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A desktop made for one

isene.org

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Re: A desktop made for one

#171

Post by blks »

senbrow wrote: post #102
blks wrote: post #92

This is nice, but is also leagues away from something you’re written yourself. Take LLMs out of equation, and you have piles of code that you barely recognise and barely can edit or tweak by yourself.

This just doesn't matter for a lot of us. We have LLMs that can tweak it and the tools work as intended. The whole point of this sentiment is that the personal tools wouldn't EXIST due to the time sink needed. The tradeoff makes sense for a lot of people even if it's not a good fit for you.

I don’t think the time sink is that significant with many tools, especially since you can take existing projects and change them. And it’s fun to hack!

Re: A desktop made for one

#172

Post by cardanome »

jpease wrote: post #66
sandworm101 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I shudder to think about the security implications of everyone rolling thier own software. I trust my OS/browser/file system is secure because thousands of people are invovled in a complex network of interests in keeping it secure, from the kid contributing his first bit of code to the PHds at NSA writing encryption standards. The idea that any one person can replace that network is laughable.

Just to be contrarian, perhaps some measure of risk is reduced by the scale of one. Identifying a vulnerability that can be exploited against many thousands or millions of targets is perhaps more attractive than a single one of individually low value. This of course would assume that vulnerabilities are in fact unique (which is admittedly questionable).

> This of course would assume that vulnerabilities are in fact unique (which is admittedly questionable).

Yeah, I don't think all that generated software will be as unique as people expect.

Considering it will be generated with the same LLMs that all share roughly the same training data we will se patterns of vulnerabilities will also be similar and so easily exploitable.

Re: A desktop made for one

#173

Post by chickensong »

geir_isene wrote: post #15
nine_k wrote: post #13

This is very cool. I wonder how much time did it actually take, and how much did it cost, because Clause Code is very much not free [1] [2]. It's more like hiring a robotic contractor, very fast, but with a serious hourly rate. [1]: https://fortune.com/2026/04/28/nvidia-executive-cost-of-ai-i... [2]: https://www.briefs.co/news/uber-torches-entire-2026-ai-budge...

I'm on Claude Max, so it didn't cost me anything more than the subscription I already have. Had to use it for Something. As for time - for the full CHasm and Fe2O3 suite of sw, I started the work 2026-03-29 and have probably spent 60h or so of my time. But then again I have a very tailored CC setup that I have fine-tuned since last summer with more than 70 CC projects helping me get it the way I need it to be since t…

Interested to hear about your CC setup if you'd like to share.

Re: A desktop made for one

#174

Post by lionkor »

paweladamczuk wrote: post #133

What about the cybersecurity aspect of bespoke software? A cybersecurity research company can now spend a small fortune on finding zero days in iOS because of the amount of people that use it. It basically guarantees there will be clients like government agencies willing to pay through the nose for the exploits. Software made for one might disrupt this business model.

Software made for one, made by LLMs which regurgitate the average of existing tools, are going to have more security issues, not less.

Re: A desktop made for one

#175

Post by graemep »

sandworm101 wrote: post #54
redfloatplane wrote: post #22

I (and I'm sure many others) have been thinking about this a lot over the last couple of months. I called it "Extremely Personal Software" in a blog post a few months ago ( https://redfloatplane.lol/blog/14-releasing-software-now/ ) but there are lots of names and concepts floating about for the same basic idea. I think it's possible the amount of new software that will be written for an audience of 1-10 will be grea…

I shudder to think about the security implications of everyone rolling thier own software. I trust my OS/browser/file system is secure because thousands of people are invovled in a complex network of interests in keeping it secure, from the kid contributing his first bit of code to the PHds at NSA writing encryption standards. The idea that any one person can replace that network is laughable.

The article is about desktop software. If it does not accept network connections what is the risk? If it needs to do so you can run restrict it to you LAN or a VPN or over access it an ssh tunnel. If it replaces something you use over the public internet (e.g. SaaS) it might even be more secure.

Rolling your own might make you more vulnerable to targetted attacks, but less vulnerable to automated attacks looking for known weaknesses. Most people will not publish their code. The article says "It’s not an invitation to use my software. Honestly, please don’t. None of it is built for you.".

You can roll your own software and still use libraries for security sensitive things like encryption.

Even the author of this article (who is taking it much further than most people will) still uses Firefox, Weechat, and X11.

Re: A desktop made for one

#177

Post by boomlinde »

swaits wrote: post #18
jgilias wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they basically generated a desktop for themselves, what’s the chance they didn’t generate the article? I think pretty slim. Also, reading it is probably not the intended use. It’s probably: “Hey Claude, give me a TLDR of this”

Who cares? It’s their content. If they hired an editor to help them, cool. If the content doesn’t suit you, move on. But the incessant “AI was used here, thus is it garbage” is long past time to enter the grave.

That no one cared enough to write it is usually a good indication that I should not care to read it either.

Re: A desktop made for one

#178

Post by lionkor »

CHasm[0] is a bit of a joke, right? Did it take a lot of Claude massaging to get it to ignore basic engineering knowledge, like that compilers write better assembly than any other tool or person will (in the general case, which this is)?

This kind of summarizes the whole post for me. I struggle to see how, on a platform that I thought was passionate about engineering, this is gaining any kind of traction. Writing GUI tools in assembly, not to learn, but for whatever other reasons, is nightmarish levels of silly. I get the idea of making software TRULY yours. I get it. This isn't that. Letting an AI agent literally vibe code your entire desktop is not an idea that would come to anyone's mind as more than the punchline of a joke or a side note in a dystopian book.

You're not making software, Claude is. You're not learning anything, and the tools produced are (by design) not really editable.

0: https://github.com/isene/chasm

Re: A desktop made for one

#179

Post by lionkor »

swaits wrote: post #18
jgilias wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they basically generated a desktop for themselves, what’s the chance they didn’t generate the article? I think pretty slim. Also, reading it is probably not the intended use. It’s probably: “Hey Claude, give me a TLDR of this”

Who cares? It’s their content. If they hired an editor to help them, cool. If the content doesn’t suit you, move on. But the incessant “AI was used here, thus is it garbage” is long past time to enter the grave.

> Who cares?

I care, because it landed on the front-page of a website that I thought was about engineering and hacking, not prompting a no-code tool and spending 400 bucks on it, to get something nobody else wants.

Re: A desktop made for one

#180

Post by geir_isene »

yuye wrote: post #168
theshrike79 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda like the woodworking analogy of this. I, in theory, can plane a piece of wood with a hand planer. But I'll never do it again, we did it at school in ye olden times before the millennium and it was boring then as it is boring now. I know people who get satisfaction from it, they take one sliver off with the hand planer, feel the wood with their hand and figure out the perfect angle for the next tiny sliver of…

I don't think the analogy works. You're focusing on the "how", not the "what". Using a mechanical planer, you still need to dial in numbers yourself. You design your own table, the more modern tools just make it easier to realize your vision. Another example: I enjoy writing with a good pen. But whether I write by pen or on a keyboard, it's still me writing it. However, AI does basically all the real work, only leavi…

On this; I think we may just have to let go of pride & kudos and their connection to our identity.
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