What's your point? That it's not available for Windows or Linux? The developer behind Quiver is a one-man shop and happens to be an iOS, OS X and web developer. So what?
There seems to be a trend among certain groups of developers to act as if their preferred environment is the only one that exists. Calling this "The Programmer's Notebook" makes it seem like a broadly applicable tool for programmers in general, when it's actually fairly exclusive and specific. There's nothing particularly egregious about this example, but it's part of a larger pattern that is aggravating for any non-kool-aid drinkers.
Edit: to be clear, this isn't specifically about Apple's kool-aid, either. I have the same reaction when people assume every developer is or should be active on GitHub and other similar monocultures.
If this was an actual startup, your point would make sense. But the portfolio is very obviously one guy making tools he personally thought would be useful, polishing them, and then selling them. It isn't fun to create things that you can't actually use, at least in my opinion.
I'm sure if he was making a lot more money he wouldn't hesitate to release for other platforms, because he would be able to to hire someone to do the other platforms
I think it's fun to create anything, especially if it involves programming by myself, outside of a stupid agile environment with Scrum idiots running around preaching the gospel.
ReSharper and Visual Studio should be OS X compatible, it's not like every developer is using Windows. Such a monoculture.
See? It goes both ways (which, from your edit, I know you understand, but it's work a specific example). This guy's labor of love is a well crafted, thoughtful application for programmers using OS X. There is zero controversy there. Same with any other OS X-only application that Windows or (Li|U)nix users want.
When we beg for cross-platform apps from developers who don't understand all those platforms, we end up with web-browser-as-platform Electron-based apps that bundle a browser to render their UI layer. Sometimes that's done well (Visual Studio Code is quite nice) - often it's just okay bordering on slow. In fact, it's so rare that high-speed apps are available in some native form for multiple people platforms, I consider it a special gift to use one (Sublime Text comes to mind).
Let's not stifle the creativity and drive that small or single-person developer shops have by suggesting - even passively - that we are entitled to three OS-specific builds of anything they write.
If ReSharper was called "The Programmer's Refactoring Suite" or if Visual Studio were called "The Programmer's IDE" I would see your point.
I'm not simply referring to the decision to target a particular platform. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with having a narrow focus. But please stop pretending it's anything but a narrow focus.
You seem to have missed my point. It's what those names don't communicate that makes them better. They don't make it seem like they're more broadly applicable than they are.
That said, the "sharp" in "resharper" actually does hint at its Microsoft nature, as it's the same sharp in "csharp"
Neither ReSharper nor Visual Studio communicate anything about their environment. That's call setting expectations. There is no expectation of what environment it's to be used with (although ReSharper sounds like c# a lot to me).
The issue with 'The Programmer's Notebook' is that the expectation is set at something like 'This is a notebook that will be generally useful for many types of programmers'. It's like the Physician's Desktop Reference. The name implies that it will be of general usefulness to anyone in that particular field.
So when I see the title 'The Programmer's Notebook', the expectation is that it will be something useful for all types of programming (embedded, linux, bsd, web, native desktop, rtos, etc).
Then the expectation is crushed because it's only usable if you have an apple device. That means a large swath of 'programmers' (whom this notebook is apparently supposed to be for) are not going to have access to it. Thus the whole thesis of the title is invalid. It's not the programmer's notebook, because many/most programmers are not going to be able to use it.
And just to be even clearer, I'm not begging this developer to release their product cross-platform. I'm begging everyone in the developer community to communicate in ways that are less presumptuous. The way we choose to name things is an act of communication, and it seems to have failed in this case.
I thought you were being overly negative but perhaps had a point about HN. But this is all over the guy's sales pitch on his product page? You're reading way too much into it. It's one thing to complain about a monoculture in a community but another thing entirely to expect a product page to laden itself with anything except for pitching a product as best it can.
