We could have been twins, when I was in graduate school :)
At times I had (still have?) a cynical look at scientific publishing, that it was a symptom of a larger problem: the Peter Principle writ large. Professors and researchers are selected for one thing (their scientific ability), but their major job duties are for something else (here, writing; but also teaching and leadership). Select for one trait, but the job description is for another, and the output is dismal.
To further extend my cynicism: why would a PI follow Cormac McCarthy's advice? Do we have evidence that better-written papers are more "successful," with more citations and shares? My argument (based only on my experiences) is for the opposite: the language is secondary. "Skip to the figures," as I have heard.
As usual, I came here to look for recommendations :)
I have been enjoying Mailspring[0], an OSS fork of Nylas Mail (RIP). I came across it while looking for the closest thing to Google Inbox (RIP also). Mailspring is cross-platform.
Yes -- good on them changing, and bravo to them for calling it out and saying why. In my opinion they put a lot of effort into making this post, and it shows.
As mentioned there are dozens, and Wikipedia will show you[0]. Since CRMs can be bolted onto just about every business, use cases vary extremely. If I'm being honest, every sales manager starts with an internet search to find the latest rundown [1].
My recommendation is to set aside time to play with a lightweight (pipedrive) + heavyweight (Salesforce) options to see how you might use them one day. I would treat CRMs like a regular piece of software. Many offer totally free trials for 1-3 users. So I would bet they agree with this approach :)
From a business side of things, the advantage of Salesforce is that it can very easily be managed by non-devs. It has straightforward sales functions baked in: reporting, forecasting contact management.
For sure, Airtable can be used as a lightweight CRM. Depending on your business, it might be all you need -- it might even be preferred if you're bootstrapping and constantly iterating early on! But Airtable falls down when your sales/marketing needs grow -- those hires probably won't have the patience to develop tools that tie into Airtable.
To reference the old Jim Barksdale line, Salesforce is the "bundle" option, and Airtable is the "unbundle" one.
+1 to developers on HN: if your dream is to have a company with a sales team, it's great practice to get to know CRM softwares early and in-depth. Every seasoned salesperson will need a functioning CRM to do good work...and the best salespeople will get held back by a malfunctioning/nonexistent CRM.
This is nearly a universal law in the sales world: products/services pitched to salespeople always 1) are expensive and 2) come with their own sales team who are slick and/or aggressive.
I've seen it from sales training, to software and everything in-between.
Thank you for this point (and book recommendation). It has clarified my thinking on dark patterns, something I've long suspected. We need to (re)educate designers about the mistakes they're making, in service of what I assume are data- hungry marketing employees.
I also enjoyed and support the phrase from the article: "confirmshaming."
You raise very good points. The shortcuts thing has made me miserable for years. Surely the coders of Mozilla appreciate a good set of shortcuts, like in whatever IDE they write their code in!
Came here to also recommend LibraryThing. It's been around for 14 years, and the community has lots of similar situations to OP's. Probably a good place to look up anecdotal evidence for this kind of project, too.
LibraryThing also hooks into [TinyCat](https://www.librarycat.org/) which can make your database more like a library's.
I often use reddit as a search engine for answers with a "human touch" for lack of a better word. I once did this with del.icio.us back in the "social bookmarking" days. I'm curious if this is a big use case for Reddit users do this too?
Maybe not based on the low quality of their search engine...