[HN Gopher] Comfy Software: A software aesthetic for hackers wit...
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Comfy Software: A software aesthetic for hackers with depression
Author : vmoore
Score : 168 points
Date : 2022-10-02 05:31 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (catgirl.ai)
(TXT) w3m dump (catgirl.ai)
| agateau wrote:
| I don't understand why people dislike GNU Info doc. I often do
| not think about checking them, because `man` is so ingrained in
| my brain, but when I do I often find them quite good. For example
| the info page for tar is much more complete than its man page.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Probably a UI issue. 'info' is very weird unless your an emacs
| user. 'man' is just open and scroll up and down.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| `man' is awful when there is more than a few "pages" to
| scroll through and you can't easily skip stuff because it is
| an all or nothing endless scroll of text.
|
| It is great for references, but not for reading in a non-
| linear way. They are called "manpages" after all, not
| "mantomes" :-P.
|
| Texinfo and similar are much better for this and the info
| format is fine as a text-based format (or with some minimal
| image use but not all viewers support those).
|
| The problem is that the default `info' viewer feels weird to
| most people, but there are alternatives like `pinfo' (which
| IIRC uses lynx-like keys) and `tkinfo' (a GUI-based viewer
| written in Tcl and Tk). IIRC KDE's help viewer can also view
| info documents.
|
| Texinfo and info is also nice with its index functionality
| and how it supports multiple indices. In a way info is kinda
| like CHM (but with optionally multiple indices) and Texinfo
| is the official way to make info documents.
| hansel_der wrote:
| second that
|
| man page or web search
| meribold wrote:
| Does anyone know of alternative UIs for viewing info pages?
| Using less(1) would be nice, but is it straightforward to do
| so?
| dotancohen wrote:
| Sure, that's how I do it. $ info git | less
| jwilk wrote:
| Wait, does git actually have documentation in info
| format?
| dotancohen wrote:
| $ info git | head info: No menu item 'git' in node
| '(dir)Top' GIT(1) Git
| Manual GIT(1) NAME
| git - the stupid content tracker SYNOPSIS
| git [--version] [--help] [-C <path>] [-c <name>=<value>]
| [--exec-path[=<path>]] [--html-path] [--man-path]
| [--info-path] [-p|--paginate|-P|--no-
| pager] [--no-replace-objects] [--bare]
| [--git-dir=<path>] [--work-tree=<path>]
| [--namespace=<name>]
| jwilk wrote:
| That's just info(1) falling back to the man page.
| [deleted]
| gradschool wrote:
| https://github.com/baszoetekouw/pinfo
|
| mature project packaged for Debian and other distros, nice
| colorful curses-based UI, fast muscle-memory conducive
| keyboard control, you're welcome
| karolist wrote:
| Gentoo, i3, polybar, alacritty, nvim, wallpaper set and a bunch
| of custom scripts and key mappings I can take with my dotfiles to
| any new install in minutes and feel at home right away is my
| definition of comfy software these days
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| andrepd wrote:
| You say
|
| > The author has zero appreciation of the concept that their
| own wants/needs/desires are different from others
|
| and then
|
| > You know what's good for _my_ depression? My computer "just
| working" when
|
| > _I_ don 't have the time or energy or patience for
|
| Is this a joke? x)
|
| EDIT: In case you haven't read tfa properly: there is a whole
| community of people for whom this faffing about with their
| computer's configuration is a hobby in itself (see "ricing"
| threads on /g/ for example). The author himself says as much.
| pronounnoter123 wrote:
| > The author himself says as much.
|
| herself/itself, according to her bio (https://catgirl.ai/).
|
| I feel like the url should have prompted you to check :P
| spookyuser wrote:
| When I think of comfy software the first thing that comes to mind
| is the aesthetic of kinopio
| lioeters wrote:
| I'm guessing you mean this kinopio? https://kinopio.club/
|
| The monospace font reminds me of:
| https://musicforprogramming.net
| mxuribe wrote:
| OMG, how have i never heard of musicforprogramming.net? I've
| used my own playlists (takes time/work to curate, and
| sometimes end up being too "peppy"), as well as things like
| lo-fi hiphop (which is actually ok, but sometimes too sleep-
| inducing...sometimes)...but this music for programming is
| amazing! Thanks for sharing!
| [deleted]
| mahathu wrote:
| .
| vladharbuz wrote:
| I agree that the solution to depression is therapy, but it
| seems mean and heteronormative of you to say that someone who
| names their website "gay robot noises" has a problem. Perhaps
| you meant something else?
| mahathu wrote:
| You're right, it was an insensitive thing to say.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| hrbf wrote:
| It was possibly insensitively worded, but the entirety of
| your now-deleted comment nevertheless hinted at some
| deeper, intuitive perception. No matter how hard we try to
| politically correct our speech, some impressions are just
| rather clear. For reference:
| https://catgirl.ai/pages/robot/ (see ,,why?" section in
| particular)
|
| I genuinely wonder how one can voice said impressions in a
| way that is considered acceptable, without being hurtful,
| at the same time not missing the mark.
|
| Anyway, software ergonomics is not the answer to
| depression. I believe this to be rather clear as well.
| sk0g wrote:
| The very peculiar capitalisations in that page just seem
| very... Twitter. It's like a passive form of rebelling
| against the actual rules selectively, and capitalising
| random words they deem important. Fair enough Twitter
| doesn't have much in the form of text formatting (that
| I've seen), but on a personal website I'd hope you're
| writing MD or something where all of that is front and
| center.
