Open Source hot take: A software project is allowed to be *done*.
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In industrial circles, the common version of this is
don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good
eg, to survive, you need to ship and sell products
another, cruder version
make shit, sell shit, ship shit
@failedLyndonLaRouchite @tante I was pondering how at an “individual level”, most people actually crave for software staying still. How many pieces of software do I have where I explicitly stick with older versions? Actually pretty much every single one.
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Open Source hot take: A software project is allowed to be *done*. Not everything needs to add features or rewrite things. You can just be happy with functionality and focus on just maintainance. "Maintenance mode" is not always bad but can just show a mature product.
@tante As an audio engineer, I don't fault other engineers who take on work (I guess) remixing or remastering songs/albums, but the USUAL reason that even happens at all has nothing to do with the ARTIST wanting it done.
It's some 30-something fuckwad running a social media campaign for a publishing conglomerate or streaming service who thought it would be fun to "refresh" the tracks with a modern twist or mAkE eVerYtHinG LoUdeR.
It was done with the original release.
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Open Source hot take: A software project is allowed to be *done*. Not everything needs to add features or rewrite things. You can just be happy with functionality and focus on just maintainance. "Maintenance mode" is not always bad but can just show a mature product.
@tante this advice isn't specific to OSS either
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Open Source hot take: A software project is allowed to be *done*. Not everything needs to add features or rewrite things. You can just be happy with functionality and focus on just maintainance. "Maintenance mode" is not always bad but can just show a mature product.
@tante It makes me think about this article: https://andrewkelley.me/post/why-we-cant-have-nice-software.html
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@dashdsrdash @ArneBab @tante It’s possible (but difficult) to design software to be intuitive and easy to use. It’s easier to write good documentation but nobody wants to do it. This is why so many projects give the documentation work to AI now even though it’s not very good. They kind of understand that they are supposed to have documentation but don’t want to do it and don’t *really* understand what the purpose/goal of documentation is.
Small bit of correction:
There is no intuitive software. At best, there is software which re-uses a common pattern, formalized or not, so that what you have learned previously is recognizably appropriate in this new system.
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Open Source hot take: A software project is allowed to be *done*. Not everything needs to add features or rewrite things. You can just be happy with functionality and focus on just maintainance. "Maintenance mode" is not always bad but can just show a mature product.
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Small bit of correction:
There is no intuitive software. At best, there is software which re-uses a common pattern, formalized or not, so that what you have learned previously is recognizably appropriate in this new system.
@dashdsrdash @MisuseCase @ArneBab @tante "There is no intuitive software. At best, there is software which re-uses a common pattern ..."
Okay, but this is a distinction with no practical difference. All human minds are a bunch of things learned previously (whether on an individual level, or a genetic lineage level in the case of instincts).
Intuition itself doesn't exist outside of the context of learned patterns (assuming we include genetically learned patterns).
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@dashdsrdash @MisuseCase @ArneBab @tante "There is no intuitive software. At best, there is software which re-uses a common pattern ..."
Okay, but this is a distinction with no practical difference. All human minds are a bunch of things learned previously (whether on an individual level, or a genetic lineage level in the case of instincts).
Intuition itself doesn't exist outside of the context of learned patterns (assuming we include genetically learned patterns).
@dashdsrdash @MisuseCase @ArneBab @tante And even if we artificially draw a distinction between innate instincts and individually learned patterns, there is the possibility of "intuitive" software which relies upon instinctively known patterns.
I mean, we COULD do that, but why? No actual human users think only instinctive knowledge separate from individually learned knowledge.
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@dashdsrdash @MisuseCase @ArneBab @tante And even if we artificially draw a distinction between innate instincts and individually learned patterns, there is the possibility of "intuitive" software which relies upon instinctively known patterns.
I mean, we COULD do that, but why? No actual human users think only instinctive knowledge separate from individually learned knowledge.
@isaackuo there is software that is easy to understand and efficient to use.
Usually because it uses similar patterns of interaction throughout the software, gives perceptible hints for next actions, and enables combining learnt patterns.
That’s what UX designers do, and it makes a huge difference. For the command line, it’s API design, a part of language design.
Look at game design for possible paths to take.
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@dashdsrdash @MisuseCase @ArneBab @tante And even if we artificially draw a distinction between innate instincts and individually learned patterns, there is the possibility of "intuitive" software which relies upon instinctively known patterns.
