I wish HN handled long horizontal scrolling lines on mobile better. It’s aggravating that we are a site full of programmers and we can’t get the basics of usability in 2018.

One thing that I think most people don't consider often is that making things more usable isn't always good. Medium and message are interlinked. If everyone in the world switched to mobile, it would change the content of the articles we read and it would change the discussion of those articles. When you make something more usable on a different platform, you're encouraging the biases that the platform compels. In the case of mobile this means encouraging shallower content and briefer discussions, among other things.

Sure making things more usable may sometimes have trade-offs. But I'm struggling to think of the disadvantage of basic markdown support on a site where everyone knows markdown, and even assumes it is supported. People are constantly posting markdown lists that end up all on one line.

I assume the reason it hasnt been fixed is that nobody can be bothered, which is fine. But it's still a little embarrassing. Kind of like how Stackoverflow doesn't support triple backticks. I often see questions with formatting screwed up because people assume a site that heavily relies on markdown supports an extremely common markdown feature.

You can have different rendering for mobile/non-mobile.

We are in the midst of everyone switching to mobile.

I know. I'm pointing out why this is a bad thing, because most people who advocate for better mobile support on Hacker News don't see themselves as advocating for a reduction in the quality of discussion and a reduction in the depth and complexity of the articles being shared.

Thanks, I see what you mean now. I didn't get it because I use a mobile platform as desktop, but that's not generally true (so far).

> we are a site full of programmers

Exactly! And we all know how good most programmers are at UI design ;-)

Formatting:

Written in Rust

- fd: A simple, fast and user-friendly alternative to 'find' https://github.com/sharkdp/fd

- ripgrep: ripgrep recursively searches directories for a regex pattern https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep

- exa: Replacement for 'ls' written in Rust https://github.com/ogham/exa

- bat: A 'cat' replacement. I recommend following the customizations. https://github.com/sharkdp/bat

Written in Python

- asciinema: Terminal session recorder https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema

- httpie: Modern command line HTTP client https://github.com/jakubroztocil/httpie

- visidata: A terminal spreadsheet multitool for discovering and arranging data https://github.com/saulpw/visidata

- youtube-dl: Command-line program to download videos from YouTube.com and other video sites https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl

- pgcli: Postgres cli with autocomplete and syntax highlighting https://github.com/dbcli/pgcli

Written in C

- jq: Command-line JSON processor https://github.com/stedolan/jq

- tmux: a terminal multiplexer https://github.com/tmux/tmux

- pspg: postgres pager (you can combine it with pgcli) https://github.com/okbob/pspg reply

Written in Rust:

- rq: A tool for doing record analysis and transformation (replacement for jq, supports yaml, json, avro, protocol buffers, etc.) https://github.com/dflemstr/rq

As you are using tmux, also check out the awesome tmuxp written in Python. The author is very thorough with the package; testing and documentation. Tmuxp allows you to quickly launch pre-configured tmux sessions.

Thanks for the tip. I briefly read through the docs and it's not clear what this offers above and beyond what tmux does?

The benefit of tmuxp is pretty clear from its README[1]. It gives this example:

    session_name: 4-pane-split
    windows:
    - window_name: dev window
      layout: tiled
      shell_command_before:
        - cd ~/                    # run as a first command in all panes
      panes:
        - shell_command:           # pane no. 1
            - cd /var/log          # run multiple commands in this pane
            - ls -al | grep \.log
        - echo second pane         # pane no. 2
        - echo third pane          # pane no. 3
        - echo forth pane          # pane no. 4

The example is very simple (I use tmuxp to heavily configure the session initialization), but it shows how you can have a config file to set a session's name, set the number and names of windows in there, set the layout of panes differently if you want in each window, run commands like "cd", set env vars differently if you want, in each pane.

You can find a lot more examples of tmuxp config on its doc site[2].

tmux doesn't allow one to have such quick, easy-to-read config files. You can of course do most of this in your .tmux.conf, but it will be too complicated to allow reuse and quick modifications.

