An ode to houseplant programming (2025)
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An ode to houseplant programming (2025)
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Re: An ode to houseplant programming (2025)
#2This is such a lovely article. It’s one of the few things posted to HN these days that actually feels human.
Re: An ode to houseplant programming (2025)
#3Not sure we need another term for this, as "utilities" has been the accepted term for various one-off programs that do miscellaneous things, and of which power-users will tend to have a rather large collection of.
However, the term reminded me of a memorable interaction I had many decades ago with an old woman who wanted to write a program in x86 Asm to manage various aspects of the plants in her garden. (She did succeed at doing so.)
Re: An ode to houseplant programming (2025)
#4This is such a lovely article. It’s one of the few things posted to HN these days that actually feels human.
I also feel this way. It’s a breath of fresh air. I love the Blomsterfönstret illustration too.
Re: An ode to houseplant programming (2025)
#5This is such a lovely article. It’s one of the few things posted to HN these days that actually feels human.
Yeah this place has been depressing lately. The hope is that AI could be used to automate the parts of our lives that bring us no joy or growth and help us become fully actualised human beings, but instead it seems like it's just used as a tool to boost profits while making the world a worse place.
Re: An ode to houseplant programming (2025)
#6This is such a lovely article. It’s one of the few things posted to HN these days that actually feels human.
Yeah this place has been depressing lately. The hope is that AI could be used to automate the parts of our lives that bring us no joy or growth and help us become fully actualised human beings, but instead it seems like it's just used as a tool to boost profits while making the world a worse place.
As someone said, "Machines were supposed to rid us of tedious work. Instead they write poetry and create art, and we fill captchas to prove to them that we are human"
Re: An ode to houseplant programming (2025)
#7This is such a lovely article. It’s one of the few things posted to HN these days that actually feels human.
Yeah this place has been depressing lately. The hope is that AI could be used to automate the parts of our lives that bring us no joy or growth and help us become fully actualised human beings, but instead it seems like it's just used as a tool to boost profits while making the world a worse place.
It's the denigration of any and all intellectual pursuits that gets me. It's the myopic lead the blind, in a race to empty their brain fastest before the singularity can rupture them into the mainframe heaven.
Their irl counterparts at the university make me think it must be envy, the same as with AI art: they were never good programmers but have always envied the their prestige; and using this new wonderful machine, they can now live out their fantasy at the expense of others. For others it's just nihilism: why not cheat through your entire higher ed if it's now entirely possible?
But many AI-boosters here on HN were once respected programmers, so what else can it be? Fatigue setting in with age, exacerbated by too many levels of indirection in modern software, AI becoming a crutch to avoid noticing you're slowing down?
Re: An ode to houseplant programming (2025)
#8Not sure we need another term for this, as "utilities" has been the accepted term for various one-off programs that do miscellaneous things, and of which power-users will tend to have a rather large collection of. However, the term reminded me of a memorable interaction I had many decades ago with an old woman who wanted to write a program in x86 Asm to manage various aspects of the plants in her garden. (She did suc…
I like the new term which distinguishes it from "utilities" that are personal tools used for programming it self.
Re: An ode to houseplant programming (2025)
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah this place has been depressing lately. The hope is that AI could be used to automate the parts of our lives that bring us no joy or growth and help us become fully actualised human beings, but instead it seems like it's just used as a tool to boost profits while making the world a worse place.
As someone said, "Machines were supposed to rid us of tedious work. Instead they write poetry and create art, and we fill captchas to prove to them that we are human"
I prefer a quote from Dune - "Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."
Re: An ode to houseplant programming (2025)
#10This is such a lovely article. It’s one of the few things posted to HN these days that actually feels human.
Yeah this place has been depressing lately. The hope is that AI could be used to automate the parts of our lives that bring us no joy or growth and help us become fully actualised human beings, but instead it seems like it's just used as a tool to boost profits while making the world a worse place.
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