Thank you for introducing to me in person the suckless philosophy, now I appreciate it more. Furthermore, that was interesting and I adopt this vision.
It is true that I am definetely not experienced enough to contribute, so at the best, I can use and promote of the simplest tools that are useful. On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 10:46:05PM +0200, hiro wrote: > > So it could be simple by its implementation, by its design, and simple > > to use even for persons rarely using computers if at all, even > > indication on how to interact with the keyboard are provided. > > I agree with your implications. Suckless is not about understanding > every shitty software in great detail. > I can divide into a careful selection of small useful, simple tools, a > bigger selection of useful, but not very simple tools and an even > bigger selection of useless and very complex tools. > > The biggest enemy is the last group. As it's also the biggest > selecting (specifying) it is impossible (I can smell, but I can't > teach you to smell). By selecting the first (base tools in my OS) and > second group (stupid extensions like ssl and webkit) we have achieved > the same much easier. We can distance ourselves from the third. > > Computers are complex, but their purpose is to make our lifes easier. > To put things on a scale, humans are anyway even more complex. > With the correct collaboration we're able to make computers useful, we > build good abstraction layers, interfaces that hide other people's > responsibilities and contribute to net benefit by doing stuff in our > limited domain. But we all effect everything together. > > We at suckless believe in certain abstraction layers and detest many > mainstream linux ones. > Especially plan9 and unix has brought to us the idea of the files and > folders abstraction, we are saddened by people reinventing less > capable abstractions for the same purposes. > > When you leave away most other shitty abstraction layers there are > very few left that you would need to learn about. Clearly some other > people on this list haven't done their job here yet, be humble, > please, cause you are not our genius and savior. > > The things that I value most are also the most simple. Finding > simplicity though is only to be accomplished by the best. Most of us > can't actually contribute much to it. So at least make sure that > what's already there can be used and what is clearly evil is > discouraged of by demonstration of real alternatives. If we were not > able to show off that our way is better we would have to admit > failure. > > We technologists are not the only ones who learned from Unix and Plan9. > Many normal people around me with very little computer training use > files and folders more wisely than most nerds could even dream of. > Some things are *not* a matter of experience, some are also a matter > of intelligence or even more banal, discipline. >
