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It boggles the mind that developers, who believe that software should be minimal and do one thing well, attach toxic political agendas to their software[1] for

It boggles the mind that developers, who believe that software should be minimal and do one thing well, attach toxic political agendas to their software[1] for no good reason. From a pragmatic standpoint Nazism (and all forms of racism) is pointless expenditure of mental resources and over-complicates life in general; which seems to conflict pretty strongly with their claimed ethos for software. [1]: https://twitter.com/kuschku/status/1156488420413362177 https://twitter.com/kuschku/status/1156488420413362177

eznzt 6y ago
Ever heard of codes of conduct?
- zamalek 6y ago
  Sure, but I'm referring to a developer community who specifically aims to create "software that does one thing and one thing only." Having a political agenda is doing another thing.
  - eznzt 6y ago
    They don't shove that political agenda into their software, do they? It's just something they do as a group of friends.
    - caeril 6y ago
      You're living about ten years in the past. Kicking contributors out of open source projects, or dis-inviting speakers from technical conferences due to their purely personal opinions has been going on for a while now. You don't need to act on wrongthink to get unpersoned by the mob. This has, of course, led to a situation where there are still a bunch of nazis, misogynists, etc, in our profession and communities, but they've learned to STFU and/or engage with much better OPSEC. So now you'll never actually know. Out of sight, out of mind. (to stay somewhat on-topic, yes, suckless, and dwm in particular, is awesome)
paedubucher 6y ago
I smirked a bit when I saw that picture, because the camo trousers and the bald heads look a bit edgy in that context. But hiking with torches is nothing strange here, at least not in Switzerland. We often do this in the winter, for example when walking to a Christmas dinner together with all the employees from the company.
- zamalek 6y ago
  Is calling a mail server "Wolfsschanze" also common in Switzerland?
  - paedubucher 6y ago
    No, that's not common. I guess that their humor is beyond edgy for most people. A related page is cat-v.org, which contains similar edgy jokes (see "Herrensystem 9" http://glenda.cat-v.org/gallery/ http://glenda.cat-v.org/gallery/)
    - bitwize 6y ago
      Dropping casual fash references means you probably are fash. We've moved on from not taking edgelord Nazi references seriously since the late 2000s. I knew suckless were assholes whose software philosophy was unworkable in the real world, but their casual nazism just makes me want to avoid them more.
    - skissane 6y ago
      The fact that it also jokes about Erich Honecker makes it seem like it is more about a like for bad taste jokes than a like for Nazism. East German Communism and Nazism were both odious, but they are largely incompatible forms of odiousnesses.
    - jhpriestley 6y ago
      I don't get the joke in naming a laptop after a Nazi stronghold, could someone explain it for me?
vlovich123 6y ago
The “do one thing and do it well ethos” is a UNIX academic philosophy, specifically around command line tools. Most software neither write code like that nor necessarily ascribe to such a philosophy. I can both hate the ideology and accept the software as having utility for me (not that I think I’ve used any of it, but in principle I have no problem with people being fascinated by TempleOS even though I am against a lot of the things the author has stated he stands for).
paedubucher 6y ago
Please also consider looking at the other picture of the same conference: https://suckless.org/conferences/2017/ https://suckless.org/conferences/2017/ "But Hitler also started his movement in the Bierkeller!!!1" ;-)
- combo6000 6y ago
  --- sck lSS ---
bitwize 6y ago
Actually it makes perfect sense. In order to truly democratize access to computers, you must meet your users where they are. That means you have to put in a lot of hard work and abandon your academic elitist norms of "elegance" in favor of empathy. The real world is messy, your users have messy minds, so your software is going to be accordingly complex and messy. Embrace this. Your users will be better off for it. Empathy is inimical to the Unix philosophy. "Do one thing and do it well" forces the user to cobble solutions together out of the tools they have lying around, and not all of them can do this. This causes stress. The empathetic programmer seeks to minimize stress by putting everything the user may wish to do within their reach, the unempathetic programmer just doesn't care. If you can't understand the system on its own terms, well, sucks to be you. This creates a hierarchy of haves and have-nots: power users, hackers, and the l33t who can engage with the system on its own terms, and "lusers" who cannot engage with it meaningfully at all, which suits the power users just fine -- that's the endgame of Unix-philosophy fundamentalism. Nazism and fascism are political philosophies embraced by unempathetic people, so it's no surprise when a bunch of empathy-deficient Unix-philosophy hardliners also turn out to be Nazis.
- transmogrifex 6y ago
  git gud scrub
- arp242 6y ago
  Congratulations, you've made the most ridiculous comment I've ever seen on HN. I can't stop laughing. The only lack of empathy I see here is a failure in understanding that not everyone uses computers in the same way as you prefer. That's okay, we're all different. You can do your thing and what works for you, and I'll do mine and what works for me. Signed. One of those unempathetic Unix types and Nazi.
- throwawaygulf 6y ago
  This is hilarious copypasta; it's truly a perfect example of Poe's Law!
- erik_seaberg 6y ago
  > putting everything the user may wish to do within their reach Your users are human, so you can’t predict everything all of us will do. This is why we want hackable tools to reassemble, rather than sealed appliances.

