they are beautiful and detailed, clearly
| illustrating the point. I really, really love them. I'd
| love to have them on my wall.
|
| That's not my problem. My problem is that they never stop
| animating. For me and many other people, when something is
| moving in our visual field, it is very, very difficult to
| read the text next to it.
|
| Full disclosure: I'm autistic. I was wondering whether I
| should mention that. All the issues that I mentioned
| exclude me from using this resource. So maybe we could call
| these _accessibility_ issues instead of _usability_ issues.
| When I disclose that I 'm autistic, it tends to evoke two
| types of responses:
|
| 1) Oh, sorry, we'll make it accessible. But they do it out
| of shame, which I don't like. I'd rather it's out of
| empathy.
|
| 2) You're too small of a segment to care about.
|
| But I'm beginning to think that the only difference between
| usability and accessibility is the size of the population
| that's being excluded by the design. I chose to keep my
| autisticness separate to see how people responded when I
| presented this as a usability issue instead of an
| accessibility issue.
|
| I'm only asking that designers have empathy for _all_
| possible users of their media. That 's all. That's what
| good design is supposed to do.
| layer8 wrote:
| I'm not autistic and I agree that nonstop animations are
| distracting and detrimental.
| dimal wrote:
| I hope you didn't think I meant to imply that this is
| only bad for autistic people. I know that many other
| people have the same issues. But when I mention these
| problems to people that don't have difficulty, sometimes
| they assume it's just me and a tiny minority.
| layer8 wrote:
| I just didn't want people to interpret your comment as
| only autistic people being bothered by this.
| bitwize wrote:
| Probably got a lot of neurospicy folks here on
| Hackernews, so there's less of a stigma associated with
| it, and more people familiar with the kind of sensory
| issues you deal with.
|
| I feel you. I can't have autocomplete on when I'm coding,
| partly because having video game stuff happening in my
| field of view while I'm trying to focus throws me off.
| I'd rather just remember the name.
| NewsaHackO wrote:
| There has to be a middle ground though. For instance, I
| am definitely the opposite; I would feel as the site
| would be less usable to me if it just ran once and I had
| to reload the page or spam click replay if I wanted to
| see the animation again. I'd imagine people who are slow
| readers or with dyslexia would feel the same, and would
| make similar aurguement that you are making that them
| auto playing the animation assuming everyone had same
| reading speed when the animation is in focus are not
| taking thier cohort in consideration due to the small
| size of the group. I am sure that there are some
| colorblindness condition that would find the colors of
| the site difficult to distinguish as well. I would be be
| more emphatic to your view point if this was a
| school/employment/healthcare/goverment document, but it
| isnt realistic to say a primarily artistic/design project
| has to cater to everyone's specific accessibility
| concerns.
| eertami wrote:
| I believe the middle ground is implementing `prefers-
| reduced-motion` alternatives for the looping animations.
|
| Then it would still loop for you, but not negatively
| impact people who are using reduced motion settings in
| their browser/OS.
| croemer wrote:
| On mobile there's far too much white space between sections,
| there are almost entire screens of nothing.
| Narishma wrote:
| > There are numerous animations that never stop. This is
| highly distracting and makes it very difficult to read the
| text.
|
| And pegs the CPU and drains the battery.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Very cool resource!
| xabush wrote:
| Amazing design! Just joined the mailing list
| khaledh wrote:
| Very nice. The design reminds me of a website that I forgot to
| bookmark a long while ago, it was about explaining network
| protocols at the wire level, and it had some of the most amazing
| visuals that I ever saw. It's a shame that I forgot what it was,
| and googling doesn't help. If anyone knows what I'm talking about
| please share the link.
| virogenesis wrote:
| Let us know if you find that site asking for my kid :)
| promiseofbeans wrote:
| Looks like it might have been VisualLand.net, which isn't
| around anymore. Looking at the archive of the site (https://w
| eb.archive.org/web/20130811073141/http%3A//www.visu...), most
| of their animations / diagrams were Flash, so no longer run,
| and don't seem to work with archive.org's emulator either.
| khaledh wrote:
| No, that's not it unfortunately. It was a single page with
| a style of diagrams that shows a high-level format of
| something, with arrows to a zoomed-in version that details
| the structure of the fields. I remember its colour scheme
| being dominated by light blue and green, IIRC.
| gecko6 wrote:
| Could this be it? TLS 1.3 connection, with every field in
| the packets labelled: https://tls13.xargs.org
| khaledh wrote:
| No, not that one either. The page was static and full of
| high quality images dissecting the format structures.
| truetraveller wrote:
| Where the visuals interactive or static?
| khaledh wrote:
| Static.
| mattbee wrote:
| Exceptional landing page, very exciting project.
