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Comfy Software: A software aesthetic for hackers with depression
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
- andrepd 4y agoYou say > The author has zero appreciation of the concept that their own wants/needs/desires are different from others and then > You know what's good for my depression? My computer "just working" when > I don't have the time or energy or patience for Is this a joke? x) EDIT: In case you haven't read tfa properly: there is a whole community of people for whom this faffing about with their computer's configuration is a hobby in itself (see "ricing" threads on /g/ for example). The author himself says as much.
- pronounnoter123 4y ago> The author himself says as much. herself/itself, according to her bio (https://catgirl.ai/ https://catgirl.ai/). I feel like the url should have prompted you to check :P
- xupybd 4y agoI don't get the resistance to for profit software. My favorite editor is Rider. It's for profit, I pay for it and it's light years ahead of other options. People worked hard to produce that product they should be free to profit from their labor.
- unintendedcons 4y agoThat's fine, but is it cozy?
- guerrilla 4y agoIt explains it in the post. What did you not get? > In order for software to be comfy, the people who have the final say over what does and doesn't go into it shouldn't be beholden to a for-profit entity. > But that entity itself should be actually a community focus, and not just a thin facade around one or two megacorporations that just dictate what happens However good your for-profit software is, it can't be those things, so it's not "cozy." > I think of this as the 'no VS Code' clause: no matter how good VS Code is, I refuse to use it because it's fundamentally a Microsoft product and I want my text editor to actually be FOSS, dammit.
- yCombLinks 4y agoYes, the post says those things, but those things have absolutely zero to do with whether or not a piece of software feels good to use. I have lots of paid software that's lightyears ahead of whatever is available for free. If that doesn't fit the definition of cozy, oh well. I'll stick with the software that makes my life better for a few dollars a year.
- dleslie 4y agoFor non-programmers, non-profit open source software is at least as opaque and inaccessible as for-profit software. At least with for-profit there is some monetary incentive to support and build the software, even when doing so is dull and tedious or when the users have uninteresting or troublesome asks. For many people there's nothing cozy about non-profit software; rather, it teeters on an abyss of frustration and suffering wrought of poor support and indifferent developer goals. And before it's stated, paying a contractor to modify open source software is just another for-profit model.
- antonvs 4y ago> so it’s not “cozy” It doesn’t fit this one person’s proposed definition of cozy software. Not quite the same thing.
- agateau 4y agoI don't understand why people dislike GNU Info doc. I often do not think about checking them, because `man` is so ingrained in my brain, but when I do I often find them quite good. For example the info page for tar is much more complete than its man page.
- guerrilla 4y agoProbably a UI issue. 'info' is very weird unless your an emacs user. 'man' is just open and scroll up and down.
- hansel_der 4y agosecond that man page or web search
- meribold 4y agoDoes anyone know of alternative UIs for viewing info pages? Using less(1) would be nice, but is it straightforward to do so?
- gradschool 4y agohttps://github.com/baszoetekouw/pinfo https://github.com/baszoetekouw/pinfo mature project packaged for Debian and other distros, nice colorful curses-based UI, fast muscle-memory conducive keyboard control, you're welcome
- dotancohen 4y agoSure, that's how I do it. $ info git | less
- jwilk 4y agoWait, does git actually have documentation in info format?
- 4y ago
- spookyuser 4y agoWhen I think of comfy software the first thing that comes to mind is the aesthetic of kinopio
- lioeters 4y agoI'm guessing you mean this kinopio? https://kinopio.club/ https://kinopio.club/ The monospace font reminds me of: https://musicforprogramming.net https://musicforprogramming.net
- mxuribe 4y agoOMG, how have i never heard of musicforprogramming.net? I've used my own playlists (takes time/work to curate, and sometimes end up being too "peppy"), as well as things like lo-fi hiphop (which is actually ok, but sometimes too sleep-inducing...sometimes)...but this music for programming is amazing! Thanks for sharing!
