Linked List: June 2, 2021

Wednesday, 2 June 2021

Stack Overflow co-founder Joel Spolsky:

Today we’re pleased to announce that Stack Overflow is joining Prosus. Prosus is an investment and holding company, which means that the most important part of this announcement is that Stack Overflow will continue to operate independently, with the exact same team in place that has been operating it, according to the exact same plan and the exact same business practices. Don’t expect to see major changes or awkward “synergies”. The business of Stack Overflow will continue to focus on Reach and Relevance, and Stack Overflow for Teams. The entire company is staying in place: we just have different owners now.

This is, in some ways, the best possible outcome. Stack Overflow stays independent. The company has plenty of cash on hand to expand and deliver more features and fix the old broken ones.

Stack Overflow is far from perfect — what isn’t? — but the world would be a far worse place without it, so here’s to hoping that Prosus is a good steward.

Fresh Off the Rip-Off Express: Huawei’s New MatePad Pro ★

One feature they do differently from iPads which I like: the front-facing camera is on the long side, not the short side, so it works better when the tablet is attached to a keyboard.

Otherwise, no shame whatsoever. It’s hard to see how they could make these look more like iPad’s hardware and software.

Shortcuts for Mac? ★

Jason Snell, in his wishlist for Mac news at next week’s WWDC:

One feature that the Mac desperately needs from iPadOS is, believe it or not, Shortcuts. I’ve written elsewhere about this, but essentially it’s easier for me to create automations for many tasks on iOS than it is on macOS — and it shouldn’t be that way. Shortcuts fulfills the promise of Automator in ways that Automator never did, and while it’s got a lot of room to grow, it’s clearly the future of automation on Apple’s platforms. Add in actions that can run AppleScript, Automator workflows, and shell scripts, and we’ll really have something.

I’ve gotten more into Shortcuts in the last few months, and I really hope this happens. I just wonder how Shortcuts on Mac could offer actions for things that aren’t possible on iOS, like Snell’s suggestion for being able to run AppleScript and shell scripts. I suppose they’d just generate an error on iOS, and you could use them in a cross-platform shortcut by conditionally testing whether the shortcut is running on MacOS — pretty much how it works now when you have a shortcut containing actions that require a third-party app to be installed.