| vivzkestrel wrote:
| Commendable effort, i would also like to recommend some
| topics/chapters/lessons whatever you want to call it - How
| microprocessors and microcontrollers work - Types of storage =>
| RAM / ssd/ hdd / flash drives and storage formats NTFS, FAT32 -
| OS stuff (theading, multiprocessing, coroutines, scheduling,
| paging, priority) - Some data structures stuff (trees, stacks,
| queues, graphs etc)
| joshbaptiste wrote:
| CoreDumpped https://www.youtube.com/@CoreDumpped on YT is also
| a great animated reference or refresher on such topics..
| clausz wrote:
| How old is this? Copyright at the bottom of the page says "1990".
| junon wrote:
| It's definitely not from 1990.
| rossant wrote:
| Probably the _author himself_ is from 1990.
| gregschlom wrote:
| I think it's a cool little easter egg. Goes well with the
| technical illustration of a 3.5" floppy disk at the top and the
| pixelated font for the titles.
|
| Also, maybe the author meant to say he started thinking about
| this book since 1990, too.
|
| Either way the copyright year doesn't matter. You can put
| anything
| croemer wrote:
| I'm confused, I can't find the content anywhere. I clicked on the
| TOC items but that just underlined the words. Is this just an
| announcement?
| falcor84 wrote:
| Yes, just an announcement. There's an FAQ at the bottom:
|
| >When will it launch?
|
| > I'm not entirely sure yet. I'd love to get it out before the
| European summer this year. It's a lot of work to illustrate
| everything so you might need to have some patience.
| skadamat wrote:
| There seems to be _some_ content previews here:
| https://typefully.com/DanHollick
| WillAdams wrote:
| Which chapters are done?
|
| I was very excited to go to (and link/reference) Chapter 2: Fonts
| and Vectors but it doesn't seem to be done yet?
|
| The progress indicator shows that this is only just begun?
| croemer wrote:
| No chapters are done - it's a bit weird that this fact is
| buried deep down in the FAQs. I would have expected the fact
| it's an announcement to be mentioned above the fold.
| kookamamie wrote:
| Looks like form-over-function to me. Cool looks, little content.
| scubbo wrote:
| It's just an announcement page, for now.
| yapyap wrote:
| Honestly you had me at the graphics, really neat.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Same. That site is masterful example of just cool design.
| dirtybirdnj wrote:
| I really like those illustrations I hope you keep going with this
| progress. Looks great and I think it could be a very engaging
| tool because of its visual appeal.
|
| Don't let the haters get to you. Let him cook people.
| agos wrote:
| the design is really cool, but the two columns are really
| confusing on a screen that is not tall enough to fully contain
| them
| XCSme wrote:
| Nice landing page, but I'm confused. The header is about
| software, but many diagrams are about hardware.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| It'll come in handy for when I try to destroy a hard drive by
| getting the actuator arm to move back and forth at the drive's
| harmonic frequency.
| evanletz wrote:
| This is awesome. Reminds me of that book "How Things Work" that
| breaks down the everyday item into understandable pieces
| MatthiasWandel wrote:
| nice, but spotted several inaccuracies on the landing page.
| perhaps not the best reference.
| zh3 wrote:
| Yes, very first item:-
|
| > When your finger gets close to the screen it causes a
| disturbance in the magnetic field that the electrodes sense.
|
| Sure should be capacitive?
| georgewsinger wrote:
| The author should make a meta-entry about how he makes the
| (insanely beautiful) diagrams in the book (ideally walking
| through the process).
| ivl wrote:
| The pair of animations on the page are beautifully done, not
| just technically but aesthetically as well. If the rest of the
| book is like that I'll be getting a copy.
| psadauskas wrote:
| In the FAQ: 07 How do you make the
| illustrations? By hand, in Figma. There's no secret -
| it's as complicated as it looks.
| __loam wrote:
| Respect
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| using hand??? not after effect ?
|
| god damn, that's some patient making animation right there
| behnamoh wrote:
| He has more content with figures on another platform:
| https://typefully.com/DanHollick
| VoltCraft wrote:
| copyright 1990? I doubt that. layout and finish are first rate on
| this.signed up for the mailing list - hoping it will be touched
| again in 1991
| meindnoch wrote:
| The table of contents seems to have a whole chapter on "AI and
| ML" before starting the next chapter with "What is a byte?".
| Funny.
| 0xEF wrote:
| I'm getting the impression that the book will not be organized
| in any real linear or iterative order, just sections that allow
| you to jump around and read what you want.
| skadamat wrote:
| Lovely website! I stumbled into this other account by the same
| author that showcases some of the work that might end up in this
| 'book':
|
| https://typefully.com/DanHollick
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| This reminds me aesthetically of The Way Things Work [1] which
| was one of my favorite books as a kid. Having a similar wordly
| reference as an adult has been a goal for a while.
|
| [1] https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/the-way-things-work-newly-
| revise...
| rkuykendall-com wrote:
| A cool recent one for large-scale infrastructure is
| "Engineering in Plain Sight":
|
| https://practical.engineering/book
| progbits wrote:
| I was disappointed in that one unfortunately.
|
| Too much name dropping of random pieces without offering any
| insights why they are needed. You learn much more just
| skimming through a wiki article.
| berelig wrote:
| I've been looking around for a book like this that has
| scientific/engineering topics presented in a bite-sized fashion
| so a teenager (or even adults) can discover which ones pique
| their interests and are worth a deeper dive.
|
| Would this book work or is it a bit too simple? Does anyone
| have another book to recommend?