- animuchan 4y agoThis is absolutely a thing. I also have a side project like that, a library that I can come back to after working 9 hours a day on some trash garbage codebase that unironically makes me want to commit die. It helps to know that there's a program or several, no matter how small, that are actually well thought out and carefully implemented.
- userbinator 4y agoMost of those points seem to describe the majority of software created by individuals or small teams from the late 80s to early 2000s, except for "not-for-profit governance".
- mahathu 4y ago.
- vladharbuz 4y agoI agree that the solution to depression is therapy, but it seems mean and heteronormative of you to say that someone who names their website "gay robot noises" has a problem. Perhaps you meant something else?
- mahathu 4y agoYou're right, it was an insensitive thing to say.
- hrbf 4y agoIt was possibly insensitively worded, but the entirety of your now-deleted comment nevertheless hinted at some deeper, intuitive perception. No matter how hard we try to politically correct our speech, some impressions are just rather clear. For reference: https://catgirl.ai/pages/robot/ https://catgirl.ai/pages/robot/ (see „why?“ section in particular) I genuinely wonder how one can voice said impressions in a way that is considered acceptable, without being hurtful, at the same time not missing the mark. Anyway, software ergonomics is not the answer to depression. I believe this to be rather clear as well.
- sk0g 4y agoThe very peculiar capitalisations in that page just seem very... Twitter. It's like a passive form of rebelling against the actual rules selectively, and capitalising random words they deem important. Fair enough Twitter doesn't have much in the form of text formatting (that I've seen), but on a personal website I'd hope you're writing MD or something where all of that is front and center. As to your actual point, I really don't know. One question would be, do we need to say anything? I'd rather be silent than hurtful, though I fail at that semi-consistently. Even for someone within the first quarter of a century in age, I feel the goalposts for what is (considered) hurtful moving though, so I am terrified of aging away from the currently acceptable norms.
- okasaki 4y agoI would add another item: stable design. Don't put out an update every two weeks that randomly removes or changes features.
- watt 4y agoI find it's unfair to single out VS Code without mentioning VSCodium, the open source distribution of VS Code.
- tempodox 4y agoDepending on what you do, there is stuff that only works in the original VS Code, and not in VSCodium. And the extension stores are different between the two. It's a pity, I'd much prefer VSCodium.
- idontknowifican 4y agoyou can do everything in vs codium you can in vs code, it’s just more manual
- loloquwowndueo 4y agoVscodium is a wolf in a sheep’s skin and part of the fracturing strategy VSCode spearheads. https://ghuntley.com/fracture/ https://ghuntley.com/fracture/
- turtleyacht 4y ago> It's because Visual Studio Code is a ramp to move the developer tooling ecosystem towards an end-to-end consumable services model of software development tools > Microsoft can step in at any moment to create legal crises that strategically divide the market from a business perspective because like Apple and their AppStore: it is their ecosystem that they control and they are in absolute control > Microsoft can easily fork open-source communities by changing towards proprietary defaults ("strategically divide the market") as Microsoft has already done twice so far. The way Microsoft forks open-source communities is by releasing Visual Studio Code extension updates that make their proprietary offering the default once they have managed to capture enough adoption...
- sailorganymede 4y agoMy professional codebase actually really upsets me - sometimes I dread going on holidays purely because I know when I return to it, it’ll take me a week to get over the feeling of just wanting to quit. It’s really nice to see this post put out in words what makes me happy when I program.
- hrbf 4y agoWouldn’t the solution be to seek more of the rewarding parts of programming and re-evaluating exactly how destructive to your mental health working in that “professional” environment really is?
- F2hP18Foam 4y agoI agree with you, but it's easier said than done. Especially if you're already depressed, drudging forward can seem like the path of least resistance, even though it often isn't.
- hrbf 4y agoNo doubt. Depression is debilitating in so many subtle as well as visible ways. As parent is currently the most-upvoted comment, I believe it important to ask the obvious questions to maybe start a conversation.
- nicbou 4y agoPeople have bills to pay, and programming is one of the more acceptable ways to do it.