Actually I made the comment before that change. But I think I understand why I interpreted your statement that way. The software's page itself says "The Programmer's Notebook" as the page's subtitle and the software's tagline. Presumably whoever submitted it (unless it's the author) probably copied and pasted it. Sorry about that.
"Monocultures" develop because people don't want a fragmented and confusing workflow. One might use a Macbook because more useful tools are on OSX, and in turn might create more tools for OSX, enticing similar users to use OSX, and so on.
You don't have to be active on Github; maybe you can be active on Bitbucket, but you won't get a fraction of the eyes or feedback as you would on Github.
So you're defending monocultures as virtuous? OK then. Don't feel like arguing that point...
But you're also ignoring the massive amounts of money and legal effort made by, e.g. Apple, in order to guarantee that such a monoculture develops. You have to willfully ignore things (like their choice to make non-Apple text messages green instead of blue) in order to claim that it came about organically. There is a concerted effort to create an us vs. them mentality, which always sucks for "them."
Obv. the same isn't true for GitHub., but I don't want to argue the (de)merits of monocultures in general. I take for granted in this thread that they're a bad thing.
I think his point is that if someone writes something, he's entitled to be able to use it on his preferred platform. Or, at least, that's how it comes across.
Speaking of monoculture: people on other OS could always check out emacs org-mode! The Babel component of it allows one to similarly mix code into theirs notes. I've been getting good use out of it lately for doing presentations.
For the vimmers out there, I also suggest looking into vimwiki. Not quite the same as org mode, but a good 80% solution which is integrated nicely into vim.
I hope people start including information on platforms when posting apps that are not cross-platform. Some hint such as 'OSX only', 'iOS only' or 'Windows only' in the title would help uninterested ones among us tone down our expectations or avoid the topic altogether.
Damn, you've really opened my eyes to all these other environments that exist besides iOSX. I'm crying now because you've lit the way for me, and I feel so foolish for all the work I've accomplished in my monocultural environment.
If it's any consolation, there are plenty of games that are available ahead of time, or only, on PC. I happen to prefer the balance afforded by running OSX, but you're entirely welcome to make that decision however you want.
OneNote is available for OSX from Mac App Store. And it's simply the best app in this category for me. It's also free. Much better than Quiver. If Quiver had similar, simple, fast editing capabilities it could be better - by feeling less heavy, lighter plus maybe some extras for programmers.
How lucky you are to not remember when all software was Windows or bust. Talk about a monoculture. Users of anything that wasn't a Windows box were outcasts.
From what I see in Melbourne at least, most Devs and iOS people use OS-X, if they're not using that they're running fedora or arch. I'm yet to see anyone run Windows other than project managers in places I've worked over the last 4 or so years.
Been using this for a few weeks, and it is great! I'm sure that, compared to Evernote, it misses features that are important to some, but it adds a few of its own and is so much faster to use it's in another league entirely.
Looking forward to the upcoming iOS version. The one feature I miss the most, besides that, is something like Evernote's menu bar app, for quick entry/scratchpad.
I would love to migrate away from NVAlt, really hoping that Quiver is the answer. NVAlt is great, but the combo of no tags + no iOS version has been a thorn in my side for years.
I would switch to Quiver in a heartbeat, but aside from iOS or at least some syncing functionality, it would have to do the following as well:
1. implement search just like nvALT does it. The particular interface to search is one of nvALT's best features, and I prefer it over the 'dropdown' interface that Quiver uses.
2. support for basic vim keybindings to switch between notes (j and k at least).
Can you talk about some of the pros and cons you've found compared to EverNote?
I use EverNote a lot, and have dozens of quick programming notes. The MarkDown syntax support here is very nice, but I don't think that alone is going to be enough to make me switch.
I'm not a poweruser of Evernote, and maybe not of Quiver either. The syntax highlighting and Markdown support is nice, but the main thing for me is really how quick and responsive Quiver is, compared to Evernote which is buggy, slow and clunky. All in all, I get the feeling the author looks for the same qualities in an app as I do.
