
The Backbone's connected to the... - benhowdle89
http://www.kashflow.com/blog/the-backbones-connected-to-the/
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zalew
> (don’t worry, no death by Powerpoint here)

well, technically PP wasn't used here, but the unnecessary transition effect
makes me feel like it was.

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masklinn
"reveal.js" is a fucking plague, and image macros are the new wordarts.

Welcome to PP 2.0, browserdeath edition.

~~~
sycren
I actually find presentations like this to be an easier way of obtaining
information than long blog posts.

"WHO WROTE THE 'DEATH NOTE' SCRIPT?" released on HN earlier this week was very
interesting but I kept losing my place down the page.

<http://www.gwern.net/Death%20Note%20script>

~~~
masklinn
> I actually find presentations like this to be an easier way of obtaining
> information than long blog posts.

I have little issue with presentations in and of themselves, although
generally speaking either the presentation is missing most of the relevant
information or it's just a more annoying format for a blog post.

I _do_ have an issue with reveal.js which is the epitome of "style over
substance" presentations full of pointless rotations and intractable multi-
dimensional navigations, and with overuse of image macros which are the lowest
common denominator of the modern web and the most information-free way to
waste time and bandwidth.

> "WHO WROTE THE 'DEATH NOTE' SCRIPT?" released on HN earlier this week was
> very interesting but I kept losing my place down the page.

A bigger difference is that this piece happens to have actual content. And
dense one at that. It's not trivial to read let alone skim.

~~~
sycren
I agree with you. Do you think presentations like this have any place, perhaps
more to large groups of people at HN London rather than a singular user?

~~~
masklinn
Oh yes, the format is OK as a support for a talk (although this one precisely
has way too much text crammed in some of the slides), and of course the
navigation is not an issue when the creator is the one showing the deck.

I also think presentations could work better as a single-consumer format if
"presentation notes" were available alongside, expanding on the slide itself
with what the presenter would usually talk about. Essentially a slide becomes
a "hook", a header for a page of content. And the presentation itself becomes
a sectioned/paginated post. But I don't know any presentation site which
provides a good interface for that (I don't believe speakerdeck does anyway).

~~~
sycren
Interesting, I think you could take that further for group presentations. Say
when you are actually in a presentation - the 'presentation notes' are sent in
real-time to mobile devices.

Could you explain further as to what the interface would be like? If the
presentation is full screen, where would the notes be? Somewhere off-page that
you could pull in if needed?

~~~
masklinn
> Interesting, I think you could take that further for group presentations.
> Say when you are actually in a presentation - the 'presentation notes' are
> sent in real-time to mobile devices.

That's a pretty interesting idea, and it could help e.g. non-native or
disabled audience follow the talk.

If the on-device UI is done well-enough, it could also help with the usual
"ask questions at the end" format: tap the text and jot down a quick reminder,
and at the end of the presentation the things you tapped can be displayed for
review or questioning.

> If the presentation is full screen, where would the notes be? Somewhere off-
> page that you could pull in if needed?

Sure, but I think it'd work better if the interface was closer to "presenter
view", with the slides taking only part of the screen (say half) and the
notes/accompanying text taking the rest. Then you could have something similar
to e.g. Reeder/Mac's interface, using the spacebar to read "the next thing",
either scrolling down the text (if not all of it can be displayed) or
switching to the next slide (if the text is under a page or its end has been
reached)

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naugtur
The author is saying the technology lagged behind, and presents content that
just says "you can use javascript for more than you could in IE5!"

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ttty
I don't really know why everybody is crazy about Backbone, when Qooxdoo
(<http://qooxdoo.org/>) it's a lot better than it. You don't even have to
know/touch html/css. You also have an automated generated page (that contains
all of your js files or 1 big file if is min), OOP classes 'like' in Java, and
full UI library.

~~~
atomical
> You don't even have to know/touch html/css.

Most people here know and prefer html/css to magic.

> You also have an automated generated page (that contains all of your js
> files or 1 big file if is min)

Easy with Rails. A lot of backbone apps are running on rails.

~~~
sycren
I see lots of backbone app tutorials with Sinatra, would you suggest that
Rails is better?

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atomical
I don't know whether it's better or not. But I think Rails is good enough and
has a lot of advanced functionality.

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ehutch79
Are you seriously suggesting wikipedia becomes a single page app?

No really, I realize you say that server refreshes work for wikipedia, but you
really seem to be suggesting that all websites should be single page apps.

~~~
rozap
I'm with you on this. mv* Javascript frameworks just don't make a lot of sense
on a primarily "document" (and I use that term loosely) based site, like
Wikipedia. Things like backbone have their place, but it isn't on every site
every made.

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vowofnow
Does Kashflow jibe with Canadian banks? And is there an Evernote addon in the
plans?

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sycren
There is dropbox integration, why would you need evernote?

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BaconJuice
Thank you for sharing this. I actually enjoyed reading it, very entertaining!

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benhowdle89
Thanks a lot! Glad you liked it...

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alexjarvis
More like death by kittens

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sycren
Sorry, we're planning to cross-post this to reddit ;)