|
| As to your actual point, I really don't know. One
| question would be, do we need to say anything? I'd rather
| be silent than hurtful, though I fail at that semi-
| consistently. Even for someone within the first quarter
| of a century in age, I feel the goalposts for what is
| (considered) hurtful moving though, so I am terrified of
| aging away from the currently acceptable norms.
| hrbf wrote:
| The latter part of your reply is important. My experience
| mirrors yours: the goalposts are constantly shifting. In
| such an environment you're always going to find someone
| feeling offended by any remark. This inevitably leads to
| corporate gobbledygook and the loss of all meaning. Is
| saying nothing at all really a solution or just a way to
| avoid confrontation?
| sk0g wrote:
| Remaining silent is certainly not a solution to the
| actual problem, for me it's just a heuristic to live a
| more convenient, less stressful life.
|
| Being an immigrant, I was asked what the nice way to ask
| someone what their ethnicity was, options being things
| like "where are your parents from" or "what's your
| ethnicity". All I could say was that if I wanted to be
| offended, there's no way to ask me that question. If I'm
| assuming good faith, I'll look past cruder wording like
| "but where are you REALLY from?" There's so much context,
| emotions, and personality transmitted in face-to-face
| interactions, there's really no blanket rules. We lose
| ALL of that in online discussions, especially when
| dealing with character limits well-suited to rob
| conversations of context.
|
| The other thing is the ability to look back through
| history with perfect recall. People change opinions, or
| are emotional, dealing with something, etc. In real life
| you slip up once and maybe get a puzzled look or get told
| to shut up. Online, well you may never escape it. I think
| we're trending too much towards an absolute sense of
| right and wrong, and stifling the possibilities to learn
| and evolve as a human. The pendulum will swing back over
| time.
|
| For another anecdote, a friend of my partner's recently
| changed genders. A month or two later I remembered that,
| and asked my partner to check in on them and make sure
| they're ok. They weren't, and were having suicidal
| ideations, but greatly appreciated having someone check
| in on them which I considered a win. My partner wouldn't
| let up and just had to know why I asked her to do so, but
| when I told her it's a studied correlation, she was
| pissed at me for "stereotyping"... Just feels like I
| never escaped being a child who was constantly on the
| verge of getting in trouble with their abusive parent.
|
| Sorry, that just turned into a rant at the end.
| lioeters wrote:
| > a child who was constantly on the verge of getting in
| trouble with their abusive parent
|
| That sentence says a lot about the current cultural
| climate (at least in the U.S. I'm guessing). Part of the
| abuse is that it's illogical or unpredictable, so you
| never know what triggers the parent/partner's anger, and
| when the pain/punishment will be delivered. It makes it
| risky to express any opinion - so the only sure way to
| not offend anyone is to stay silent. That stifles
| communication and discussion, except for narcissists who
| are illogically self-confident, often extreme on either
| side of the debate.
| sk0g wrote:
| Nope I'm in Australia, but the cultural differences are
| eroding over time, so not too far off anyway. As
| Rammstein wrote, "We're all living in Amerika; Coca Cola,
| sometimes war."
|
| > Part of the abuse is that it's illogical or
| unpredictable
|
| Yeah, doing some introspection (seriously, bath tubs are
| magical) I realised I've lost a lot of social confidence
| and skills. The previous issue was one contributing
| factor, as well as roughly 2 years of very minimal social
| interaction at all. Wonder what the long term
| ramifications on society will be.
| lioeters wrote:
| I relate to your comment - silence as a coping mechanism.
| I sometimes break out of it by being vocal and expressing
| my opinions, but I noticed it often invites attacks and
| "primate dominance" behavior from others. In my view, the
| social isolation definitely has made things worse
| culturally - I'm noticing a lot more bullying and people
| being jerks to each other. Tough times for sensitive
| souls.
| hrbf wrote:
| > Sorry, that just turned into a rant at the end.
|
| On the contrary, thank you. It's the very context you
| wrote about that's often missing in online conversations.
| Your anecdote beautifully illustrates the absurdity trap
| too much well-meaning tolerance eventually trips.
|
| I'm reminded of a Red Dwarf episode (Timewave, S12E03). A
| crew of a space ship decided to outlaw all criticism on
| board, going so far as too construct a machine extracting
| "the inner critic" from everybody. The Red Dwarf crew
| encounters them and wants to leave immediately after,
| because, quote: "nothing works here, especially the
| people."
|
| It's quite straight-forward that the posts' author
| struggles with mental health issues. By their own public
| admission (and accounting for preferred pronouns) it is
| transgender, hates its body and is rather inconsistent
| and confrontational. All fine by me. I don't care how you
| find happiness or whatever else. But it should be
| entirely possible to remark upon those facts without
| experiencing retribution.
|
| Yet somehow any remark regarding their mental health
| state gets self-censored by the first mention of
| insensitivity, no doubt fearing said retribution.
|
| I worry about that.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| A remark regarding the mental state of a random Internet
| blogger who literally self-identifies as a robot (or so
| it says, at any rate)? That strikes me as singularly
| pointless. I think retracting such remarks was the right
| call, in the spirit of keeping the discussion focused and
| avoiding distracting asides.
| skyechurch wrote:
| There's a fundamental conflict between expressing real
| human interest in and concern for other people, and
| negotiating an ever-shifting maze of cultural taboos
| enforced by official and unofficial sanction. Maybe HR
| can put out a 40 page handbook for resolving this and
| verify compliance. Or maybe we should be generous to each
| other, regardless of the consequences.
|
| Great rant, would read again.
