It's probably a free-tier heroku app, being hugged to death right now. I've used this site quite a bit in the past on FireFox, Chrome, and Brave, and it has worked perfectly before.
Thank you. Like you said, I use Firefox for development and test it on Chrome as well.
The target users of Sketch.sh is web developers so I received bug reports about browser incompatibility almost instantly.
It was a problem with now.sh version 1 platform. I can't find a way to scale the free v1 node. All their docs prefer to upgrading to version 2 platform.
This article makes it sound like the slogan is just some marketing gimmick, but the slogan is actually just a fair description of the sad reality of the situation. HP is promoting Windows 7 over Windows 8 at this point - the default PC configurations feature Windows 7, and you can "customize" to get Windows 8.x. Good or bad, Windows 8 has been out for over a year, and is not making people want to buy PCs. I don't know if Windows 7 is making people want to buy PCs these days either, but it came out over 4 years ago, and has already served its purpose, which has nothing to do with today's PC market. If Windows 8 is supposed to be greater than Windows 7 in all conceivable ways, why is there still a demand for Windows 7, and why would a PC manufacturer need to market both versions, or even go so far as to promote the older version?
We've been using Backbone+Marionette at my company, and in general I like it, and it's much cleaner than just vanilla Backbone, but I still feel like it falls short for medium-to-large sized apps, and requires you to write a substantial amount of additional code, or include additional Backbone plugins. This might include things like "nested/deep" model support, two-way data-binding, etc. The main problem with the lightweight plugin model is that a lot of the plugins aren't necessarily compatible with others, or are not up-to-date on the latest Backbone changes, not to mention the varying degree in quality and maintenance of plugins, and the problem of choosing which data binding plugin you want, out of the 10+ available.
I think maybe we have just crossed the line from small, focused UI/interactions to large-scale single-page apps, and we would be better off with a more substantial/fully-featured framework like AngularJS or Ember.js.
I like your approach with your await library. You're probably aware of this, but the jQuery "Deferred" implementation of promises has a similar mechanism that I'm not sure is common in other JavaScript promise implementations:
I used AttributeRouting for a fairly large ASP.NET MVC 3 project. I found it really clean and useful - I preferred having the routing information declared on the methods themselves, rather than in some generic routing table, or a single catch-all route. With this library, you don't have to explicitly define a route on every method, there are convention-based approaches, and different levels at which you can define the base route, then more specific routes as you get closer to the methods themselves.
I also used T4MVC, which may have fallen by the wayside, but that kept a lot of the "magic strings" out of the code.
I tried on Chrome and got 6 days old. I then tried it on IE9 just out of curiosity, and got 579 days old. Also, the site doesn't seem to render or work correctly on IE9. The initial table appears at the very left-hand side of the screen, and the [+] button doesn't seem to do anything. (Works fine on Chrome though).
From what I understand, the HTML+Javascript WinRT APIs are really only supported on the "full" Windows RT/Metro environment, not Windows Phone 8. Windows Phone 8 supports C#/VB+XAML, C/C++, and you can use HTML and Javascript, but only in a web browser control, which is not the same as a true Javascript API with hooks into lower-level constructs. Apparently, you can also run legacy Windows Phone 7 Silverlight apps on Windows Phone 8 as well, but that is just a stopgap to not completely cut ties with the legacy apps.
It could also mean that "mom and pop" companies can no longer get into the hardware game at all. If there is no margin for hardware sales, only companies that can afford to setup the manufacturing processes and operate them at little, no, or negative profit will be able to stay in the game. This means only companies like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc. who can afford to support mass hardware production with software sales, will be able to compete in the hardware market.
You could boil these observations down to "it's different," but that doesn't mean you're not also allowed to come to the conclusion that "it's awful" (or on the flip-side that "it's great"). Nobody would deny that the Windows 8/"Metro" UI and UX is different. Every window system is different, some more than others, and each has it's own pros and cons. Some people might like the Finder in Mac OSX, and some might hate it. It doesn't matter whether the hate is legitimate or defensible or not, what matters is whether your UI/UX and overall OS is compelling enough to convince users that it's worth switching from what they know, or simply worth putting up with in the bigger picture. I would also argue that it doesn't matter whether a user unfair-ably hates it after barely/ignorantly using it, or comes to the conclusion that they hate it after using it thoroughly for 8 months. First impressions are so important - not many people have the time or interest to really dig into a new UI/UX paradigm to find out what's it all about and whether it can improve their workflow. If you fail the first impression by not driving your users in the right direction or giving them some sense of excitement, most times you don't get another chance.
I think where Windows 8 fails is that it doesn't provide me with any compelling reasons why I would want to upgrade from Windows 7, or migrate from Mac OSX or Linux. It doesn't give me any sense of excitement - the paradigm shift from Windows 7 to 8 is not at all like the experience of shifting from something like a Blackberry to an iPhone. I agree with the author - I don't like the Metro start menu, I prefer the old start menu. Maybe that's just me clinging to an old beat-in paradigm, but I don't really see any benefits in the new paradigm. I don't like the full-screen metro apps with limited window management capability and hidden OS "chrome" (clock). I don't like having to use touch-like gestures or memorize new keyboard shortcuts for using all the wonky new features in the OS that don't seem to provide me with any real compelling value. The Windows 8 "optimists" that try to defend the OS by listing out keyboard shortcuts or alternate ways to navigate to different areas, or ways to "hide" Metro UX are kind of missing the point. Most people that provide a laundry list of what they hate are not looking for suggestions or tutorials - the OS has already failed to direct them, and they've simply come to the conclusion that they don't like it.
I think that if you believe the goal of Windows 8 is to compel people to move from 7 to 8, you are missing the point. The goal of Windows 8 is to sell new hardware, specifically touch hardware.
Is that at the expense of the desktop and enterprise users? Only time will tell, but if the touch hardware ends up not working out, are they going to still have the desktop users to fall back on? I guess they probably will because they'll have the people stuck on XP and 7.
Also, if the point is to convince me to buy Windows 8 touch hardware, it has failed there too because the desktop experience was so uncompelling for me, I have no interest in exploring other options.
For one final edit - if they don't want me to upgrade from 7 to 8 on a desktop, what's the reasoning behind the massive price cuts for upgrades. If I bought a PC in the last year or so, I can upgrade from 7 to 8 for $15. Or if I have an old XP machine, I can upgrade for $40. If they don't care about non-touch desktop and laptop users, why would they slash the prices like this?
First, I think that the idea that Microsoft is introducing 8 at the expense of desktop and enterprise users is a straw man argument. I have not heard any reasonable explanation as to why this is the case. All the apps used in 7 still work in 8, and the desktop remains largely unchanged in 8 from the previous version. In addition, the new app model works fine in the current security framework. So if anything, it gives enterprises (built on Windows technologies) a more secure way to deploy touch based apps.
And, by me saying the primary goal is to sell hardware, does not exclude upgrades being a secondary or tertiary goal. Microsoft wants the Windows 8 ecosystem to be as big as possible, hence the cheap price. They want to shift the conversation from devices sold (e.g. iPad, Nexus) to total ecosystem coverage. But, that number is less effective if everyone is just booting into the desktop.
I get what you are saying though, I was also disappointed by the desktop experience. But, in retrospect, I think the desktop was pretty good in 7, so I think the new visual options are a nice addition.
Not really. The new hardware is selling itself already. The goal of Windows 8 is to ensure that Microsoft is still relevant in a world where that hardware dominates the computing marketplace.