[1]: https://github.com/tmux-python/tmuxp#load-a-tmux-session

[2]: https://tmuxp.git-pull.com/en/latest/examples.html

That looks handy, i can see a, 'setup my testing and development environment' with just a quick cp-and-edit of config file.

I use a shell script for such config. eg tmux split-window -h ; tmux send-keys "ls -la" C-m; ...

As I mentioned earlier, it is possible to do such things within the .tmux.conf, but not practical. Here's one of my real tmuxp configs:

    # How to use this file:
    #   tmuxp load /path/to/this/file/main.yaml
    # - Specifying the .yaml extension is optional
    # - Specifying the path is optional if file is in ~/.tmuxp
    #
    #   tmuxp --help for full help.
    session_name: main
    suppress_history: false
    start_directory: '~'
    shell_command_before:
      - unsetenv SHELL_CONFIG_LOADED
      - source ~/.alias
    windows:
      - window_name: '*scratch*'
        layout: tiled
        focus: true
        panes:
          - cd ~/downloads/git           # Top-left
          - cd ~/downloads/git/emacs     # Top-right
          - focus: true                  # Bottom-left
            shell_command:
              - bob
              - sleep 2
              - tclr                     # Clear tmux status indicators
          - shell_command:               # Bottom-right
              - cd ~/.emacs.d/elisp/org-mode
              - module load gcc/6.1.0    # Needed for ob-fortran tests to pass when doing make test for Org
      - window_name: foo-1
        layout: even-horizontal
        shell_command_before:
          - bob
          - cduh
        panes:
          - null
          - null
          - null
      - window_name: foo-2
        layout: tiled
        shell_command_before:
          - bob
          - cduh
        panes:
          - null
          - null
          - null
          - null
      - window_name: uvm_lib
        layout: tiled
        panes:
          - cd ~/gitlab/bar_uvm_lib
      - window_name: sandbox
        layout: even-horizontal
        panes:
          - null
          - null
          - null
      - window_name: hugo
        layout: tiled
        panes:
          - shell_command:
              - cd '~/downloads/git'
          - shell_command:
              - cd '~/e/elisp/ox-hugo/example-site'
              - ./srv
          - shell_command:
              - cd '~/hugo'
          - focus: true
            shell_command:
              - cd '~/e/elisp/ox-hugo'
      - window_name: nim
        layout: even-horizontal
        panes:
          - cd ~/sandbox/nim
          - cd ~/sandbox/nim
          - focus: true
            shell_command:
              - cd ~/sandbox/nim/chat
      - window_name: tok
        layout: even-horizontal
        shell_command_before:
          - tok
          - cduh
        panes:
          - null
          - null
          - null
      - window_name: zoo
        layout: even-horizontal
        shell_command_before:
          - bob
          - cduh
        panes:
          - null
          - null
          - null

I don't do it within the .tmux.conf - I use separate scripts, one per project.

I understand. But the point I am trying to make applies there too. A script to do what I am doing in the tmuxp config I last pasted would be too unmanageable, and not as readable and reusable.

I think the idea is to be able to use tmux in different layouts, configured by simple plaintext. I'll try it out.

Thanks for the links. In the future, please don’t use indentation to set off lists like this. It makes it difficult to read due to side scrolling, particularly on mobile. People often use - (hyphen) or * set of bullet points, and separate lines with new lines. You don’t get <li> elements, but it does work. Plus, your links will work, too :)

The problem isn't using indentation. The problem is the platform's rendering on mobile.

Agree on links tho.

Given that we're members of HN (as opposed to someone running the site), I try to provide constructive advice that others can actually use to improve the situation. The admins are well aware of the situation; continuing to argue that it's a problem with the platform while refusing to do what you can to work with the given situation seems like a needless waste of a comment.

Protests sometimes succeed.

https://github.com/BurntSushi/xsv is a must if you do anything with CSV.

Httpie is really pleasant to use