are tucked away behind unintuitive context menus

That are well documented and don’t change once you figure out where they are. “UX” is code for “we’ll rearrange everything you need twice a year and force you to constantly re-learn our app because fuck you.”

if you open the app for the first time and immediately think “this looks like it was last updated in 2003”, it’s not a good thing

Why not? To me it’s reassuring because it means the procedures I memorized years ago probably haven’t changed. It’s the same reason people like the command line so much. Office software UI is a solved problem and arguably peaked in 2003 before MS Office started adding all the bullshit, it doesn’t need to be updated every single year.

Boo. It’s one of the last GUI software without user infantilization syndrome. Go use Google Docs if you want your software to coddle you.

I swear if LibreOffice starts talking to me like I’m a child like MS Office does or starts having animations that actively slow me down and spike my CPU usage just to open a menu or something.

Also, I’ve noticed a pretty strong correlation between “modern UX” and instability in office software. I don’t think I’ve ever had LibreOffice crash on me, the last major UX revision of MS Office definitely crashed more often than LibreOffice, and the latest version of MS Office crashes at least once every time I have to use it taking my unsaved work with it even with autosave on. I don’t know what “experience” they’re aiming for but not crashing and causing data loss should probably be prioritized over making it look pretty.

Interesting. Thank you for elaborating.

“No longer needed” is probably never going to happen, but IMO needed by fewer companies is inevitable. I see “vibe coding” as an extension to those website builders like Squarespace, definitely not suitable for a large website or a company whose entire business model is software and/or web based services, but good enough that the owner of a small, non-tech company who just happens to need a website or simple app can do it themselves instead of paying someone on Fiverr or something to do it. Unfortunately that means the options for new developers looking for easy experience building jobs that could eventually help them land a better paying position will be even more limited than it is now.

Can you elaborate? I’d like to learn what I’m thinking or doing wrong.

This raises an interesting issue: Should house guests expect to be given Wi-Fi access? I’ve personally never even asked for Wi-Fi when I go over to someone else’s house because frankly I don’t trust their network. I don’t know what “smart devices” are port scanning every other device or collecting MAC addresses, I don’t know if they’ve ever updated their router firmware and if it’s been infected by the numerous malware automatically scanning the internet for unpatched routers. Not worth it, I’d rather use mobile data or not access the internet until I go home. Also I don’t want Google or Cloudflare to know who my friends are and where they live by having my browser fingerprint show up on their IP.

Super interesting. Thanks as always!

Is Erlang special in its architecture or is it more that it’s functional?

One day I’ll learn how to do purely functional, maybe even purely declarative. But I have to train my brain to think of computer programs like that.

Is there a functional and/or declarative language that has memory management features similar to Rust as opposed to a garbage collector?

but literally beating the flagship desktop chips in single-core performance

See, this is what I despise about x86. AFAIK it’s literally RISC on the bare metal but there are hundreds of “instructions” running microcode which is basically just a translation layer. You’re not allowed to write code for the actual RISC implementation because that’s a trade secret or something. So obviously single core performance would be shit because you’re basically running an emulator all the time.

RISC-V can’t come fast enough. Maybe someone will even make a chip that’s RISC-V but with the same instruction/microcode support as x86. So you can run RISC-V code directly or do the microcode thing and pretend you’re on x86. Though that would probably get the shit sued out of them by Intel because god forbid there’s actual innovation that the original creator can’t cash in on.

Doesn’t the Mac have hardware x86 emulation? Or did they remove that because they want everyone to move to ARM?

I would imagine at the very least the homebrew stuff all work?

You can also put Asahi Linux on them

How well does this work? Is it like Linux on Chromebooks where something could break at the drop of a hat and you have to fight the computer to get it installed?

With Arch BTW

Or Nix

Are RISCV microcontrollers out yet? Might be a good idea to rally around making a fully open IDE ecosystem and breakout board standard for it (maybe even make it pin compatible with the old school Arduino, surely they can’t sue for that right?)

I don’t use any but I’m sure there are functional languages where () is a valid function.

Karl Marx. And never. Marx is immortal.

“Hey Gemini write me a React app”

Academic tradition requires you to cite works…

Yeah looks to me like scaling artifacts from shrinking the image. AFAIK AI isn’t that consistent especially with high contrast shapes.

Proprietary software be like:

try:
    whatever()
except Exception:
    print("oops something went wrong uwu")
    print("also this is purely to get rid of the stack trace because apparently the only thing worse than not handling an exception is scaring the user with anything technical and/or exposing our trade secret architecture")

Oh so you’re saying the Church’s actions speak louder than the Bible itself?

Also assuming you’re Catholic from your other comments.

So, witch burnings, the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, burning Joan of Arc, selling indulgences, fighting tooth and nail against an English translation of the Bible so normal people can actually read it (and burning the translators for good measure), justifying slavery under the guise of “well we’re saving those slaves by forcing then to become Christian”, generations of science denial and suppression, and Indigenous residential schools. My what a great experience you’ve forced onto this world.

Also, if you’re so confident that experiencing God will turn someone Christian, what’s with all the hell stuff you keep pushing? Sure seems like the fear of eternal torture is your bread and butter way of getting people to believe.

That’s all well and good if you’re already working under the framework that God exists. If I’m not, why should I accept such a fallable and obviously human work as proof that God not only exists, but this specific God exists?