These links are about the software we use, the design principles to follow. Note that Programming Bookmarks and the Web Bookmarks are separate sections.
#Software #Bookmarks
@akkartik wrote about what he called freewheeling apps:
These are my suggestions. Prefer software with thousands rather than millions of users, that doesn’t change often, that seems to get forked a lot, that can be modified without specialized tools, and, ideally that you can make small changes to. Yourself. In a single afternoon. – Using computers more freely and safely
Using computers more freely and safely
Colours:
relogen is a simple script that generates Regolith color schemes using pywal. – relogen
Regolith is a modern desktop environment designed to let you work faster by reducing unnecessary clutter and ceremony. Built on top of Ubuntu, GNOME, and i3, Regolith stands on a well-supported and consistent foundation. – Regolith
Mind maps:
Freeplane is written in Java using OSGi and Java Swing. It runs on any operating system that has a current version of Java installed.
Daniel Terhorst-North ~~takes down~~ *reviews* a McKinsey article about developer productivity. It talks about having no women on board, about not naming the woman of two important works they refer to, about having no control groups, of having only anecdotal evidence, the real work that programmers do (which is only in small part about typing code), and so on. McKinsey Developer Productivity Review.
McKinsey Developer Productivity Review
How to get started:
Computers are everywhere. They’re in our purses, our offices, our TVs, our hobby-dens, our cars, and our toasters. Many of us spend significant parts of our days operating these machines in the palms of our hands and on our desks or couches. They entertain us and make us laugh. They connect us to family and help us find love. They help us get reports written and make project videos at school. They facilitate our work by crunching numbers, formatting documents, and helping us express our ideas. In a sense, they are extensions of our brains. But many of us could be getting more out of our computers. This book will show you how. – Digital Superpowers 2.0
Maintenance, or not:
The linking project’s code is provided as-is, and is not actively maintained. – No Maintenance Intended
Cold-blooded software:
You can freeze it for a year and then pick it back up right where you left off. A cold-blooded project uses boring technology. The build and test scripts don’t depend on external services that might change, break, or disappear entirely. It uses vendored dependencies. – Cold-blooded software
Visualization, text user-interface:
VisiData is a free, open-source tool that lets you quickly open, explore, summarize, and analyze datasets in your computer’s terminal. VisiData works with CSV files, Excel spreadsheets, SQL databases, and many other data sources. – An Introduction to VisiData
Users and software:
*Breathe out, it’s just fucking computers*, and there’s only so much I can do to make it easier for users to swallow the fact that management wanted to replace human interactions with software that they don’t want to use. – Nobody wants to use any software, by Jane Ruffino
The truth is: I don’t want to use a product at all. The ideal user experience is that I reach my goal without doing any work. The original user story format reminded us of this by staying focused purely on the goal. Task-oriented user stories replaced the goal with the work: all downside without any of the benefits. – As a user, I don’t want to, by Pavel Samsonov
Nobody wants to use any software
It's not quite a tradewar but a kind of boycott?
We help you find European alternatives for digital service and products, like cloud services and SaaS [software as a service] products. – European Alternatives
The enemies of free software:
Since its inception, Facebook have been very careful to kill every competition. The easiest way of doing it being by buying companies that could, one day, become competitors. Instagram, WhatsApp to name a few, were bought only because their product attracted users and could cast a shadow on Facebook. … Google realised that most XMPP interactions were between Google Talk users anyway. They didn’t care about respecting a protocol they were not 100% in control. So they pulled the plug and announced they would not be federated anymore. … In fact, in 1998, Microsoft engineer Vinod Vallopllil explicitly wrote a text titled "Blunting OSS attacks" where he suggested to "de-commoditize protocols & applications […]. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS project’s entry into the market." – How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse), by @ploum@mamot.fr
How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse)
The software bro world:
I shouldn’t have to understand the business models of every little icon on my stupid pocket supercomputer to get through life! … I had moved to Pocket after Instapaper first changed ownership in 2013 or whatever and I didn’t like the new owners, and I also can’t go back to Pinboard because while I used to love that dude’s writing he’s turned into a transphobic asshole crank so fuck him, but like, why do I even know that?? Why do I know what Maciej thinks?? Why do I know that DHH is a fucking creep and a weirdo which is why I will never pay for their email service which otherwise seems pretty cool, why do I know that Brave is the homophobic browser in bed with cryptocurrency bros, why do I know that the Kagi dude thinks adding suicide prevention hotlines to search results for “how to kill yourself” is censorship, why do I know about Matt Mullendweeb’s entire existence?? The modern world is unbelievably stupid, and if you don’t pay attention to the stupidity when something bad happens someone shows up in your notifications all like, well what did you expect. I expect you to fuck off!! – modernity is stupid: a rant not about politics, by @phire@phire.place
modernity is stupid: a rant not about politics
No colour in terminal output:
Command-line software which adds ANSI color to its output by default should check for a NO_COLOR environment variable that, when present and not an empty string (regardless of its value), prevents the addition of ANSI color. -- NO_COLOR
Commercial software, apps, updates, and enshittification:
The people running the majority of internet services have used a combination of monopolies and a cartel-like commitment to growth-at-all-costs thinking to make war with the user, turning the customer into something between a lab rat and an unpaid intern, with the goal to juice as much value from the interaction as possible. To be clear, tech has always had an avaricious streak, and it would be naive to suggest otherwise, but this moment feels different. I’m stunned by the extremes tech companies are going to extract value from customers, but also by the insidious way they’ve gradually degraded their products. – Never Forgive Them, by Edward Zitron
@yaxu@post.lurk.org writes about a tech project checklist:
While I’m in the beginnings of a new tech-oriented research project, I’m getting a lot from Ursula Franklin’s “Real World of Technology” lectures, which contain the following checklist for projects … – Ursula Franklin’s tech project checklist, by Alex McLean