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I think you could argue that there is a third basic mode of development - the free and open source software. I'm not saying all FOSS software is artisan or care

by robto 6y ago

I think you could argue that there is a third basic mode of development - the free and open source software. I'm not saying all FOSS software is artisan or cared for with excellent craftsmanship, but when I think of software that lasts FOSS software is what comes to mind: - emacs - PostgreSQL - linux I really like the Postgres example because it was initially just a bunch of academics who refused to implement new SQL features until they could do it The Right Way. See how long it took them to get upsert. I really hope that GNU Guix takes off in this way - just gradually doing things The Right Way until the product is just the default institution.

l0b0 6y ago
Some of the FOSS greats really seem to be built to last. I totally expect to still be using Linux, Firefox, Postgres, VLC, and heaps more decades from now. So why are there so many day-to-day tasks which are still just painful using the most popular tools available? IDEs, email clients, calendars, WYSIWYG editors and spreadsheets are still decades behind their closed source counterparts.
- ac29 6y ago
  > email clients, calendars, WYSIWYG editors and spreadsheets The web killed serious desktop development of these outside of Microsoft. Google's services are good enough for everyone else, and run pretty much everywhere that has a reasonably modern web browser. As a desktop Linux user for the past ~2 decades, I'm mostly happy about this.