- hrbf 4y agoThat’s a superficial argument. Is permanently exposing yourself to a level of emotional stress that results in a semi-permanent depressive state really worth the money? I’d argue that if you have the skills to code, you are well suited for other areas as well, depending on your willingness to adapt. If you’re already depressed it’s harder to see alternatives and easier to feel trapped though.
- agumonkey 4y agoI find cute names rapidly exhausting. I loved it at first, but it turns into a meaningless zoo quite often.
- imwillofficial 4y agoAgreed
- zitterbewegung 4y agoDoing a cute name can work for a project that are public but when it is private and you don't have a good way to search for projects or even understanding why you would need the project it really confuses people. Naming versions is worse for Ubuntu because I can't remember what the two letter phrase is. But, a single word I can somewhat remember (macOS uses a single word).
- fallous 4y agoExcept for Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion, El Capitan, High Sierra, and Big Sur. They do have the benefit of at least referencing a single entity, unlike Ubuntu's naming convention.
- seba_dos1 4y agoUbuntu repositories are referenced by single word though (trusty, xenial, bionic, focal, impish, jammy, kinetic), you can pretty much ignore the second one and you're still being... precise (12.04).
- mumblemumble 4y agoI think I still prefer them? Projects with descriptive names, given time, will evolve and scope creep until the name becomes more misleading than descriptive. With cute names, at least everyone knows they have to ask.
- ldoughty 4y agoI agree and disagree! :-) I agree that you probably shouldn't have cute names for internal important things ("batman" as an internal server/project name is cute, but doesn't convey much unless you have a "bat" or "cave" or similar product/service/process). That said, at work, we have "Saint Even". This is a cute name for a common problem in our field -- Eventual (Even) consistency. When Saint Even (Pronounced like "Evan") comes to visit, we know we're going to have to either throw up our hands and accept it, or delve into how to fix it. One time, Saint Even blessed us with a 10 second delay. We decided to accept that one because the effort to fix was too large for the delay... However, we should be able to handle a visit from Saint Even for at least 1-2 seconds... It's also easier to say "Saint Even" (when first bringing up the topic, to be clear it's not a person named Evan), and then later "Even" during the discussion, then "Eventual Consistency"... We also get to laugh at the joy this Saint Even fellow brings us as we often need to collaborate to understand where the error happened / did it overwrite data or just stop a process / how can we better handle it in the future (ideally without forcing master-node reads.. e.g. a better detection/retry)
- bezier-curve 4y agoFor me, cozy software is maintained by people that have forethought about what might be unnecessary technical debt. I've seen messy PRs in both open source and corporate organizations get merged without much review. The problem is the processes. Maybe it's apathy by the people leading these teams?
- goodpoint 4y ago> Non-corporate / Not-for-profit governance People constantly forget how important this is. Tons of corporate-driven software uses: - competitive [in]compatibility https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/competitive-compatibility-year-review https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/competitive-compatibil... - unnecessary complexity - corporate-centric licensing - high feature churn rate - CLAs - open core
- sleepycatgirl 4y agoComfy software is cute, and cute names are important.
- nicbou 4y agoWe all have different definitions of cosy software, but mine would be software that feels right, and slightly magical. I remember trying out Python and getting butterflies in my stomach. MacOS gave me the same feeling back in 2012. The most recent one for me is Procreate. It manages to both work as a simple sketch book replacement, and a Photoshop equivalent. It's a treat to use.
- jcelerier 4y agoSo interesting, I have an extremely averse reaction whenever I used (and still have to use) the three software you mentioned. They are as far as possible as what is comfy for me.
- camgunz 4y agoWhat is comfy for you?
- jcelerier 4y agomy basic i3 desktop - I remember when I tried i3 for the first time, I had put the intro video and just followed the keybindings and it instantly felt the most natural I had ever felt with my computer (having been through dos, win 9x up to 7, with aston shell, various stardock stuff I forgot the name of, litestep, bblean, xoblite, linux with kde 3, fluxbox for a very long time, gnome 2, kde 4, gnome 3, and a few others) https://zim-wiki.org/ https://zim-wiki.org/ - I'm still trying to find a way to make it interoperate well with my remarkable if anyone has any idea. bonus points if it can somehow work with freeplane for mind mapping... most kde software - dolphin, okular, gwenview are exactly what I want krita bitwig studio davinci resolve qt creator i'm trying to the software I mainly develop, https://ossia.io https://ossia.io reach my ideals in terms of comfiness but i'm not there yet haha
- camgunz 4y agoNice! Thanks for these, excited to read more about Zim Wiki and Ossia.