| sleepycatgirl wrote:
| People are complicated We are complicated
|
| We often don't even understand ourselves, why do we feel
| the way we do But we don't have to understand others, to
| be respectful to them I feel, the thing is that this
| person, has yet to accept themselves, which.. at times,
| can take a lot of time
|
| O well, I might also be missing a bit of context, because
| I can't see the original comment, as it seems to be
| replaced with a dot, so I apologize in that case. Sorry.
| _dain_ wrote:
| the author wants to be a robot bc of bodily self-hatred,
| there's obviously psychiatric problems, big ones
| dopidopHN wrote:
| Alrighty; let's be mindful of cutsie name. Specially in
| professional settings, not everyone share your taste.
|
| For instance I find star war boring and simplistic, and the
| marvel franchises sound bling to me.
|
| Currently, I'm replacing 14 micro services doing financial
| transactions processing.
|
| Those 14 micro service where obviously way too splinter ... but
| also they have Slavic name out of some polish folklore I think ?
|
| I think there is puns with the name and the function of the
| service... but that context is lost to me and the team ( that set
| of software has been written elsewhere )
| userbinator wrote:
| Most of those points seem to describe the majority of software
| created by individuals or small teams from the late 80s to early
| 2000s, except for "not-for-profit governance".
| ricardobayes wrote:
| sleepycatgirl wrote:
| Comfy software is cute, and cute names are important.
| dbsmith83 wrote:
| > In my opinion, the pillars of coziness (in no particular order)
| are:
|
| > - Customizability
|
| Customization is what I loved about software in the earlier days
| of the internet. It was just fun! It seemed like we were heading
| for a future where the average user could eventually customize
| just about anything, but we took a sharp turn away from that
| reality, unfortunately.
| okasaki wrote:
| I would add another item: stable design. Don't put out an update
| every two weeks that randomly removes or changes features.
| sailorganymede wrote:
| My professional codebase actually really upsets me - sometimes I
| dread going on holidays purely because I know when I return to
| it, it'll take me a week to get over the feeling of just wanting
| to quit. It's really nice to see this post put out in words what
| makes me happy when I program.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| This is me every time I have to work with react, and that's
| with toy projects in my web development course. Can't imagine
| how hellish it is to work with a mature, half a decade old big
| React code base.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| From what I've seen, you might not need to worry much about
| that. React codebases seem get rewritten every 3-4 years.
| idontknowifican wrote:
| react codebases at size are more or less department wide
| passive aggressive blog posts (see slack or any comment
| section on a changeset) masquerading as jira tickets and
| agile meetings
| hrbf wrote:
| Wouldn't the solution be to seek more of the rewarding parts of
| programming and re-evaluating exactly how destructive to your
| mental health working in that "professional" environment really
| is?
| F2hP18Foam wrote:
| I agree with you, but it's easier said than done. Especially
| if you're already depressed, drudging forward can seem like
| the path of least resistance, even though it often isn't.
| hrbf wrote:
| No doubt. Depression is debilitating in so many subtle as
| well as visible ways. As parent is currently the most-
| upvoted comment, I believe it important to ask the obvious
| questions to maybe start a conversation.
| nicbou wrote:
| People have bills to pay, and programming is one of the more
| acceptable ways to do it.
| hrbf wrote:
| That's a superficial argument. Is permanently exposing
| yourself to a level of emotional stress that results in a
| semi-permanent depressive state really worth the money?
|
| I'd argue that if you have the skills to code, you are well
| suited for other areas as well, depending on your
| willingness to adapt. If you're already depressed it's
| harder to see alternatives and easier to feel trapped
| though.
| tartoran wrote:
| > I'd argue that if you have the skills to code, you are
| well suited for other areas as well, depending on your
| willingness to adapt.
|
| Could you please state what those are?
| hrbf wrote:
| If you code at a professional level, you are likely of
| above average intelligence. You are able to efficiently
| reason about complex systems to some degree. Those two
| skills alone qualify you for many jobs, especially when
| you're willing to learn. What those are depends entirely
| on your interests and further skills.
|
| Often, looking into a completely different direction is
| helpful. Ask yourself what you enjoy doing, apart from
| programming and computers. It could be cooking,
| gardening, talking to people, writing, teaching,
| whatever. Something that is not stressful for you to do.
| Something your friends maybe told you at one time or the
| other you're good at without having to put great effort
| in it. Something that doesn't drain you if you're doing
| it for extended periods of time. Often that's where you
| can find what's truly important to you and your inherent
| skills are. Go from there. Let yourself be inspired.
| Those could be technical or entirely apart from what
| you're currently doing.
|
| When you start looking into unconventional jobs, you'll
| be astonished what kind of work exists within reach. It
| often just looks like it isn't because you'd have to
| leave your comfort zone to pursue them. That's the issue
| with comfort zones: even if you feel like shit, it's a
| familiar feeling. As humans, we tend to go with what we
| know, even if it leads to constantly feeling terrible.
| This way, we can at least make sense of what surrounds
| us. Going into the unknown is scary, sometimes it feels
| like mortal danger.
|
| If you can afford it, take a sabbatical to clear your
| head. If you have a partner, talk to them about what
| you're going through.
| throwaway1649 wrote:
| I appreciate that you're exhorting people to take some
| initiative to find alternatives to misery. Your
| contribution is a positive one. So I support that, good
| job. I apologize in advance for the lack of positivity in
| the rest of my reply.