eznzt 6y ago

Ever heard of codes of conduct?

zamalek 6y ago
Sure, but I'm referring to a developer community who specifically aims to create "software that does one thing and one thing only." Having a political agenda is doing another thing.
- eznzt 6y ago
  They don't shove that political agenda into their software, do they? It's just something they do as a group of friends.
  - caeril 6y ago
    You're living about ten years in the past. Kicking contributors out of open source projects, or dis-inviting speakers from technical conferences due to their purely personal opinions has been going on for a while now. You don't need to act on wrongthink to get unpersoned by the mob. This has, of course, led to a situation where there are still a bunch of nazis, misogynists, etc, in our profession and communities, but they've learned to STFU and/or engage with much better OPSEC. So now you'll never actually know. Out of sight, out of mind. (to stay somewhat on-topic, yes, suckless, and dwm in particular, is awesome)

paedubucher 6y ago

I smirked a bit when I saw that picture, because the camo trousers and the bald heads look a bit edgy in that context. But hiking with torches is nothing strange here, at least not in Switzerland. We often do this in the winter, for example when walking to a Christmas dinner together with all the employees from the company.

zamalek 6y ago
Is calling a mail server "Wolfsschanze" also common in Switzerland?
- paedubucher 6y ago
  No, that's not common. I guess that their humor is beyond edgy for most people. A related page is cat-v.org, which contains similar edgy jokes (see "Herrensystem 9" http://glenda.cat-v.org/gallery/ http://glenda.cat-v.org/gallery/)
  - bitwize 6y ago
    Dropping casual fash references means you probably are fash. We've moved on from not taking edgelord Nazi references seriously since the late 2000s. I knew suckless were assholes whose software philosophy was unworkable in the real world, but their casual nazism just makes me want to avoid them more.
  - skissane 6y ago
    The fact that it also jokes about Erich Honecker makes it seem like it is more about a like for bad taste jokes than a like for Nazism. East German Communism and Nazism were both odious, but they are largely incompatible forms of odiousnesses.
  - jhpriestley 6y ago
    I don't get the joke in naming a laptop after a Nazi stronghold, could someone explain it for me?

vlovich123 6y ago

The “do one thing and do it well ethos” is a UNIX academic philosophy, specifically around command line tools. Most software neither write code like that nor necessarily ascribe to such a philosophy. I can both hate the ideology and accept the software as having utility for me (not that I think I’ve used any of it, but in principle I have no problem with people being fascinated by TempleOS even though I am against a lot of the things the author has stated he stands for).

paedubucher 6y ago

Please also consider looking at the other picture of the same conference: https://suckless.org/conferences/2017/ https://suckless.org/conferences/2017/ "But Hitler also started his movement in the Bierkeller!!!1" ;-)

combo6000 6y ago
--- sck lSS ---

bitwize 6y ago

Actually it makes perfect sense. In order to truly democratize access to computers, you must meet your users where they are. That means you have to put in a lot of hard work and abandon your academic elitist norms of "elegance" in favor of empathy. The real world is messy, your users have messy minds, so your software is going to be accordingly complex and messy. Embrace this. Your users will be better off for it. Empathy is inimical to the Unix philosophy. "Do one thing and do it well" forces the user to cobble solutions together out of the tools they have lying around, and not all of them can do this. This causes stress. The empathetic programmer seeks to minimize stress by putting everything the user may wish to do within their reach, the unempathetic programmer just doesn't care. If you can't understand the system on its own terms, well, sucks to be you. This creates a hierarchy of haves and have-nots: power users, hackers, and the l33t who can engage with the system on its own terms, and "lusers" who cannot engage with it meaningfully at all, which suits the power users just fine -- that's the endgame of Unix-philosophy fundamentalism. Nazism and fascism are political philosophies embraced by unempathetic people, so it's no surprise when a bunch of empathy-deficient Unix-philosophy hardliners also turn out to be Nazis.

transmogrifex 6y ago
git gud scrub
arp242 6y ago
Congratulations, you've made the most ridiculous comment I've ever seen on HN. I can't stop laughing. The only lack of empathy I see here is a failure in understanding that not everyone uses computers in the same way as you prefer. That's okay, we're all different. You can do your thing and what works for you, and I'll do mine and what works for me. Signed. One of those unempathetic Unix types and Nazi.
throwawaygulf 6y ago
This is hilarious copypasta; it's truly a perfect example of Poe's Law!
erik_seaberg 6y ago
> putting everything the user may wish to do within their reach Your users are human, so you can’t predict everything all of us will do. This is why we want hackable tools to reassemble, rather than sealed appliances.