- dmitriid 4y ago> Customizability Too often the last thing I want from software I use for myself is customizability. Many years ago Joel Spolsky called it [1]: --- start quote --- Every time you provide an option, you’re asking the user to make a decision. That means they will have to think about something and decide about it. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but, in general, you should always try to minimize the number of decisions that people have to make. This doesn’t mean eliminate all choice --- end quote --- There's another one on how customisation doesn't scale and doesn't transfer, but I can't find it now. I personally want software that just works. Customisation often is an excuse for devs to not care about how software works, and to force the users into interminable twiddling with settings and options. No, thank you, I have enough of that at work. [1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/10/24/user-interface-design-for-programmers/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/10/24/user-interface-des...
- andrepd 4y agoI couldn't disagree more. This is a situation where you very much can have your cake and eat it: customisability + excellent defaults. If software A works is not customisable and works out of the box, and software B is customisable but has the same defaults as software A, then how is software B in any way inferior to A?
- dmitriid 4y agoIn an ideal world software B would be superior. In reality there's never a software B. These days there's rarely even a software A, to be honest
- _Algernon_ 4y agoCustomisability+Sane defaults is the best of both worlds
- alpaca128 4y ago> Every time you provide an option, you’re asking the user to make a decision. No. Options are a passive feature, they are hidden away in a menu. When software pushes decisions onto its users it's almost always a manipulative method to bully users into giving up their rights or money. Like apps spamming you with ads to push you towards a premium subscription, or the cookie popups on websites, or Windows pressuring you to register an account. All those negative examples are not problematic because of choice, but because corporations don't want users to make the right choice.
- dotancohen 4y agoWhat is with this depression fad? The advised features in this post are sound advice for anyone. I'm a happy software developer, why shouldn't I have keyboard-focused navigation just like my depressed counterparts?
- frankthedog 4y agoBeing neuro-atypical is now virtuous.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mmmpop 4y ago
- seba_dos1 4y agoSeems like that was just a silly headline that shouldn't have been put into submission title on HN (the page doesn't put it into its title tag at all).
- ThinkBeat 4y agoIt makes me cringe when I see the term "depression" being used lightly, and in this instance in my opinion used for marketing. It uses the depression the title and it does not many any further mention of it or justifies it.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoTuberculosis used to be considered a fashionable illness.
- mek6800d2 4y agoFrom a brief review of Peter Kramer's Against Depression (2005): Consumption (tuberculosis) was viewed as a somewhat fashionable disease, a sign of an artistic and intellectual nature. (It was probably viewed that way by artists who contracted it; the greater "unwashed masses" who also were afflicted with the disease had no such pretensions.) Of course, tuberculosis eventually succumbed to medicine and fell out of fashion. (It is still a problem in communities underserved with health care.) To a certain extent, depression has some of that cachet attributed to consumption by earlier generations, but Dr. Kramer thinks that depression will eventually go the way of tuberculosis and be cured with medicine. I've suffered from severe, treatment-resistant, unipolar depression for over 25 years. I respect those who are able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and don't let depression define their lives, but there are a lot of us who are not that strong, for whatever reason, and for whom depression majorly colors our lives.
- renewedrebecca 4y agoidk- in a way, it kind of makes sense to me... When you're depressed, especially if it's a chronic condition, having "comfy" things around you definitely helps. (I totally get your argument too, though)
- Entinel 4y agoI get where you are coming from but this seems like gatekeeping to me? Who here determines whether or not the author is depressed? Do they need to delve into their past traumas to satisfy the critics?