Yep, exactly, just having to have the menu bar app running would be even better! (Though I suppose closing the window but leaving the app running gets you close)
Jupyter can do a lot, if not the same as Quiver. Jupyter is free, multiplatform, and supports 40 programming languages. I also use Emacs Orgmode, which is very powerful, but I like the look of Jupyter notebooks.
Lookout, here come the down votes! Your comment wasn't full of praise or cheerful enough or generally not acceptable according to a consensus of HN users with down voting privileges. By the way, I'm at -1 karma for the same bullshit reasons...
As if yours just did. It's still a comment and it is constructive in that it shares my thoughts. Imagine we're all standing around bullshitting; I think that puts my comments in the proper context. C'mon, let your hair down and say what you really think! Lighten up a little.
Some people do like my style of comments. I think it's only the people like you, with their nose in the air and a sense of duty to protect the "boys club," that don't like them. Don't talk about HN? Fuck HN and fuck you too!
Love Quiver. I've been using it in grad school and has made it much easier to write out any non-lab assignments that require code snippets or references to code. Haven't use the LaTex cells yet but the Markdown and Code Block cells have been great.
I really enjoyed starting this up out of the box. I love that I can export and that I can write in latex. I'm curious if I can set this up as a notebook for scientific simulations including plots etc.
Me too. The simplicity seems very refreshing. I've been keeping all of my main notes as separate Markdown documents for a long time. This will be a big help.
I've been looking for an Evernote replacement that was more ahem concise. I've been using Evernote to help plan experiments and track papers, but it can't seem to get out of it's way... particularly when trying to share a notebook with collaborators. Honestly, the biggest downside that I see with Quiver is that it is Mac only. This isn't an issue for me, but might be for some collaborators.
Then again, the alternative would be to use some other tool or shared Google Doc or something like that, so Quiver probably isn't too much of a hassle in that regard.
You should be able to script writing new data to a note for simulations / plots, given that the notes are JSON files. I love that the DB is an easy to read / edit / backup set of JSON files.
I've been using Alternote (alternoteapp.com) for awhile and really like it. It syncs via the Evernote API so I don't have to import anything and can access my notes on my phone with Evernote. I think they're making a mobile app to eliminate the need to use any Evernote app at all.
That looks very good, I just wish I could buy it outside of the mac app store. I really dislike buying for the app store and much prefer buying directly from the company...
I agree. I've downloaded the trial, and if I like what I see (and, of course, the price is right) I'll buy a copy, but only if I can buy one directly from you, not via the App store. The App store has many technical limitations, and it also means the consumer is effectively just licensing software from Apple rather than owning it outright.
Sure, most (if not all) software comes with a licence. Maybe I'm not using the best terminology. Maybe I mean "subscribing to", although that implies regular payment. Either way, what I'm referring to is the fact that Apple becomes a point in the critical path to just running your software. Whether intentional, or accidental, Apple can remotely prevent you from running the software you've paid for (e.g. [1]).
And I'm not even beginning to cover the terrible App Store app itself or the enormous cut Apple takes from independent developers.
For me: If I have a copy of the software I have it forever. With the app store I only have it as long as Apple permits. Using an older version of OS X can create issues as well, if the developer decides not to support it. If for some reason they remove it from the store I have to hope the developers make it available outside that channel. It's certainly happened with iOS apps. I'm open to being proven wrong though.
In that way its similar to how music used to be. Had tapes; they went away. Got the LP. Gone but not forgotten. Bought the CD. They went away. Bought the DVD. All those stores are closed. So MP3. Or streaming.
Even before that you had the option of buying sheet music and playing it on an instrument, but that's a significant barrier to entry. And I guess the scores would wither away in a few generations.
Digital music actually became more flexible when it went from DRM protected music to MP3s. At least with that I can backup and restore it as it pleases me. But I get your overall point. It just doesn't change my preference.
