There should be an app, browser, browser add-on, or some other tool called Deshittify which does everything accomplished by uBlock Origin, Pi-hole, Unhook, DeArrow, SponsorBlock, Fakespot, ClearURLs, and more, with reasonable defaults and in one convenient package. God, that's a long list. For those who aren't familiar with those tools, they block ads, trackers, addictive designs on YouTube, fake reviews, and more. The web is a mess.
If anyone wants to steal this idea—not that the idea is all that original—please, go right ahead. Mozilla, Brave, someone: do this!
I enjoy the craft of computer programming, the endless desire to solve problems better than I did last time. I may enjoy it more than any other aspect of my job, and it’s served me well in my career. I’ve become a good programmer. I may even be a very good programmer. I don't know. I’m not sure I can make that distinction myself.
Is that enough? I don’t know. In all commercial art, the artist needs to sacrifice some amount of beauty and perfection to pay the bills. (I don't mean for that to sound too pretentious, but I do think of software development as art, or at least much more like art than most people imagine.) Too many sacrifices, though, and the work becomes painful. Where's the line? How much should one allow it to move? I don’t know.
I've been rewriting my Neovim configuration in Lua to take advantage of the built-in LSP client, leverage mini.nvim as much as possible, and use more modern plugins in general. I honestly struggle to understand why the process is so much fun. Maybe it's that perfect balance of challenge and relaxation, novel and familiar. It feels like playing a good video game.
In any case, as enjoyable as it's been, it has only cemented my view that Helix is the future of terminal-based code editing, at least for those who like modal editors. Setting up Neovim for feature parity with Helix is a monumental effort, requiring many, many hours of work. I can't imagine most people being crazy enough to do it, unless of course they find it intrinsically enjoyable. That said, given what I know about the Vim and Neovim communities, a surprising number of people besides me do find it intrinsically enjoyable.
Mozilla, just let me pay for Firefox. No telemetry, no Google, no bullshit. I get it. Nobody likes ads, nobody likes their data being sold, and building a web browser isn't cheap. Just let me pay. I'd proudly pay for a web browser that puts users first.
Be more like Buckethead. Do what you love, even if other people find it strange. Those same people might also find it beautiful.
Yes, many artists wear costumes on stage, but Buckethead, or Brian Carroll, clearly sees the world differently even when he's not performing. He's a soft-spoken, shy, reportedly very sweet man who sometimes gives interviews through hand puppets. He writes songs about robots and Michael Jordan and his love for his parents. He hands out toys and does nunchuck demonstrations on stage. He's said his greatest goal is to build a theme park, but he's also afraid to call others on the phone to talk business. All the while, he's one of the world's most skilled, creative, prolific, and underappreciated electric guitarists.
Here's one of his most well-known songs, “Soothsayer”. A lot of the songs on Colma are fantastic, and I'm currently enjoying “Padmasana”, which I forgot about until now. I also like the soundscape album Bucketheadland (remember how he wants to build a theme park?), but it's hard to find online, and that link may not work for long.
Be more like Buckethead. Be more brave in doing what you love.
“People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter inch hole!”
—Theodore Levitt
I read this today in the 2013 edition of The Design of Everyday Things, and oh goodness, is it true. For the vast majority of people, software is a means to an end. How easily we geeks forget that. The world is not like us.
My mother doesn't want to use Facebook. She wants to connect with relatives. She certainly doesn't want to remember her password, complete multi-factor authentication challenges, create a profile, change her settings, add people as friends, upload images, check her notifications… She wants to connect with relatives. What we techy types call “fun,” what we enjoy perfecting and tinkering with, my mom calls “garbage that gets in the way of what I actually want to do.”
No one wants to use your software. Well, no one but the geeks like us, and even we don't want to tinker with everything. Most people most of the time just want to get things done.
How different would software look if we remembered that?
On the password front, I'm certainly not suggesting we sacrifice digital security for user experience—being hacked isn't a great experience, anyway—but let's use something better, like passkeys. They're just as secure, if not more secure, and they're practically invisible. People hardly even notice themselves using them. That's a good thing.