|
| But, for me at least, the problem is that the evidence
| seems to indicate that, in my life at least, you're super
| wrong. Sure, okay, I'm of above-average intelligence, and
| able to efficiently reason about complex systems to some
| degree. It turns out that, although necessary for a great
| many jobs, they do not alone qualify me for those jobs. I
| think I'm willing to learn, but sometimes it seems that
| I'm not particularly able. I did software for most of a
| decade, including getting a visa to work in Silicon
| Valley, and it beat me up pretty bad. I like teaching, by
| which I mean one-on-one conversations or giving lectures,
| so I have mostly been pursuing that as a career for most
| of a decade. And it turns out that the _job_ of teaching
| involves a lot of things other than the _act_ of
| teaching, and those other things are way worse than
| software ever was. So now I 'm just as miserable, for
| half as much money. Though at least I DO get to spend
| about 6 hours of paid time a week doing teaching-the-act,
| and that's nice. And because I'm so hilariously poorly-
| paid, I have job security, because every time they look
| for new hires, almost everyone who applies is obviously
| incapable, because you have to be a fool to take this
| job, so that's nice too.
|
| I do think it's worth it for people who feel miserable to
| try to figure out how to be not-miserable. But as a
| related comment says, I enjoy food and shelter. At this
| point I'm torn between the known misery-and-low-pay-but-
| job-security of teaching, vs throwing myself back into
| the meat grinder of software development, knowing I'll
| make twice the money for less hours worked, but probably
| I'll get abused and fired again.
|
| Is that a superficial argument?
| hansel_der wrote:
| struggling with this question as well.
|
| obiously it is highly dependent on the individual, but in
| the end, it depends on the boss making/getting the
| connection and not be like "nah, but i relly could need
| an IT guy"
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _Is permanently exposing yourself to a level of
| emotional stress that results in a semi-permanent
| depressive state really worth the money?_
|
| Yes.
| hrbf wrote:
| Why?
| nicbou wrote:
| These bootstraps don't provide the leverage you think
| they do. Changing careers is hard and most of them come
| with their own flavour of bullshit. Some people have
| dependents and can't afford to turn the whole ship
| halfway through their journey.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| The emotional stress of not having food and shelter is
| worse?
| no_time wrote:
| I feel like Bender from Futurama. He was made with one
| job in mind:
|
| Bending.
|
| Its exceptionlly well paying considering I have no formal
| qualifications or the patience to get any. These two
| facts are enough for me to not even entertain the idea of
| leaving IT in general.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I enjoy food and shelter.
| KronisLV wrote:
| > My professional codebase actually really upsets me -
| sometimes I dread going on holidays purely because I know when
| I return to it, it'll take me a week to get over the feeling of
| just wanting to quit.
|
| This is pretty much the exact set of circumstances that I find
| myself in, to the point of wanting to write a webapp in a
| weekend or two, that'd let me keep a log of when and why I
| wanted to submit my resignation, with descriptions/images and
| so on.
|
| It is also kind of why I have a slightly ranty section on my
| blog, that attempts to document the interesting ways how the
| variety of software that I've used can fail (either in the
| literal sense, or just with how it hinders my attempts to get
| things done), called "Everything is Broken":
| https://blog.kronis.dev/everything%20is%20broken
|
| I just realize that there are so many "broken" things out
| there, that I literally don't have enough time to write
| everything down - e.g. describing how hard exporting data from
| an Oracle instance and then re-creating a similar setup inside
| of a local Oracle XE container was, with everything that broke
| along the way (text encoding, export formats, SQLPlus refusing
| to read files with empty lines, SQLPlus having a problem with
| the SQL Developer export format, there not being easy to use
| CLI exporters for Oracle data, there being problems with the
| init scripts of the Oracle XE 18 images, there being problems
| with certain DDL being exported but refusing to be imported,
| certain features that are not available in XE, tablespaces not
| being automatically extended by default) all just so I could
| test applications locally with decent performance.
|
| Of course, there are also certain _behaviors_ or _mindsets_
| that result in the experience with certain codebases becoming
| miserable; I 'd also like to write more about how to develop
| software for a more positive outcome, so props to the author
| for expressing her thoughts along those lines!
| renewedrebecca wrote:
| I had this is a huge way with my previous employer.
| _Everything_ about the code base was terrible, every choice
| that could be made along the way was the wrong one. Even the
| (CVS) tagging strategy for releases was just horrible. I really
| dreaded getting up in the morning because I knew the entire day
| was going to be a slog through the mud of bad design and worse
| code.
|
| I'm way happier now, working for a company that has thoughtful
| people doing the bulk of the design work.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I find cute names rapidly exhausting. I loved it at first, but it
| turns into a meaningless zoo quite often.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| I think I still prefer them? Projects with descriptive names,
| given time, will evolve and scope creep until the name becomes
| more misleading than descriptive.
|
| With cute names, at least everyone knows they have to ask.
| _TwoFinger wrote:
| I remember one of the projects I was part of, in a big company.
|
| It was called Voyager, and was about porting the company's
| software, that was currently running on SunOS/SPARC, to
| Linux/x86. (As SPARC was about to be EOL'd.)
|
| Like Voyager, the space probe, it was about moving away from
| the Sun (OS) :-)
| ldoughty wrote:
| I agree and disagree! :-)
|
| I agree that you probably shouldn't have cute names for
| internal important things ("batman" as an internal
| server/project name is cute, but doesn't convey much unless you
| have a "bat" or "cave" or similar product/service/process).
|
| That said, at work, we have "Saint Even". This is a cute name
| for a common problem in our field -- Eventual (Even)
| consistency. When Saint Even (Pronounced like "Evan") comes to
| visit, we know we're going to have to either throw up our hands
| and accept it, or delve into how to fix it. One time, Saint
| Even blessed us with a 10 second delay. We decided to accept
| that one because the effort to fix was too large for the
| delay... However, we should be able to handle a visit from
| Saint Even for at least 1-2 seconds... It's also easier to say
| "Saint Even" (when first bringing up the topic, to be clear
| it's not a person named Evan), and then later "Even" during the
| discussion, then "Eventual Consistency"...
|
| We also get to laugh at the joy this Saint Even fellow brings
| us as we often need to collaborate to understand where the
| error happened / did it overwrite data or just stop a process /
| how can we better handle it in the future (ideally without
| forcing master-node reads.. e.g. a better detection/retry)
| InCityDreams wrote:
| >When Saint Even (Pronounced like "Evan")
|
| So, if that's how it's pronounced, what does it sound like
| when a (presumably English speaker) says it?
| klondike_klive wrote:
| Steven?