True! A few months ago I wanted to install Aperture on a new laptop; since it's been pulled from the App store I couldn't find it anymore, and this is what customer support told me:
I've reviewed your request, but as much I would like to restore the item for you,
I won't be able to download "Aperture" to your account because the amount of time
that has passed since this purchase was made prohibits us from restoring it.
Well, unless you just want to install Aperture to export stuff out, that's for the best.
Aperture has been EOLed -- it's not advisable to install it even if you could, as you'd be installing deprecated software that can stop working at any future OS update.
That wouldn't be much different than any software company not allowing you to download their old program anymore.
> I wanted to install Aperture on a new laptop; since it's been pulled from the App store I couldn't find it anymore
i.e., bought a license and installed the application, but wasn’t given a legal way to do the exact same thing on another computer—one of the rights Apple grants to users of the App Store; nothing lost, no replacement needed
It's this kind of stuff that has me boggled that they charge the same prices for apps in the store vs. apps on media or downloaded directly. Tha app store version is more conventient, maybe, but fundamentally less featured. I'm essentially buying just a license, not the app itself.
I have the same story - bought Sketch 2 in France for 50 euros, moved to US as they updated to version 3. Can't get the old version back (it just doesn't appear in itunes at all - tried to get this resolved with no luck) and my only option is to re-purchase the product.
My understanding is that for both the Mac and iOS app stores, the Purchases tab has all the apps you've bought, whether they're currently available on the store or not. This is how I re-download older operating systems or previous releases of apps. That said, I can imagine Apple also having a parallel system that takes the app away from there too -- but I don't think this is the default.
I like the ability to install apps from the Homebrew Cask Tap [1] to automate my laptop setup where possible. Apps that are only available in the App Store aren't usually installable this way.
Sorry hadn't seen your message earlier. Everyone pretty much covered it but basically I have multiple reasons why:
- an app on the app store can be pulled out at any moment.
- I can't backup a specific version of the software that I like (I've seen before software become overly bloated in future versions forcing me to keep using an older version)
- I do not want to support Apple's policies on the app store and do not want to ever end up having a system that's as restricted as IOS (although if that happens I'd jump ship back to Linux so I guess my non app store purchases would become useless anyway)
- my experience with ios app store reviews told me that Apple rules are idiotic, the review experience is poorly managed and they don't give a fuck about keeping developers happy now that iphones are massively successful (very different than when they were trying to court developers back in 2005ish...). I don't want my money to help finance this with the 30% cut that Apple takes.
It all really boils to control, being able to keep backup of the software I use, having access to that software even if the developer stops selling it for whatever reason. I dislike the fact that end users have less and less control over the platform they buy and I do not want to be part of that.
I'm a tad hypocritical since I use a mac and I have an iphone lying around to test and software dev on but buying on the app store is where I draw the line.
I was skeptical, but looking at the features it could replace Evernote for the way I use it. The main reason I don't use a directory full of text files is I like being able to drag in images.
I've been using this for a couple months after having become annoyed with Evernote always pestering me to move to their paid model.
I was able to import all my Evernote content very easily. I love the ability to use Markdown to take notes and the support for VIM commands in code blocks is nice.
The only thing I miss from Evernote is access from my iOS devices.
The author claims to be working on an native iOS app right now: "An iOS app is currently under development. A web-based viewer (read-only) is also planned, which will work on Windows, Linux, and possibly Android."
http://yaoganglian.com/2015/12/06/What-is-Quiver/
If I remember correctly (I bought Quiver a long time ago), there is no limitations except a trial period and there was an ad below the content/editor area
The tutorial notebook is full of individual notes with multiple 'cells'. When creating my own note, it's not immediately obvious how I achieve this. Hitting ENTER just creates a new paragraph/line within the same cell. I've discovered, through trial and error, that hitting SHIFT+ENTER creates a new cell, but this should maybe be more easily discoverable.
