461–470 of 543 posts
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I'm 200% convinced there are plenty of people out there who could easily be nerdsniped into building an open source dishwasher! Hackers get up to all kinds of stuff that doesn't seem traditionally fun!
If a group of nerds builds an open-source dishwasher as a hobby, the final product will be something too esoteric and difficult to use for regular people.
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One problem is that most necessary projects aren’t fun, and most fun projects aren’t necessary. Does anyone design dishwashers as a hobby, as an easy example? How do you propose we motivate people to do work that isn’t fun? Currently the carrot of higher pay or ownership in a more valuable thing is doing that, so we would need something to replace it if that goes away.
I'm 200% convinced there are plenty of people out there who could easily be nerdsniped into building an open source dishwasher! Hackers get up to all kinds of stuff that doesn't seem traditionally fun!
Computers have an unprecedented ability to reproduce value for free. Programmers need a relatively fixed amount of resources to thrive. (The value of resources varies by location but we all need things like food, shelter, transportation, clothing, tools, etc etc) If we can find a way to make sure every person has what they need to thrive regardless of their income, programmers can open source all of their software an…
For me, it is quite gratifying to ship, but for many people, the 50% (or more) of shipping software that is non-coding work, isn’t fun, and is usually deprecated, during the planning process.
Examples are things like end-user documentation (not just maintenance docs), training, error handling, accessibility, localization (a huge task), continuing customer support, legal checklists, patent searches, copyright searches, branding strategies, glossaries, distribution channels, evangelists, usage feedback support, synchronization between all of the above, and the Web site, etc.
Big fat, not-fun pain, but needs to be done. A lot of this stuff really needs to be considered before the first line of code is written, and the journey can take years.
The app I’m working on has been in development for over two years (but to be fair, I did “wipe the slate,” and restart, after about a year). The basic “business logic” is in one SDK that I wrote in about a month and a half. All the rest of the work has been chrome.
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I'm 200% convinced there are plenty of people out there who could easily be nerdsniped into building an open source dishwasher! Hackers get up to all kinds of stuff that doesn't seem traditionally fun!
Yeah, for sure. The only issue would be that I wouldn't be as interested in building an open source dishwasher for every possible (or even the most common) users/use cases, but for myself.
It's bound to happen at some point, right? There's a lot of people doing dishes.
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Is there any reason — other than "we're paying our graphic designers full-time salaries so we better get our money's worth" — why OSes have to change so drastically and can't be finished as well, only ever updated to add new APIs for apps and drivers to support new hardware features?
> only ever updated to add new APIs for apps and drivers to support new hardware features Sounds like it's not "finished" if it needs all these updates. As for why change the window dressing, the market for style changes over time. Why do car companies change the look of their products? Why does the outside of a cereal box ever change? Do the inside of our houses today look the same as the 80s? The 70s? The 40s? Are…
Software is a tool, a means to an end. It doesn't need to participate in fashion.
> Are you arguing that Windows and MacOS should continue to look like it's 1.0 release?
Yes. It should remain an option at least. Not the literal "1.0", but the version when a decent UX was figured out. For Windows in particular, that's clearly 95. I know people who used the "classic" theme in Windows 7 and earlier, which remained mostly unchanged from Windows 95, and are resentful of its removal in subsequent versions that they have to use in order to have support for modern hardware.
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An excellent product doesn't need maintenance if it doesn't rely on any online services. Once it's done, it's done. It does everything it needs and nothing it doesn't need. Engineering projects usually have a finished state. Software engineering is no different, no matter how much the industry wants you to believe otherwise.
Uh, look at curl. It is an excellent product, no doubt about it (or if you do, I wonder what your standards for excellence are), and yet we are here, at version 8.0, 27 years after its first release. Edit: "if it doesn't rely on any online services" That is a big IF. How many things don't, at least indirectly? (e.g. by relying on HTTPS, which requires TLS, which requires keeping up with current cryptographic standard…
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This is true but what does this have to do with this idea? Who says we need bosses and overseers to get stuff done? See: https://vorondesign.com/ "The original goal of the VORON project, back in 2015, was to create a no-compromise 3D printer that was fun to assemble and a joy to use. It had to be quiet, clean, pretty, and continue to operate 24 hours a day without requiring constant fiddling. In short a true home mic…
Respectfully, 3d printers are a special case. People aren’t building a washing machine at home. That takes industrial machinery.
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This is true but what does this have to do with this idea? Who says we need bosses and overseers to get stuff done? See: https://vorondesign.com/ "The original goal of the VORON project, back in 2015, was to create a no-compromise 3D printer that was fun to assemble and a joy to use. It had to be quiet, clean, pretty, and continue to operate 24 hours a day without requiring constant fiddling. In short a true home mic…
Respectfully, 3d printers are a special case. People aren’t building a washing machine at home. That takes industrial machinery.
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From each according to his ability. So far we haven't worked out how to square that with human nature, and it keeps failing utterly.
And yet 100 years ago Peter Kropotkin asked, "Are we good enough?" (to handle capitalism?) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-are-w... A single paragraph excerpt: "Men are not good enough for Communism, but are they good enough for Capitalism? If all men were good-hearted, kind, and just, they would never exploit one another, although possessing the means of doing so. With such men the private own…
Could it be better? Obviously. I’m not convinced communism is the answer.