SpeedCrunch 1.1

13 hours ago (speedcrunch.org)

I've been using it for years and was surprised to see a new version after a dacade.

After installing it, I was surprised to see that the immediate changes most noticeable to me were that the input box was unnecessarily doubled in size, enclosed in an unnecessary border, and surrounded by unnecessary dead space; and that there's now marked input lag that never existed in the original version.

I never had a single problem with 0.12 over the past ten years, and use it nearly every day -- no bugs, no missing features.

I appreciate the desire to improve and innovate, but you know, sometimes, software really is finished.

  • > sometimes, software really is finished.

    That's never the case for any consumer app, the potential for improvement in UI is practically infinite. But also, just use the old version if it's finished, you don't need to upgrade?

    (this app has plenty of bugs / missing issues just like everything else, for example, blurry text on some platforms)

    • > That's never the case for any consumer app, the potential for improvement in UI is practically infinite.

      If that's true, how do you explain the observable pattern of many consumer applications degrading in UI functionality and coherence after a certain point?

      > But also, just use the old version if it's finished, you don't need to upgrade?

      Exactly. I reverted to 0.12.

      1 reply →

I'm using it for a long time already. 1.0 and 1.1 are the first updates after 10 years now?

This is nice to see, and it looks like this release (and maybe some earlier ones?) includes a small order of operations bug fix that hadn't been released for a long time. 1/2(-9.8) now equals -4.9 rather than -0.05102040816326530612. I like how the expression also renders with a multiplication symbol to clarify: 1 / 2 × (−9.8)

Love speedcrunch it has been sitting on my taskbar for many years always my go-to for quick scratchpad for equations, etc.

Amazing! This is the most useful calculator.. bit shifts..radix conversations...

I've been using it for years after struggling missing the windows 2000 calculator.

I also recently made a fairly complete scientific calculator. I first asked Claude what functions it would put in it, then I made some modifications (added complex numbers), and told it to write the calculator. It looked perfect in one shot. This is really how simple this kind of thing has become.

  • Scientific calculators are surprisingly hard to get right. SpeedCrunch itself just fixed some calculation errors (usually its order of operations based, but not always). I’d be interested to see how accurate yours is, though I also wonder if there are lower level libraries to leverage to make it a moot point

I recently opened a github issue about the system UI looking dark. I got a response an hour later which appears to be AI written, I responded to it and it looks like my request has been accepted.

I absolutely do not mind it being AI driven. I have not seen this before in this. The response was not slop, just very formal and verbose.

I use speed crunch almost every day mostly to see bits and bit shift operations visually. It's just strange to see requesting feature, getting an automated further inquiry, and then a response that yeah that sounds good to do.