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Agreed
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| Doing a cute name can work for a project that are public but
| when it is private and you don't have a good way to search for
| projects or even understanding why you would need the project
| it really confuses people.
|
| Naming versions is worse for Ubuntu because I can't remember
| what the two letter phrase is. But, a single word I can
| somewhat remember (macOS uses a single word).
| fallous wrote:
| Except for Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion, El Capitan, High
| Sierra, and Big Sur.
|
| They do have the benefit of at least referencing a single
| entity, unlike Ubuntu's naming convention.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Ubuntu repositories are referenced by single word though
| (trusty, xenial, bionic, focal, impish, jammy, kinetic),
| you can pretty much ignore the second one and you're still
| being... precise (12.04).
| dmitriid wrote:
| > Customizability
|
| Too often the last thing I want from software I use for myself is
| customizability.
|
| Many years ago Joel Spolsky called it [1]:
|
| --- start quote ---
|
| Every time you provide an option, you're asking the user to make
| a decision. That means they will have to think about something
| and decide about it. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but, in
| general, you should always try to minimize the number of
| decisions that people have to make.
|
| This doesn't mean eliminate all choice
|
| --- end quote ---
|
| There's another one on how customisation doesn't scale and
| doesn't transfer, but I can't find it now.
|
| I personally want software that just works. Customisation often
| is an excuse for devs to not care about how software works, and
| to force the users into interminable twiddling with settings and
| options. No, thank you, I have enough of that at work.
|
| [1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/10/24/user-interface-
| des...
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > Every time you provide an option, you're asking the user to
| make a decision.
|
| No. Options are a passive feature, they are hidden away in a
| menu. When software pushes decisions onto its users it's almost
| always a manipulative method to bully users into giving up
| their rights or money. Like apps spamming you with ads to push
| you towards a premium subscription, or the cookie popups on
| websites, or Windows pressuring you to register an account. All
| those negative examples are not problematic because of choice,
| but because corporations don't want users to make the right
| choice.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > No. Options are a passive feature, they are hidden away in
| a menu.
|
| Unlike customisation which is... hidden away as options or
| options in config files.
|
| > When software pushes decisions onto its users it's almost
| always a manipulative method to bully users into giving up
| their rights
|
| Every customisation option is pushing choices onto its users.
| andrepd wrote:
| I couldn't disagree more. This is a situation where you very
| much can have your cake _and_ eat it: customisability +
| excellent defaults.
|
| If software A works is not customisable and works out of the
| box, and software B is customisable but has the same defaults
| as software A, then how is software B in any way inferior to A?
| dmitriid wrote:
| In an ideal world software B would be superior. In _reality_
| there 's never a software B. These days there's rarely even a
| software A, to be honest
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Customisability+Sane defaults is the best of both worlds
| dotancohen wrote:
| What is with this depression fad? The advised features in this
| post are sound advice for anyone. I'm a happy software developer,
| why shouldn't I have keyboard-focused navigation just like my
| depressed counterparts?
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Seems like that was just a silly headline that shouldn't have
| been put into submission title on HN (the page doesn't put it
| into its title tag at all).
| frankthedog wrote:
| Being neuro-atypical is now virtuous.
| mmmpop wrote:
| [deleted]
| watt wrote:
| I find it's unfair to single out VS Code without mentioning
| VSCodium, the open source distribution of VS Code.
| tempodox wrote:
| Depending on what you do, there is stuff that only works in the
| original VS Code, and not in VSCodium. And the extension stores
| are different between the two. It's a pity, I'd much prefer
| VSCodium.
| idontknowifican wrote:
| you can do everything in vs codium you can in vs code, it's
| just more manual
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Vscodium is a wolf in a sheep's skin and part of the fracturing
| strategy VSCode spearheads. https://ghuntley.com/fracture/
| turtleyacht wrote:
| > It's because Visual Studio Code is a ramp to move the
| developer tooling ecosystem towards an end-to-end consumable
| services model of software development tools
|
| > Microsoft can step in at any moment to create legal crises
| that strategically divide the market from a business
| perspective because like Apple and their AppStore: it is
| their ecosystem that they control and they are in absolute
| control
|
| > Microsoft can easily fork open-source communities by
| changing towards proprietary defaults ("strategically divide
| the market") as Microsoft has already done twice so far. The
| way Microsoft forks open-source communities is by releasing
| Visual Studio Code extension updates that make their
| proprietary offering the default once they have managed to
| capture enough adoption...
| amelius wrote:
| Learning to use a functional programming language is probably the
| most "comfy" move to make.
| animuchan wrote:
| This is absolutely a thing.
|
| I also have a side project like that, a library that I can come
| back to after working 9 hours a day on some trash garbage
| codebase that unironically makes me want to commit die. It helps
| to know that there's a program or several, no matter how small,
| that are actually well thought out and carefully implemented.