Some of the UI elements are a bit out-of-place. I'm not sure if it's just because they're not native controls; I'm still running on Mavericks and it's quite possible these are El Capitan-style controls. Still, it's a tiny bit disconcerting.
On a more positive note, I think this is a wonderful concept which can potentially inform future tools for 'code management' (for want of a better term). I think there are plenty of ways in which the integration of code and other content can improve our discipline, so any work in this area is very interesting.
That's great, the tutorial notebook is a nice addition. To its credit, the app is usable without wading through a manual first, as all software should be. I still feel a toolbar icon or a more obvious way to create a new cell would be beneficial.
Actually, it says so right in the 1st note "Getting started":
"Click inside a new note and start typing. Press “shift+return” (⇧⏎) to create a new cell and use “backspace” to merge cells. That’s all you need to know to start using Quiver."
>When creating my own note, it's not immediately obvious how I achieve this. Hitting ENTER just creates a new paragraph/line within the same cell. I've discovered, through trial and error, that hitting SHIFT+ENTER creates a new cell, but this should maybe be more easily discoverable.
Well, from the menubar: Cell -> New Cell. Which also shows the shortcut next to the menu option.
This looks a lot like the Jupyter/IPython Notebook, which is a free and open source "scientist's notebook". If you're interested in mixing LaTeX, Markdown, and code from almost any language (Python, R, and Julia are very well-supported but there's an open kernel spec), then this might be a more appropriate tool for you to use.
The Jupyter/IPython notebook default storage format is JSON, which makes it a little more friendly for text-based version control, and also enables a static HTML view of notebooks (http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/ketch/teaching-numerics-w...) on GitHub.
Helen Shen wrote up a great article for Nature (http://www.nature.com/news/interactive-notebooks-sharing-the...) on how scientists are using the notebook, but it also provides a good overview of how you might use it, as well as a free interactive demo.
The originator of the notebook UI is Mathematica if I recall correctly. You can try the web version at [1] - it doesn't quite have the elegance of the desktop one, but is a much better notebook than Jupyter in my experience.
That patent is about a user interface for hiding/showing the code that creates particular rendered outputs, not for the general idea of a “notebook” UI.
I suspect there’s prior art (Hypercard? every spreadsheet ever? this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_graphical_user_interfa... ?), and the patent seems pretty obvious, but in any event, I don’t think other “code notebook” implementations are currently infringing this patent, and it seems relatively straightforward to work around.
Totally agree. Jupyter/IPython is an impressive tool.
I started to play with it recently and I am very happy with what it can do.
It's, also, very easy to install in a docker container: https://github.com/jupyter/docker-stacks
(I haven't managed to make work the persistence part when stopping the container yet, but this is due to my inexperience with docker).
I agree on that. Unless you are developing a platform specific utility that is not meaningful in other environments, it is not a good practice to limit yourself. It also makes sense is when you are not creating a product bust just playing with a technology.
I keep waiting for Slack to realize that they're a big enough company now that they can afford to make native apps that look and work better than the Electron version. I'd much rather have a real native app than a webpage inside some minimal window chrome. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
The Slack client looks nice but it's incredible how inefficient it is (presumably due to being a web app in an Electron wrapper). I used it recently on a low powered laptop and keystrokes sometimes took 100-300 msec to appear on screen. No other text entry application on that computer had that problem.
It's still going to be a bit of a problem, as you have the Unix terminals (bash, zsh, fish, among others), and then you have the Windows terminals (cmd.exe and PowerShell).
That's my experience as well. Electron/NW.js is the best option, but 1) it's like designing a website, which can get annoying at times, and 2) the file size :(
There are benefits to having a pure, native app. Quiver starts literally instantaneously without any lag, partly because it's less than 5MB(!) in size.
