Simply Jonathan

Archive for 2020

Local-first software 

Permanent location of 'Local-first software'

Interesting deep dive into popular modern applications’ performance from a perspective of offline-availability, ownership and longevity, with a proposal for a new (to me) model, Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDT).

I remain unconvinced that something like the hyper-collaborative experience of Google Docs can be replicated under anything except an always-online paradigm; on the other hand, I have yet to see that experience used productively – it’s a good demo, but not very useful in my eyes.

How to disable Netflix’ auto-play preview functionality 

I’m late to the game, but Netflix recently added a long overdue toggle to prevent those blaring previews.

This also prompted me to check for YouTube, and they have a similar toggle, although it’s for some reason only available on iOS [and iPad OS, presumably].

Local First, Undo Redo, JS-Optional, Create Edit Publish 

Intriguing flow described by Tantek Çelik. I think fully offline is a fantastic goal, but I always fear that the practical problems of syncing algorithms get in the way (some changes simply aren’t mergeable).

I for years have been trying to find something to replace WordPress, which has turned into a tool that offers far more functionality than I actually need for my lowly blog, at the expense of making publishing far too complex. Static site generators are interesting (even if they sometimes seem over-engineered), but I really want something I can post to from multiple locations.

Old CSS, new CSS 

Permanent location of 'Old CSS, new CSS'

I’m a few years younger than eevee, but I can relate to most of the struggles here, and it very much mirrors my experience, frustrations and all.

This is Simply Jonathan, a blog written by Jonathan Holst. It's mostly about technical topics (and mainly the Web at that), but an occasional post on clothing, sports, and general personal life topics can be found.

Jonathan Holst is a programmer, language enthusiast, sports fan, and appreciator of good design, living in Copenhagen, Denmark, Europe. He is also someone pretentious enough to call himself the 'author' of a blog. And talk about himself in the third person.