Software utopianism in a flawed universe - @enkiv2 : https://scribe.rip/@enkiv2/software-utopianism-in-a-flawed-universe-20dd51cad195 (Medium via Scribe)
Against UI Standardization: https://scribe.rip/@enkiv2/against-ui-standardization-791b8bbc4fbe
Personally I enjoy using a UI on my laptop is still consistent, I think that consistency does reduce my mental load! But I will concur that if something else better fits the task at hand, don't be constrained by consistency.
@alcinnz @enkiv2 people who can work with computers/write code are amazing, and we really need to be raising/teaching/discussing/harnessing an empowerment narrative.
coders wander into so many environments where they have such limited power, where the world is shitty & chaotic & they are just looking desperately whatever they can to hopefully coax things along. they're isolated, uniquely able to have real understanding, in a world where everyone just wants & doesn't understand.
but you. it's you. you're the empowered one. you're the one that can decide what to do, where to go. i see so many strains of fear & conservatism, and in the world we're set against, i totally get that bid for control, to regulate, to force order. but imo, the only thing that will have any real impact is a radical progressive agenda, is putting down "worse is better", and deciding, in spite of what the leagues of anti-ambitionaries tells us, we can and we will become better. we'll make real the better possibilities.
Totally agree.
But for a point: we are NOT powerless.
On the contrary, we are very VERY powerful, we just need to open our minds to our tools of trade.
Take bugs.
Intelligence injects vulnerabilities though bugs since ever and they've always had plausible deniability.
We can do the same.
The stacks we are forced to use are so complex and messy that nobody can tell an optimization from a malicious bug designed to maximize the damage to the capital in some rare use case.
USA Intelligence does this since decades, so it can't be evil, right?
@Shamar @jauntywunderkind420 @alcinnz
I write these polemics because if enough people agree, we'll actually have the collective power to fight against the institutional pressures to meter, commoditize, wall off, monopolize, follow manufactured fads in tooling...
Almost all of us, yeah
@enkiv2 @Shamar @alcinnz we disagree a lot over good technics- i personally find the web incredibly ennobling a platform, that provides necessary & vast powers to a massive range of people. my perception of you is that you judge the web to be technically overcomplex & in desperate need of pruning down. which is to say, reasonable minds can have differing opinions on what a good technical decision is.
but your point absolutely remains. working at a company is endlessly letting yourself do way worse versions of the job than you want to. it's letting awfulness stand. it's endless negotiation, often with people who have fantastically little idea what specifically it is they're negotiating about. often the amount of time really saved is far less than the cost of the negotiation, but it preserves the necessary power dynamic- of programmer as a "human resources" inside the enterprise.
@jauntywunderkind420 @enkiv2 @Shamar@qoto.org Worth adding: reasonable minds can also have different ideas of what the web needs to be pruned down to. There's such a wide variety of opinions there, I have to pick a stance to stick to.
Yup. Coming out of Xanadu, I have a vanishing minority opinion on this subject (one that makes gopher fans look mainstream)
@Shamar @jauntywunderkind420 @alcinnz
As a professional developer -- if I demanded that we make good technical decisions & refused to implement bad ones, I would be fired for insubordination. My fantasy is to be able to eat those consequences - for all of us to be able to - but it's a fantasy.
I have power over my personal projects, & that's it. I spend eight hours a day making abominations so I can eat.