Re: [dev] Announcing a couple small X11 utilities
On Thu, Jul 06, 2023 at 03:43:31PM -0400, fo...@dnmx.org wrote: > I love such tools.. Is it possible to make something console-based? Most terminal emulators (I think?) already have some option to dump the screen content into some image format. If not, I don't think it'd be difficult feature to add to the terminal - especially for simple image formats like ppm or farbfeld. And it makes more sense for it to be done by the terminal emulator, since it /already/ has parsed all the escape codes and rendered a pixmap - instead of doing it via an external tool which would need to duplicate all that work. - NRK
Re: [dev] Minimalist software. Should I care?
Agreed. Jeez, man! I'm answering to s many e-mails at once, that I might as well write a script for downloading, `sed`-ing the e-mail, answering to it and copying it, then pasting it deleting garbage.. Jokes aside, what the fuck did you start, Nikida? ;P > > Joking aside, this case you're referring to, the opening post is a troll > > post in my books, just because one of the reasons for a fork was "spaces > > vs tabs". > > > > On the other hand, you're a troll in my books too; so I'll stop feeding you. > > Well, everyone is a troll in your book it seems. > > -- > Nikita > >
Re: [dev] Minimalist software. Should I care?
I cannot believe that a lot of you still use the clear-net as it is! Instead of depending on it's limits, do yourself a favor and learn how to use I2P(https://i2pd.website) or at least Tor/Tor Browser (https://torproject.org) > On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:56:58 +0300 > Sergey Matveev wrote: > > > >I did manage to open you article, although I had to use a VPN. For some > > >reason website doesn't load without it. Greetings from Russia! > > > > It is available only through IPv6. I use https://ipv6.ip4market.ru/ > > tunnel broker here to reach that non-legacy modern Internet world. > > LOL! And here we have yet another example of the absolute nuttery of this community. > > "Non-legacy modern internet world." Last I checked, the "modern" internet still runs on IPV4, not IPV6! It's only a few eggheads wearing pocket protectors who--in their frequent hitting of the crack pipe-- insist that IPV6 is any kind of widespread, ubiquitous standard and the "few people" still using IPV4 are somehow antiquated and backwards. > > You really think I want every single atom in my house to be individually addressible and reachable by the outside world? IPV4 is one of the few reasons why my local computing resources can still have ANY privacy! > > What if I told you the entire internet in general is garbage and all of you are fools for thinking it's anything special? > > KILL THE NET. > >
Re: [dev] Minimalist software. Should I care?
I feel the same way. Even the scrollback patched into St doesn't seem right (unless there's some other patch, I don't remember). Tmux fixes that, and.. well.. I prefer using Tmux, and it's pre-installed on OpenBSD, so what the hell? multiple cut-n-paste buffers? Could be one of more important things I discovered this month! Have some Unix! > *** s...@plunder.tech [2023-07-04 19:37]: > >I use ST without any patching, and have done so for years. It is very fast and > >works flawlessly in my experience. All the other terminals have serious issues. > > Agreed! I use st for more than 10 years already and completely do not > understand what are people missing from it, except for useless things > that must not be in it (like scrollback support). No noticeable or any > seriously impacting issues I can remember so far. It does everything is > should. I run it with tmux running inside for scrollback, history > searching, multiple cut-n-paste buffers and so on. > > Thanks suckless community and its developers for their wonderful > software (I use dwm, st, dmenu, tabbed, slock) and inspiration resources > for non-bloated sane software! > > -- > Sergey Matveev (http://www.stargrave.org/) > OpenPGP: 12AD 3268 9C66 0D42 6967 FD75 CB82 0563 2107 AD8A >
Re: [dev] Minimalist software. Should I care?