| nicbou wrote:
| We all have different definitions of cosy software, but mine
| would be software that feels _right_ , and slightly magical.
|
| I remember trying out Python and getting butterflies in my
| stomach. MacOS gave me the same feeling back in 2012.
|
| The most recent one for me is Procreate. It manages to both work
| as a simple sketch book replacement, and a Photoshop equivalent.
| It's a treat to use.
| eastbound wrote:
| > that feels right, and slightly magical
|
| Postgres does this effect to me. It's the perfect SQL syntax,
| the regular one, etc.
| jcelerier wrote:
| So interesting, I have an extremely averse reaction whenever I
| used (and still have to use) the three software you mentioned.
| They are as far as possible as what is comfy for me.
| camgunz wrote:
| What is comfy for you?
| jcelerier wrote:
| my basic i3 desktop - I remember when I tried i3 for the
| first time, I had put the intro video and just followed the
| keybindings and it instantly felt the most natural I had
| ever felt with my computer (having been through dos, win 9x
| up to 7, with aston shell, various stardock stuff I forgot
| the name of, litestep, bblean, xoblite, linux with kde 3,
| fluxbox for a very long time, gnome 2, kde 4, gnome 3, and
| a few others)
|
| https://zim-wiki.org/ - I'm still trying to find a way to
| make it interoperate well with my remarkable if anyone has
| any idea. bonus points if it can somehow work with
| freeplane for mind mapping...
|
| most kde software - dolphin, okular, gwenview are exactly
| what I want
|
| krita
|
| bitwig studio
|
| davinci resolve
|
| qt creator
|
| i'm trying to the software I mainly develop,
| https://ossia.io reach my ideals in terms of comfiness but
| i'm not there yet haha
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| I like some parts of the essay but I read "cute name" as "cutesy
| name" and cringe.
|
| Also the "make common cases easy" with the example of "find"
| isn't so convincing. Find has a complete but complicated set of
| args, difficult to remember but cover every usage case, rather
| than just the common ones. ffmpeg is even more extreme that way.
| So I just use shell aliases to handle the common cases, rather
| than designing a whole different program for that.
|
| Also, man pages are much worse than texinfo docs that you can
| actually navigate! They worked well when they were literally one
| printed page, but are a terrible format for complicated programs.
| Trying to find anything in the bash man page is a frequent
| exercise in frustration for me.
| kweingar wrote:
| I'm not a fan of the section on governance.
|
| I can certainly understand why you'd prefer to use community-
| driven software, but this post steers close to calling for-profit
| free software "not actually FOSS."
|
| FOSS is FOSS, regardless of whether the developer is solo or a
| megacorp, whether they accept patches or not, whether there is a
| proprietary build of the same product available or not.
|
| You can disapprove of some of the things these developers do, but
| don't water down the definition of FOSS by adding extra
| stipulations.
| mft_ wrote:
| As a reasonably able amateur, anything involving Linux is pretty
| much the opposite of comfortable.
|
| I have a recurring pattern: I undertake some sort of project
| involving installing Linux _somewhere_ , run into problems, spend
| huge amounts of time googling stuff and trying random solutions
| from forums and Stackoverflow, before strengthening my
| confirmation bias that "Linux isn't ready for the desktop", then
| giving up and promising myself never to be so daft again. Sadly,
| time always dims the pain, and it only takes a few months before
| the cycle repeats.
|
| It's depressingly reliable, whatever the project; e.g.:
|
| * using a Raspberry Pi as a wireless access point (failed,
| despite multiple attempts and approaches)
|
| * using a Raspberry Pi as a more clever USB drive for a Tesla's
| dashcam footage (never reliable, despite closely following
| instructions
|
| * installing NVidia & CUDA drivers in Ubuntu (nah)
|
| * installing NVidia & CUDA drivers in Fedora 35 (mostly nah)
|
| * installing NVidia & CUDA drivers in Fedora 36 (almost worked...
| despite 36 not being officially supported!)
|
| (To be fair, setting up a PiHole was pretty painless - props to
| them!)
| cpsns wrote:
| I feel the same way about Linux these days and I'm not an
| amateur. Hardware support wise it's the best it has even been,
| but it feels increasingly unstable software wise. The
| fragmentation is crazy, things are hard to rely on long term,
| and there's no consistency.
|
| I'd had enough and started using OpenBSD for everything and am
| much happier personally. It at least _feels_ more stable and I
| can trust it not to break. If it does break the documentation
| is second to none and always accurate.
|
| (These are just my personal feelings, nothing more)
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Anything can be painful. It would be painful for a person
| without legs to climb Mount Everest. There are some people that
| just get Linux and run Arch and file detailed bug reports and
| others that just use beginner level distros and complain when
| something doesn't work.
| alexeldeib wrote:
| Surprised to see cuda called out here, that one has been
| relatively painless over the years for me on Ubuntu.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| Relative to OpenCL, you mean?
| dicknuckle wrote:
| For the Pi as an access point, it's easier to just install
| OpenWRT on it. As a USB drive, you're likely to have issues
| with the SD card in a vehicle. Probably better to run on
| something that has eMMC storage and a dedicated SATA port
| instead of relying on USB.
|
| For installing Nvidia and CUDA drivers, i use Chimera OS for
| gaming. It's now an appliance that can be accessed from the TV
| for game streaming, or we can sit directly in front of my color
| correct display with keyboard and mouse. All updates are atomic
| so there's no cruft that requires a reinstall every few years.
| tomxor wrote:
| > anything involving Linux is pretty much the opposite of
| comfortable.