- karolist 4y agoGentoo, i3, polybar, alacritty, nvim, wallpaper set and a bunch of custom scripts and key mappings I can take with my dotfiles to any new install in minutes and feel at home right away is my definition of comfy software these days
- ricardobayes 4y ago
- dbsmith83 4y ago> In my opinion, the pillars of coziness (in no particular order) are: > - Customizability Customization is what I loved about software in the earlier days of the internet. It was just fun! It seemed like we were heading for a future where the average user could eventually customize just about anything, but we took a sharp turn away from that reality, unfortunately.
- golemotron 4y ago> In order for software to be comfy, the people who have the final say over what does and doesn't go into it shouldn't be beholden to a for-profit entity. Seems doable. You can have a lot control over hobbies.
- mft_ 4y agoAs a reasonably able amateur, anything involving Linux is pretty much the opposite of comfortable. I have a recurring pattern: I undertake some sort of project involving installing Linux somewhere, run into problems, spend huge amounts of time googling stuff and trying random solutions from forums and Stackoverflow, before strengthening my confirmation bias that "Linux isn't ready for the desktop", then giving up and promising myself never to be so daft again. Sadly, time always dims the pain, and it only takes a few months before the cycle repeats. It's depressingly reliable, whatever the project; e.g.: * using a Raspberry Pi as a wireless access point (failed, despite multiple attempts and approaches) * using a Raspberry Pi as a more clever USB drive for a Tesla's dashcam footage (never reliable, despite closely following instructions * installing NVidia & CUDA drivers in Ubuntu (nah) * installing NVidia & CUDA drivers in Fedora 35 (mostly nah) * installing NVidia & CUDA drivers in Fedora 36 (almost worked... despite 36 not being officially supported!) (To be fair, setting up a PiHole was pretty painless - props to them!)
- alexeldeib 4y agoSurprised to see cuda called out here, that one has been relatively painless over the years for me on Ubuntu.
- mumblemumble 4y agoRelative to OpenCL, you mean?
- tomxor 4y ago> anything involving Linux is pretty much the opposite of comfortable. This is extremely subjective, both the the individual due to their expertise and the task at hand... e.g doing much software development on windows will drive many developers insane.
- Etherlord87 4y ago> This is extremely subjective As you would expect, in a discussion about things being comfortable.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- throwaway81523 4y agoI like some parts of the essay but I read "cute name" as "cutesy name" and cringe. Also the "make common cases easy" with the example of "find" isn't so convincing. Find has a complete but complicated set of args, difficult to remember but cover every usage case, rather than just the common ones. ffmpeg is even more extreme that way. So I just use shell aliases to handle the common cases, rather than designing a whole different program for that. Also, man pages are much worse than texinfo docs that you can actually navigate! They worked well when they were literally one printed page, but are a terrible format for complicated programs. Trying to find anything in the bash man page is a frequent exercise in frustration for me.
- dopidopHN 4y agoAlrighty; let’s be mindful of cutsie name. Specially in professional settings, not everyone share your taste. For instance I find star war boring and simplistic, and the marvel franchises sound bling to me. Currently, I’m replacing 14 micro services doing financial transactions processing. Those 14 micro service where obviously way too splinter … but also they have Slavic name out of some polish folklore I think ? I think there is puns with the name and the function of the service… but that context is lost to me and the team ( that set of software has been written elsewhere )
- amelius 4y agoLearning to use a functional programming language is probably the most "comfy" move to make.
- kweingar 4y agoI’m not a fan of the section on governance. I can certainly understand why you’d prefer to use community-driven software, but this post steers close to calling for-profit free software “not actually FOSS.” FOSS is FOSS, regardless of whether the developer is solo or a megacorp, whether they accept patches or not, whether there is a proprietary build of the same product available or not. You can disapprove of some of the things these developers do, but don’t water down the definition of FOSS by adding extra stipulations.
- fragmede 4y agoMinor note: find takes a -delete argument so you don't have to do -exec rm {}\;. Just make sure to do it at the end because find will happily delete all your files if you put the options in the wrong order. Which is unergonomic but the devil you know.