Ask HN: What software feels exceptionally polished?

11 points by Adam-Hincu ↗ HN

19 comments

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BBEdit.
been using this since System 7.

Still doesn't suck.

For me, i think it’s notion, it’s well thought.
I don't really agree. I tried using it, but I just can't because the keyboard shortcuts don't work with my non-US keyboard layout, and I couldn't change them...

I have seen other people complain about the same thing.

Oh, I didn’t have this problem, it seemed pretty polished to me, although i stopped using it recently
I don't know if its polished in the traditional sense, but yt-dlp feels so perfect for what it was designed to do.
Monarch Money is incredibly smooth and functional considering the complexity. Maybe it benefits from the comparison with the mess that was Mint though, haha.
Ghostty is exceptionally good at what it was made for
I find 1Password to be very smooth and intuitive to use (ignoring its sometimes unfortunate iOS integration, which is Apple’s fault).
Robinhood is probably the best software I regularly use. It's extremely smooth and intuitive for how powerful it is now. The way they present and explain options and allow you to enter complex multi-leg option trades on mobile is super impressive. On top of that it just works really well (these days).
I don’t think there is any particularly perfect software
Dwm and dmenu. Top notch polish, true minimalism
The CAS software on HP calculators is amazingly useful, especially considering the limitations of the hardware it's running on.
- Thing 3 - 180db player - 1Password
1Password?

The last year with it has been so bad I canceled our $80 Family subscription and switched to the native Apple one despite its feature gap, because 1Password just couldn’t do its basic job reliably (fill passwords without requiring 20 taps, constant unlocking disregarding lock timer settings or some other arcane dance like force killing Safari to reload the plugin).

Windows 2000 Server, Service pack 4

Everything just worked as expected, and it was pretty stable.

Also Microsoft Office 2000 Professional with all the service packs and the 2007 file format extensions.

Sure, it was a hot mess internally, but have you ever used the outline mode of Word, or the relational table builder of Access? They're almost magical.