I mean, we COULD do that, but why? No actual human users think only instinctive knowledge separate from individually learned knowledge.
... and as we are in space where language means things, using imprecise language like describing software as intuitive or instinctual is bad; we're not marketers here.
Uses CUA: good.
Obeys Apple Human Interface Guidelines (pick a version that wasn't completely broken: good.
"Extensively tested and revised by actual UX experts with many different users of varying experience": extremely good. And rare.
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Open Source hot take: A software project is allowed to be *done*. Not everything needs to add features or rewrite things. You can just be happy with functionality and focus on just maintainance. "Maintenance mode" is not always bad but can just show a mature product.
@tante Stable behaviour is also useful for people learning a tool. A tutorial that still matches the interface a year later saves a kind of work that rarely appears in a feature announcement. Maintenance can preserve that value without asking everyone to relearn the same task.
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Open Source hot take: A software project is allowed to be *done*. Not everything needs to add features or rewrite things. You can just be happy with functionality and focus on just maintainance. "Maintenance mode" is not always bad but can just show a mature product.
@tante Case in point; XClock. I've been having a ton of fun customizing my cwm setup on OpenBSD with the added challenge of keeping non-base software to an absolute minimum. A recent problem I had to solve was having a convenient clock on my desktop.
With, admittedly, a lot of fiddling I have something that works great and feels like mine. More importantly it makes you reckon with what software can really give you and how much complexity and "features" you really need.
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Open Source hot take: A software project is allowed to be *done*. Not everything needs to add features or rewrite things. You can just be happy with functionality and focus on just maintainance. "Maintenance mode" is not always bad but can just show a mature product.
@tante yeah I agree... But I just had a great idea on what to add and oh fuck this is never going to be done
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Open Source hot take: A software project is allowed to be *done*. Not everything needs to add features or rewrite things. You can just be happy with functionality and focus on just maintainance. "Maintenance mode" is not always bad but can just show a mature product.
@tante As someone forced to use Jira, GitHub, Slack, and VS Code for work, I wish more companies would get this memo. These are all products that were feature-complete over a decade ago, yet get continually "upgraded" to be noisier, sloppier, less stable, and hungrier for my precious RAM
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Open Source hot take: A software project is allowed to be *done*. Not everything needs to add features or rewrite things. You can just be happy with functionality and focus on just maintainance. "Maintenance mode" is not always bad but can just show a mature product.
@tante arch users: no nO NO
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Open Source hot take: A software project is allowed to be *done*. Not everything needs to add features or rewrite things. You can just be happy with functionality and focus on just maintainance. "Maintenance mode" is not always bad but can just show a mature product.
@tante
My prayer:
Pleez allow this software product [fill in the blank] to be done. It meets all my needs and I am now sufficiently familiar with its workings that I can do the things I need to do with it, and not at all interested in doing the things that I'm not interested in doing, and I can tell the difference. -
... and as we are in space where language means things, using imprecise language like describing software as intuitive or instinctual is bad; we're not marketers here.
Uses CUA: good.
Obeys Apple Human Interface Guidelines (pick a version that wasn't completely broken: good.
"Extensively tested and revised by actual UX experts with many different users of varying experience": extremely good. And rare.
@dashdsrdash @MisuseCase @ArneBab @tante I guess I just disagree about whether or not the word "intuition" or "intuitive" is imprecise language.
I think they are well defined. The fact that intuition is shaped by learned things is just ... part of our reality.
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Open Source hot take: A software project is allowed to be *done*. Not everything needs to add features or rewrite things. You can just be happy with functionality and focus on just maintainance. "Maintenance mode" is not always bad but can just show a mature product.
@tante
YES, I'd like to have some `cp`, `ls` and `cat`, but re-written in vibe-coded Rust, please.They played us for absolute fools.
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@tante
YES, I'd like to have some `cp`, `ls` and `cat`, but re-written in vibe-coded Rust, please.They played us for absolute fools.
@oraculix I mean many of the rust rewrites are also about stripping restrictive licenses. Taking GPLed code and rewriting/generating it as BSD licensed
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@oraculix I mean many of the rust rewrites are also about stripping restrictive licenses. Taking GPLed code and rewriting/generating it as BSD licensed
@tante Fair point. I still don't have BSD licensing much on my radar, so all these recent rewrites seemed a little odd to me.