|
| This is extremely subjective, both the the individual due to
| their expertise and the task at hand... e.g doing much software
| development on windows will drive many developers insane.
| Etherlord87 wrote:
| > This is extremely subjective As you would expect, in a
| discussion about things being comfortable.
| f1refly wrote:
| Anything to do with nvidia is a pain and that's nvidias fault.
| dicknuckle wrote:
| Why I use ChimeraOS now. It's now a PC gaming appliance.
| golemotron wrote:
| > In order for software to be comfy, the people who have the
| final say over what does and doesn't go into it shouldn't be
| beholden to a for-profit entity.
|
| Seems doable. You can have a lot control over hobbies.
| xupybd wrote:
| I don't get the resistance to for profit software. My favorite
| editor is Rider. It's for profit, I pay for it and it's light
| years ahead of other options.
|
| People worked hard to produce that product they should be free to
| profit from their labor.
| unintendedcons wrote:
| That's fine, but is it cozy?
| dmitriid wrote:
| It absolutely is. In my opinion.
| suction wrote:
| guerrilla wrote:
| It explains it in the post. What did you not get?
|
| > In order for software to be comfy, the people who have the
| final say over what does and doesn't go into it shouldn't be
| beholden to a for-profit entity.
|
| > But that entity itself should be actually a community focus,
| and not just a thin facade around one or two megacorporations
| that just dictate what happens
|
| However good your for-profit software is, it can't be those
| things, so it's not "cozy."
|
| > I think of this as the 'no VS Code' clause: no matter how
| good VS Code is, I refuse to use it because it's fundamentally
| a Microsoft product and I want my text editor to actually be
| FOSS, dammit.
| yCombLinks wrote:
| Yes, the post says those things, but those things have
| absolutely zero to do with whether or not a piece of software
| feels good to use. I have lots of paid software that's
| lightyears ahead of whatever is available for free. If that
| doesn't fit the definition of cozy, oh well. I'll stick with
| the software that makes my life better for a few dollars a
| year.
| antonvs wrote:
| > so it's not "cozy"
|
| It doesn't fit this one person's proposed definition of cozy
| software. Not quite the same thing.
| dleslie wrote:
| For non-programmers, non-profit open source software is at
| least as opaque and inaccessible as for-profit software. At
| least with for-profit there is some monetary incentive to
| support and build the software, even when doing so is dull
| and tedious or when the users have uninteresting or
| troublesome asks.
|
| For many people there's nothing cozy about non-profit
| software; rather, it teeters on an abyss of frustration and
| suffering wrought of poor support and indifferent developer
| goals.
|
| And before it's stated, paying a contractor to modify open
| source software is just another for-profit model.
| bezier-curve wrote:
| For me, cozy software is maintained by people that have
| forethought about what might be unnecessary technical debt. I've
| seen messy PRs in both open source and corporate organizations
| get merged without much review. The problem is the processes.
| Maybe it's apathy by the people leading these teams?
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| It makes me cringe when I see the term "depression" being used
| lightly, and in this instance in my opinion used for marketing.
|
| It uses the depression the title and it does not many any further
| mention of it or justifies it.
| renewedrebecca wrote:
| idk- in a way, it kind of makes sense to me... When you're
| depressed, especially if it's a chronic condition, having
| "comfy" things around you definitely helps.
|
| (I totally get your argument too, though)
| Minor49er wrote:
| The author likely has it though. On his about page [1], he says
| " ..i hate my body, and to a somewhat lesser extent hate my
| brain (and even my mind)." Clearly tech is an outlet for
| finding comfort for the author
|
| [1] https://catgirl.ai/pages/robot/
| mattarm wrote:
| I see people more and more putting their not so neurotypical
| issues front and center, especially among the young. I see this
| among my own children and their friends. Saying with a light
| tone "and then I had a full blown panic attack" or "I didn't
| want to go because I was depressed." I suspect this is just
| part of a greater acceptance of mental health issues in society
| in general, but I'm not sure they realize the weight these
| terms can have for some people, or that they can come off as
| making light of something that is quite serious for many
| people.
| moppit wrote:
| Valid point. I have never worded that myself as a father of
| two children, but I think you are spot on mate.
| chucksmash wrote:
| I think it's another area where we have fallen into using
| overly strong descriptive words, a la the comedy bit about
| the deployment of the word "awesome" to mean "good" or "ok"
| or "fine" versus "inspiring awe."
|
| If you have a moment of panic when you are late and can't
| find your keys, it becomes a "panic attack" when the story is
| related.
|
| Just another channel to oversaturate.
| tejohnso wrote:
| Yeah, there also a verbal oneupmanship going on it seems.
| Or just an absurd exaggeration for attention. People even
| use the word rape in the context of experiencing a minor
| setback. And on top of that you have this recent fad of
| adding "literally" in front of this kind of thing. So
| "damn, I lost" is now "damnit bro, I literally got raped
| right there!"
| akaij wrote:
| > ... I suspect this is just part of a greater acceptance of
| mental health issues in society in general, ...
|
| This is how I see it too.
|
| Baby Boomers and Gen X had quite a different view of
| psychological issues and it had a detrimental effect on
| population at large. Now that a lot of the taboos surrounding
| it are broken, later generations are emphasising them by
| exaggeration.
|
| I don't see it as an issue at all. I see it as the pendulum
| swinging back with more force than it was pushed.
| fwip wrote:
| Many of the people using these are clinically diagnosed with
| depression, anxiety, etc.
|
| They may be making light of it, but it's not unserious for
| them - they're just open about their struggles.
| Wesmio wrote:
| I would still be very curious how this openess becomes a
| negative feedback cycle.
