Braintool (https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbraintool.org) calls itself a "Topic Manager". It only works with Chrome-based browsers, but saves everything in org-mode (plain text) which is a big plus.

I use a text file in the todo.txt format (http://todotxt.org).

I keep the file in Dropbox, and use SimpleTask to edit it on Android.

Good point!
(Replying to undo moderation typo)

I have an autohotkey script that does the same sort of mapping in windows. It doesn't work in all dialogs but it works in most apps (including vim). I haven't really tried any keyboard hackery in OSX

I feel your pain. I bypass the whole issue by mapping CAPS+IJKL to be cursor keys at the xwindows level. Then they work in (almost) any program.

With the rise of Javascript front-end frameworks (Ember, Angular, etc.), is there really a serious place for large opinionated server-side frameworks any more?

Is Rails destined to be a framework for writing APIs to feed front-end frameworks? And if so, is that enough?

You are quite famous for being loudly dismissive of Rails critics.

But do you ever get the urge to learn from your experience (and mistakes) and build a new framework that's different from Rails?

In other words, if you could burn Rails to the ground and start over without the need to maintain any sort of backwards compatibility, what would you do differently?

That's true from the point of view of an app developer. However it is different from the point of view of a device maker.

The issue is that lots and lots of very popular apps use the proprietary Google APIs. You can't make a device that runs all of these very popular apps without licensing the proprietary Google APIs from Google.

And Google won't license you their APIs unless you follow certain rules that are ostensibly about preventing fragmentation of the Android ecosystem, but are in reality about preventing non-Android devices from being able to run Android apps.

This is why the Amazon Fire and Blackberry 10 platforms could only offer limited Android support. They weren't making vanilla Anrdroid devices, and so Google wouldn't license them their APIs. And therefore they could not run the many very popular apps that rely on the Google APIs.

As a long-time Perl fan, I found Ruby to be an absolute delight. It's as expressive as Perl in some ways and more expressive in others.

I started my career as a Perl hacker, and then moved on to PHP (bleah), before making the transition to Ruby on Rails.

I got my first Ruby job without actually having any Ruby work on my resume. I had the general experience, the business experience, the right attitude, and a desire to learn.

I think most enlightened employers will be more interested in the right fit for the company (personality, general ability) than in finding someone with a precise set of skills on their resume.

If you start with Vim you'll get a great text editor with a focus on actual text editing. You can then add plugins to add IDE-like features.

My favourite plugins:

* fugitive
* dbext
* syntastic
* YouCompleteMe
* Command-T
* Unite
* multiple-cursors
* gundo
* sparkup
* easy-align

Replying to this to undo a moderation mistake. Great post!