Here's a good read from the author: http://yaoganglian.com/2015/11/21/Quiver-3/
Yep. Speaking specifically about developing for OS X only vs. multiplatform, there are big tradeoffs to be made by taking multiplatform options outright. In my eyes, nothing is as great for UI-centric desktop application development as Obj-C/Swift paired with Cocoa/AppKit. It just works so well, and though Qt is probably the best of native multiplatform solutions it’s still not comparable.
Exactly. I used another note taking app, aptly named "Notebooks" (http://www.notebooksapp.com), which is built with Qt. It's cross platform, open data format, and while it sort of looks and feels almost like a native app, it just doesn't compare to a true native app like Quiver.
Might be a mystery but I'm really glad they keep doing it, because the alternatives are 1) all your data are belong to us, or 2) it looks terrible everywhere.
I happily use a github repo for taking my 'programmer notes'. Advantages:
1. Goes well with my programming workflow: Change/Commit/Push
2. Allows me to use my preferred editor
3. No need to worry about backups: Git push and you're done
4. Accessible from anywhere, even if you don't have your computer
Is there anything that Quiver would offer that I wouldnt already have with a github repo?
I do the same, bitbucket allows you to group repo's by project or team (or both) so I always create a default docs repo.
For actual notes I just use org-mode since it can be read easily in nearly anything, supports all the bits I want and has nice html/pdf export if I need to send a todo/completed list out to anyone.
What's nice is I can keep my own meta-docs project which just links to each repo for each set of projects so I can jump around different projects transparently as well.
Yes, you can use git locally without pushing anywhere, including GitHub. But, the original commenter explicitly mentioned GitHub, presumably because GitHub allows a similar kind of browsing experience of the notes that Quiver does. Specifically, GitHub has a markdown renderer.
So perhaps I won't have to write my own app for keeping an electronics projects logbook after all. There is a scarcity of reasonably simple apps that let you mix notes with images, without lots of clickery.
Alas, nope. It's already too complex. There is no way to "simply drop this image in", you have to drag it to the right type of cell (only text notes support images), and if you don't have a text cell ready, tough.
Similarly to append text to a note (think of a log), you first have to click somewhere, choose a cell type…
Overall, it seems to be a nice app, but for people who enjoy spending time organizing their notes. I don't, I just want a simple way to keep my notes — so I guess it's back to writing my own app after all.
I've often thought about how different things would be if programming editors had always allowed for image integration (with hiding of course.) That would mean that every source tree would have been able to integrate explanatory graphics. And since I've probably spent 100x more time maintaining/modifying code than creating code, that would have been a big win for me and a lot of other people.
I don't think you need to down vote it because it doesn't suit you. Yes I'd like if it was open source and available on Linux as well, but it's not a bad, dangerous or negative product.
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[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 319 ms ] threadEdit: to be clear, this isn't specifically about Apple's kool-aid, either. I have the same reaction when people assume every developer is or should be active on GitHub and other similar monocultures.
I do, of course, customise it for myself.
I'm sure if he was making a lot more money he wouldn't hesitate to release for other platforms, because he would be able to to hire someone to do the other platforms
See? It goes both ways (which, from your edit, I know you understand, but it's work a specific example). This guy's labor of love is a well crafted, thoughtful application for programmers using OS X. There is zero controversy there. Same with any other OS X-only application that Windows or (Li|U)nix users want.
When we beg for cross-platform apps from developers who don't understand all those platforms, we end up with web-browser-as-platform Electron-based apps that bundle a browser to render their UI layer. Sometimes that's done well (Visual Studio Code is quite nice) - often it's just okay bordering on slow. In fact, it's so rare that high-speed apps are available in some native form for multiple people platforms, I consider it a special gift to use one (Sublime Text comes to mind).
Let's not stifle the creativity and drive that small or single-person developer shops have by suggesting - even passively - that we are entitled to three OS-specific builds of anything they write.
I'm not simply referring to the decision to target a particular platform. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with having a narrow focus. But please stop pretending it's anything but a narrow focus.
