

Give HN:  Free project/startup idea.  Please make this. - guynamedloren
http://madebyloren.com/posts/11

======
davidw
Google Reader doesn't seem ugly to me. It does what it's supposed to: let me
read feeds without too much clutter. I'd get rid of a bit of junk, but it
basically does what it's supposed to, and does it in the real world, when
there are times I only want to read certain feeds, when I want to mark stuff
as read, and so on and so forth, and so need various buttons and settings.

~~~
AndrewDucker
I agree. I love the Google Reader UI, which is simple, easy to use, and has
keyboard shortcuts.

The only thing I'd like changed is to have "j" take you onto the next item
even if said item is in a different feed.

~~~
joakin
For that I press [Space], it changes to the next feed (or folder). If the
article is open (and too long) just press [Enter] and then [Space] will have
that effect.

When the next one is a folder (i dont usually read by folders) you can use
Shift+N (next feed) and Shift+O (Open feed).

Now that I think about it, shortcuts in Reader and Gmail are extremely useful.

~~~
AndrewDucker
Yeah - it's shifting folders that's the problem - I wish that "j" would take
me to the next item, even in other folders, rather than having to switch to
using shift-n,shift-o.

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petervandijck
Yes, RSS readers need some innovation, but No, the UI in that article isn't
the answer. It's pretty horrid (1).

I would hope the new generation of RSS readers would rethink some stuff. And
be social, not added-on-later-social like Google Reader.

Something like this?
[http://poorbuthappy.com/ease/archives/2010/09/10/4765/time-f...](http://poorbuthappy.com/ease/archives/2010/09/10/4765/time-
for-a-new-type-of-feed-people-reader)

(1) I use the words pretty and horrid together on purpose here.

------
darklajid
Actually I like requests like this (and this one in particular). There's
probably a rather large crowd around that follows the 'learning new things
makes you smarter' mantra and this is a very neat (small in scope, design
already ~done~) idea to (ab)use it as a 'learn yourself some X' project.

I know that I'll brush up my nearly non-existant node.js/jquery skills by
creating this, even if it ends up in the bin.

------
terhechte
I don't like the design. It wastes precious space for nothing. Helvetireader
is nice though: <http://helvetireader.com/> or Fever: <http://feedafever.com/>

~~~
guynamedloren
Okay, Helvetireader wins hands down. Best I've seen, and it's slapped directly
onto Google Reader so that's always a good thing. Where were all these good
alternatives when I asked HN last time?

~~~
nlo
For Safari there's a great extension that reskins Google Reader and reclaims
some wasted screen real estate:

<http://mariusth.channelwood.org/SafariExtensions/>

In use: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2282834/SafariReaderExtension.png>

------
joakin
I think as the author, i have been looking for a long time for a
magazine/bookmarks like page to use as home/newtab page and i can never settle
because there is no great answer.

Anyway, I dont think his proposal is the solution, but its probably the way to
go.

If anyone knows alternatives would be great to try them out

------
aerique
I'll tell you why most iPad apps surpass web apps in both usability and
design: they're easier to make and it's easier to make money off of them.

~~~
guynamedloren
Honest question: are they really easier to make?

I know almost nil about iPad apps. The only thing I know is that they might be
coded in Objective-C... which I know nothing about. But I do know about Rails,
and I know it's dead simple once you get the hang of it. It took me about 3 or
4 months to get the hang of with no real prior programming experience, and now
I could definitely code an app like this in a weekend. That seems pretty damn
easy to me.