|
| I have big sleeping issues, have/had depression and a
| neurological issue with my nerves.
|
| But while I'm very aware of those issues, I'm not
| reflecting on them in public nur do I center my daily life
| around them.
|
| I do talk about it sometimes but only in short amounts.
| Enough that people might tell me they have the same issue
| (family -> genetics) or they have a better understanding
| why I might just have concentration issues at the moment.
|
| The author made it very obvious if not front and center
| that she/it doesn't feel part of a biological gender role
| and redefined that.
|
| I'm wondering why my life still doesn't rotate around
| things I can't really change while for others it's a
| fundamental part of their life/how they express themselves.
|
| There is also a blog from someone similar where that person
| draws quite bad images of some character. The question
| would also be why others evaluate their own doing in a way
| that they wouldn't present medicare drawing skills on the
| internet vs. expressing yourself anyhow.
|
| What if the self reflection is broken?
|
| What if not giving any feedback to stuff like this holds
| their own development?
|
| I have to say I find it easier to focus on the technical
| things but I do get triggered by those things as well.
|
| It's hard to determine if that person is okay or not.
|
| There was also someone at a save space who got crazy
| aggressive and said that if person x is doing y again they
| will hit her in the face.
|
| Is that really the definition of save space were you give a
| person which such crazy aggression issues space or would
| you expect that person to get professional help?
|
| Being open to whom? To the internet? Why?
|
| And now shouldn't the internet also be a save space for
| everyone else?
| tomcam wrote:
| Agreed. I also believe that many of them are attempting
| complex diagnoses with zero training.
| Entinel wrote:
| I get where you are coming from but this seems like gatekeeping
| to me? Who here determines whether or not the author is
| depressed? Do they need to delve into their past traumas to
| satisfy the critics?
| Majestic121 wrote:
| They don't need to do anything, but using depression as a
| marketing gimmick is bad taste and will be judged poorly.
|
| If that is gatekeeping, well ok.
| feet wrote:
| What, exactly, are they bringing to market?
| Entinel wrote:
| I don't see it as a marketing gimmick. I see it as "I'm
| depressed and this helped me so this might help other
| people who are depressed.
| not_kurt_godel wrote:
| By this metric, any good software or development practice
| is an antidepressant. And...they aren't _not_ in a sense,
| but it 's just such a strange and, I guess, selfish?
| self-centered? solipsistic? way to frame and label the
| idea of doing things correctly and comfortably in a
| professional setting. Like, the common factor of good or
| bad software characteristics isn't that they're going to
| send every user into a depression or bring them out of
| one. A bad feature might annoy users, and if it annoys
| them enough it might contribute to depression, but
| putting the entire burden of depression on a single
| software tool is like a carpenter claiming that a single
| bad hammer gave them depression.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Tuberculosis used to be considered a fashionable illness.
| mek6800d2 wrote:
| From a brief review of Peter Kramer's _Against Depression_
| (2005):
|
| _Consumption (tuberculosis) was viewed as a somewhat
| fashionable disease, a sign of an artistic and intellectual
| nature. (It was probably viewed that way by artists who
| contracted it; the greater "unwashed masses" who also were
| afflicted with the disease had no such pretensions.) Of
| course, tuberculosis eventually succumbed to medicine and
| fell out of fashion. (It is still a problem in communities
| underserved with health care.) To a certain extent,
| depression has some of that cachet attributed to consumption
| by earlier generations, but Dr. Kramer thinks that depression
| will eventually go the way of tuberculosis and be cured with
| medicine._
|
| I've suffered from severe, treatment-resistant, unipolar
| depression for over 25 years. I respect those who are able to
| pull themselves up by their bootstraps and don't let
| depression define their lives, but there are a lot of us who
| are not that strong, for whatever reason, and for whom
| depression majorly colors our lives.
| kixiQu wrote:
| Where is "marketing" coming from here?
|
| If you read more of her stuff, I think it's clear that it's
| presented as sort of a personal space. When written for an
| audience that isn't The General Hacker News Audience, things
| like that... work differently. It might be her and like two
| friends in a group chat that were bouncing this around and
| maybe talked about how it's relevant and she wrote this up to
| sketch out the idea more.
|
| When the opening says "there's still software out here that
| makes me feel _happy_ to use " and the concluding paragraph
| says "Obviously, not all software needs to fit into this" I
| just don't think you can judge this by the standards of A
| Manifesto Seeking New Adherents.
| gw99 wrote:
| There is the voice of someone who has never actually been in
| the position of getting into an actual pit of depression over
| the toolchain you have to use. No joke but I was doing some
| work on VSTO in Visual Studio Classic a few years back and it
| really did me in. Every day was this unpredictable nightmare
| that was going to attack me over and over again. I dreaded
| getting up in the morning in the end and developed a reputation
| for being late and unreliable, which are two things that aren't
| my usual self. It took me a few weeks to realise it was early
| stages of depression.
|
| Since then I spend a lot of time carefully evaluating tools and
| software before I ever consider using it or taking on work that
| involves it. This is to avoid the mental toil that is almost
| endemic in really horrible bits of software.
|
| Quite frankly this article nails it. Software has to be comfy
| or it can fuck off before it hurts me.
| [deleted]
| goodpoint wrote:
| > Non-corporate / Not-for-profit governance
|
| People constantly forget how important this is.
|
| Tons of corporate-driven software uses:
|
| - competitive [in]compatibility
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/competitive-compatibil...
|
| - unnecessary complexity
|
| - corporate-centric licensing
|
| - high feature churn rate
|
| - CLAs
|
| - open core
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