That said, the "sharp" in "resharper" actually does hint at its Microsoft nature, as it's the same sharp in "csharp"
The issue with 'The Programmer's Notebook' is that the expectation is set at something like 'This is a notebook that will be generally useful for many types of programmers'. It's like the Physician's Desktop Reference. The name implies that it will be of general usefulness to anyone in that particular field.
So when I see the title 'The Programmer's Notebook', the expectation is that it will be something useful for all types of programming (embedded, linux, bsd, web, native desktop, rtos, etc).
Then the expectation is crushed because it's only usable if you have an apple device. That means a large swath of 'programmers' (whom this notebook is apparently supposed to be for) are not going to have access to it. Thus the whole thesis of the title is invalid. It's not the programmer's notebook, because many/most programmers are not going to be able to use it.
You don't have to be active on Github; maybe you can be active on Bitbucket, but you won't get a fraction of the eyes or feedback as you would on Github.
But you're also ignoring the massive amounts of money and legal effort made by, e.g. Apple, in order to guarantee that such a monoculture develops. You have to willfully ignore things (like their choice to make non-Apple text messages green instead of blue) in order to claim that it came about organically. There is a concerted effort to create an us vs. them mentality, which always sucks for "them."
Obv. the same isn't true for GitHub., but I don't want to argue the (de)merits of monocultures in general. I take for granted in this thread that they're a bad thing.
For Windows/Linux there are plenty of better alternatives: tiddlywiki, OneNote, etc.
Looking forward to the upcoming iOS version. The one feature I miss the most, besides that, is something like Evernote's menu bar app, for quick entry/scratchpad.
1. implement search just like nvALT does it. The particular interface to search is one of nvALT's best features, and I prefer it over the 'dropdown' interface that Quiver uses. 2. support for basic vim keybindings to switch between notes (j and k at least).
I use EverNote a lot, and have dozens of quick programming notes. The MarkDown syntax support here is very nice, but I don't think that alone is going to be enough to make me switch.
this, of course, relies on you having it running already.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11013113 and marked it off-topic.
I've been looking for an Evernote replacement that was more ahem concise. I've been using Evernote to help plan experiments and track papers, but it can't seem to get out of it's way... particularly when trying to share a notebook with collaborators. Honestly, the biggest downside that I see with Quiver is that it is Mac only. This isn't an issue for me, but might be for some collaborators.
Then again, the alternative would be to use some other tool or shared Google Doc or something like that, so Quiver probably isn't too much of a hassle in that regard.
You should be able to script writing new data to a note for simulations / plots, given that the notes are JSON files. I love that the DB is an easy to read / edit / backup set of JSON files.
Isn't almost all software licensed rather than ownership sold? This isn't unique to the App Store.
And I'm not even beginning to cover the terrible App Store app itself or the enormous cut Apple takes from independent developers.
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/12/apple-user...
Aperture has been EOLed -- it's not advisable to install it even if you could, as you'd be installing deprecated software that can stop working at any future OS update.
That wouldn't be much different than any software company not allowing you to download their old program anymore.
I fail to see how this isn't a problem for stuff sold outside the App Store as well.
[1] https://github.com/caskroom/homebrew-cask
- an app on the app store can be pulled out at any moment.
- I can't backup a specific version of the software that I like (I've seen before software become overly bloated in future versions forcing me to keep using an older version)
- I do not want to support Apple's policies on the app store and do not want to ever end up having a system that's as restricted as IOS (although if that happens I'd jump ship back to Linux so I guess my non app store purchases would become useless anyway)
- my experience with ios app store reviews told me that Apple rules are idiotic, the review experience is poorly managed and they don't give a fuck about keeping developers happy now that iphones are massively successful (very different than when they were trying to court developers back in 2005ish...). I don't want my money to help finance this with the 30% cut that Apple takes.
It all really boils to control, being able to keep backup of the software I use, having access to that software even if the developer stops selling it for whatever reason. I dislike the fact that end users have less and less control over the platform they buy and I do not want to be part of that.