> _it's easier to make money off of them_

well, you've got me there :)

~~~
stcredzero
_I know almost nil about iPad apps. The only thing I know is that they might
be coded in Objective-C._

I have to say that for fast iteration and explorative development, Ruby has it
over Objective-C. I say this even though I very much like Objective-C and the
iOS SDK.

Objective-C is like C++, but with a (IMO) better attempt to bolt the late-
binding goodness of Smalltalk as the Object Oriented part, instead of the more
complicated machinery of C++. The iOS SDK is like the best of Object Oriented
Design from the early 90's, powered by an elegant message passing
infrastructure, allowing clean implementations of patterns. Unfortunately,
there is still a lot of stiffness from its statically typed roots. Iterative
development is slower than for a dynamic language. It's very good, and I think
XCode is a top-notch IDE. I even have an SSD for the purpose of making the
Edit-Compile-Debug cycle as fast as possible. Despite this, investigating
runtime behavior is still 2 to 3 times slower than in a dynamic language,
refactoring is more work because there is more syntax and more repetition of
entity names in different files, and there is more need to know how everything
is laid out up front.

I'm facing this situation right now with converting my little calendar app to
use a paged UIScrollView. You have to know a lot of how the UIScrollView works
up front. I was able to get it to do the "Page Transitions" from month to
month just by changing the data underlying my view. Now that I want to switch
between different calendars with a sideways swipe, I have to create multiple
views to do that, which involves yet more data refactoring. I had already
refactored to support an array of multiple calendar objects in my view. Now I
need to have multiple views with one calendar each. In a dynamic environment,
I would be done already even without knowing this up front.

 _> it's easier to make money off of them_

Look at the history of technology. This _almost always_ trumps the more
elegant technology. An ecosystem which rewards developers with money or some
other satisfaction results in a virtuous cycle which results in more value
created for the technology, which in turn makes it easier to create even more
value and get rewarded.

EDIT: Another example. Look at the code it takes to _increment a Date by 1
month_. That is, I want to go from day N of month M to day N of month (M+1).
It seems simple, but there's a bit going on there. In Ruby, this is one
statement. In Objective-C with the iOS SDK, this involves _three objects_. To
be fair, the iOS version is more powerful and flexible, which will let your
code run correctly, even if you do something far-out like suddenly switch to a
lunar calendar. 99%+ of developers won't ever benefit from that.

------
palish
Are you really a guy whose name is Loren?

Sorry; had to ask.

~~~
guynamedloren
Yes, really. =]

~~~
palish
If I were you, I'd be amused.

On one hand, I'd think about changing my name. On the other hand, you turned
it into a strength, which is really awesome. (Username "guynamedloren";
website screams "Made by Loren"; etc. It gets you noticed, thus turning a
"weakness" into a strength.)

~~~
guynamedloren
Admittedly, childhood was tough. I never really felt like I fit in and I'm
sure my stupid girl name was a big part of it. When I was 16 I had really long
hair and I was even confused for a girl on several different occasions.

But I've embraced the uniqueness. I've never once considered changing my name,
even when I was younger and was made fun of daily. To make things worse, my
sister's name is Brett (well really it's Brett-Ashley, but she goes by Brett)
- which is most commonly a guys name.

Now I'm 22 and the jokes still come every so often, but I brush them off
without thinking twice. I've built up a pretty strong sense of self over the
years. Introductions are kind of funny, though... usually they go something
like this:

\- "Hi, I'm Loren" \- "Warren?" \- "No. Loren. Like the girl. But I'm a guy."

.. and the ice breaks :)

~~~
aerique
Did you ever ask your parents why they named you and your sister like that?

~~~
guynamedloren
Yep. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_Also_Rises>

------
kupertino
Nice design. Well thought out. Although in the image provided, too much screen
real estate is taken taken away from the actual RSS content, in my opinion.

Just not sure what the benefit is for the developer.

~~~
guynamedloren
Thanks! Yeah, you're right about the real estate. I was tired and rushed when
I threw the design together (quite the whirlwind of a week/weekend!). RSS
could use a whole lot more space, with significantly smaller bookmarks at the
top. It's just a concept mockup :)

> _Just not sure what the benefit is for the developer._

Enhanced skillset, of course. The best kind of benefits.

~~~
wccrawford
<http://www.shouldiworkforfree.com/clean.html>