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| it's been a couple decades since I've read it, but I'd buy it
| again as an adult. Like the peer comment says, "Engineering
| in Plain Sight" purports to be similar and I bought my dad a
| copy last christmas. Planning to spend some of my
| professionial development stipend on a copy this year.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| The Way Things Work is up to date. I loved it in the mid
| 90s and just bought a new copy for my kid this year. It has
| SSDs, OLEDs, Gravity Wave Detection, etc.
| Acrobatic_Road wrote:
| I had the same thought. I don't remember if it was exactly this
| book, but I remember reading a book that explained all kinds of
| engineering concepts for my kid brain. And I remember the
| latter part of the book had some computer science content like
| how compression works.
| vunderba wrote:
| If it had an abundance of woolly mammoths then it was likely
| this book. Highly recommended - covers everything from
| reactors to pin tumbler locks.
| MisterTea wrote:
| Amazing book for sure. David Macaulay has a few other books,
| four of which were turned into educational animated PBS
| specials. My mother got us the box set from PBS years ago.
| scop wrote:
| I'm sensing an uncomfortable amount of human labor behind this.
| Even worse it appears to be labor done for the sake of the thing
| itself. _shudder_ Terrible and makes me feel bad about myself.
| Back to the AI slop I go!
| exe34 wrote:
| some people got all the discipline!
| kmoser wrote:
| The illustrations are definitely the secret sauce that makes this
| so engaging and informative. I'd also like to see links to where
| I can learn more about particular topics online. For example:
|
| > Or maybe you've wondered why we call it a Gaussian blur?
|
| Nowhere is Carl Friedrich Gauss mentioned, which is unfortunate.
| This should really link to the Wikipedia entry for
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_blur.
| sfn42 wrote:
| When you know the term gaussian (blur) it's trivial to do a
| Google search
| internetter wrote:
| Google does not return the best content.
| coolThingsFirst wrote:
| So.... none of the chapters are available?
| pier25 wrote:
| How were the animations done?
|
| From inspecting the DOM it's just animated SVGs but I'm guessing
| these were authored with some other tool.
|
| Initially I thought these were made with Rive but AFAIK their
| engine runs on <canvas>.
| cush wrote:
| Gorgeous UI
| robocat wrote:
| When your finger gets close to the [touch] screen it causes a
| disturbance in the *magnetic* field that the electrodes sense.
|
| Surely they mean electric field - for a capacitive touch screen.
| constantcrying wrote:
| How do you cause a disturbance in an electric field without
| causing a disturbance in the magnetic field?
| robocat wrote:
| To imply capacitive touch sensing uses magnetics is just so
| wrong - I can't imagine how someone trying to be technical
| could make such an egregious error.
|
| A material can affect an electric field without affecting a
| magnetic field: electrically conductive (versus insulator
| that won't affect a field so much except via dielectric
| effects).
|
| A material can affect a magnetic field without much affecting
| an electric field e.g. ferrites are non-conducting.
|
| A finger changes the capacitance between two "plates" and
| that is what is detected.
|
| Also the attached drawing shows diamonds but I've only ever
| seen flat wires myself (when looking closely at touch screens
| you can sometimes see the transparent sense wires). But I'm
| no specialist and I don't know how correct the drawing is.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Changes in the electric field of a capacitor cause changes
| in the magnetic field.
|
| Electric and magnetic fields aren't Independent. Again, I
| asked about disturbances, Maxwells equations make it pretty
| obvious that changes in one cause changes in the other.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, it's a disturbance on the AC properties... so both.
|
| But yeah, we usually talk about capacitance as an "electrical-
| only" phenomenon. It's quite weird to se it referred as
| magnetic.
| ValveFan6969 wrote:
| I'm an Atheist, and I would like to know if AI models have the
| ability to detect sarcasm? Is there a way to make them understand
| that? Or maybe just give context in parentheses of something
| sarcastic I'm about to say? If I wanted to, can I just tell the
| AI that everything I am about to say is sarcastic? Maybe put
| quotation marks over the things I am about to say so that the AI
| comprehends the context?
|
| If anyone has done this and made success, I'd really like to know
| how you did it and if there's any tricks to accomplishing that.
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(page generated 2025-04-17 23:00 UTC)