I'm a tad hypocritical since I use a mac and I have an iphone lying around to test and software dev on but buying on the app store is where I draw the line.
I was able to import all my Evernote content very easily. I love the ability to use Markdown to take notes and the support for VIM commands in code blocks is nice.
The only thing I miss from Evernote is access from my iOS devices.
All I am seeing is a green "Free Trial" banner in the bottom left. Is that it?
Some of the UI elements are a bit out-of-place. I'm not sure if it's just because they're not native controls; I'm still running on Mavericks and it's quite possible these are El Capitan-style controls. Still, it's a tiny bit disconcerting.
On a more positive note, I think this is a wonderful concept which can potentially inform future tools for 'code management' (for want of a better term). I think there are plenty of ways in which the integration of code and other content can improve our discipline, so any work in this area is very interesting.
This is in the tutorial, Section 3 - Cell Operations.
Well, from the menubar: Cell -> New Cell. Which also shows the shortcut next to the menu option.
This looks a lot like the Jupyter/IPython Notebook, which is a free and open source "scientist's notebook". If you're interested in mixing LaTeX, Markdown, and code from almost any language (Python, R, and Julia are very well-supported but there's an open kernel spec), then this might be a more appropriate tool for you to use.
The Jupyter/IPython notebook default storage format is JSON, which makes it a little more friendly for text-based version control, and also enables a static HTML view of notebooks (http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/ketch/teaching-numerics-w...) on GitHub.
Helen Shen wrote up a great article for Nature (http://www.nature.com/news/interactive-notebooks-sharing-the...) on how scientists are using the notebook, but it also provides a good overview of how you might use it, as well as a free interactive demo.
[1]: https://lab.open.wolframcloud.com/app/view/newNotebook?ext=n...
I suspect there’s prior art (Hypercard? every spreadsheet ever? this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_graphical_user_interfa... ?), and the patent seems pretty obvious, but in any event, I don’t think other “code notebook” implementations are currently infringing this patent, and it seems relatively straightforward to work around.
I started to play with it recently and I am very happy with what it can do.
It's, also, very easy to install in a docker container: https://github.com/jupyter/docker-stacks (I haven't managed to make work the persistence part when stopping the container yet, but this is due to my inexperience with docker).
For me that was allways the killer feature of Jupyter :-)
Its a mystery to me
Even Microsoft is now doing multi-platform tools for developers (https://code.visualstudio.com/).
Or, option C: You use Electron, like Slack.
It really is one-platform or web, and web is not for everyone (least of all programmers writing notes about their code at work.)
Is there a way to nest notebooks? That's actually pretty important to me.
Is there anything that Quiver would offer that I wouldnt already have with a github repo?
For actual notes I just use org-mode since it can be read easily in nearly anything, supports all the bits I want and has nice html/pdf export if I need to send a todo/completed list out to anyone.
What's nice is I can keep my own meta-docs project which just links to each repo for each set of projects so I can jump around different projects transparently as well.
Plugin 'plasticboy/vim-markdown'
Plugin 'suan/vim-instant-markdown'
Plugin 'junegunn/goyo.vim'
Plugin 'amix/vim-zenroom2'
Plugin 'junegunn/limelight.vim'
I also have quite a bit of prose-related stuff that I tend to conflate, but these are the main ones.
noun
1. Paper notebook
2. Laptop
3. Apparently another fucking thing as well now.
Plus the document model used — a mix of different kinds of "cells" — has a history of being called a "notebook interface" (cf. Mathematica, IPython/Jupyter notebook, https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-notebook-interface-in-progra...).
I will be taking a very close look at this app!
Similarly to append text to a note (think of a log), you first have to click somewhere, choose a cell type…
Overall, it seems to be a nice app, but for people who enjoy spending time organizing their notes. I don't, I just want a simple way to keep my notes — so I guess it's back to writing my own app after all.