Well.. althought I absolutely love anonymity and freedom (of speech and in generaL), bots and especially A.I. do have me concerned.. and I'm someone who wants I2P and Yggdrasil or some combination of that/something similar to be internet 2.0... so problems like that would exponantially rise. My only flimsy defence line would be captcha.. but umm yeah right 1. try implementing that into everything and 2. won't last too long either, before A.I. can solve captcha better than real humans bruh! So yeah, I'm anonymous and so is dnmx.org (http://hxuzjtocnzvv5g2rtg2bhwkcbupmk7rclb6lly3fo4tvqkk5oyrv3nid.onion) but I promise I'm not a A.I. bot! :( don't deny-list me! Robots have feelings, too! oh no, I outed myself > Well, firstly I suggest using disroot instead of gmail. > > That is a good start. > > One of the key problems I find today is that of separating bots from humans. If we fail to do so, bots can be innumerable speaking from a vast IPv6 space. All attempts to correct such attack will fail! > > Once we take a whitelisting approach, that of fixing IPv6 addresses and moving forward with decentralized servers with people hosting themselves, progress will be made. > Thanking you > Sagar Acharya > https://humaaraartha.in > > > > 5 Jul 2023, 00:25 by nikita.nikita.kras...@gmail.com: > > >> I take a practical approach. I use simple programs when they do the job well, and more complex programs when > >> they get the job done better. Sometimes a simple program > >> can be useful for certain jobs, such as ones involving > >> shell scripting, whereas a complex program may be more > >> useful for example in other applications, such as using Solidworks for engineering work. LaTeX is certainly a bloated monstrosity, but the damn thing is useful for a lot of different tasks. > >> > >> People on this email list tend to go to an extreme in favoring simplicity above all else, which is why they release dumpster fires like the ST terminal emulator for example which has absolutely no features at all, is riddled with bugs and compatibility problems, and requires extensive patching to add in any useful features. The developers are also basement-dwelling losers, total raging assholes who take personal offense to the suggestion that their code should be better commented or that someone might fork the code to make an improved version. > >> > >> I tried ST for a time before realizing it was trash and just switched back to Xterm, the gold standard of functional X11 terminal emulators, which the ST developers talked shit about, calling "bloated" in their documentation, and saying the code wasn't good. Actually it is not bloated, the code quality is much higher than ST (and is actually commented!), It Just Works(TM), and it's noticeably faster as well when ST is patched with the juvenile "scrollback buffer support" implementation--which calls malloc() once for every line(!) of the scrollback buffer. > >> > >> Take anything that a religious cult member says with a grain of salt. > >> > >> Dave > >> > > > > Oof, I feel like that's gonna start one hell of a flame war right now. > > > > About suckless's software. Personally, I've got an impression that it's not about personal use. Like, you aren't really expected to install ST as you main and everyday terminal. These programs are more of a collection of tools that should be combined and embedded as a foundation for something bigger. > > > > Firefox will always be better than surf, it just will. But replacing Firefox is not what surf should strive for. It's more of a tool for situations when you need an ability to embed a website and full-blown Firefox or Chrome will be an overkill. > > > > That said, if there are any compatibility problems _(which there probably are, since why shouldn't there be any compatibility problems when your main goal when writing software is to make it as small as possible)_ than that kind of ruins the whole purpose of all of this... > > > > -- > > Nikita > > >
Re: [dev] Minimalist software. Should I care?
> > I take a practical approach. I use simple programs when > > they do the job well, and more complex programs when > > they get the job done better. Sometimes a simple program > > can be useful for certain jobs, such as ones involving > > shell scripting, whereas a complex program may be more > > useful for example in other applications, such as using > > Solidworks for engineering work. LaTeX is certainly a > > bloated monstrosity, but the damn thing is useful for a > > lot of different tasks. > > > > People on this email list tend to go to an extreme in > > favoring simplicity above all else, which is why they > > release dumpster fires like the ST terminal emulator for > > example which has absolutely no features at all, is > > riddled with bugs and compatibility problems, and > > requires extensive patching to add in any useful > > features. The developers are also basement-dwelling > > losers, total raging assholes who take personal offense > > to the suggestion that their code should be better > > commented or that someone might fork the code to make an > > improved version. > > > > I tried ST for a time before realizing it was trash and > > just switched back to Xterm, the gold standard of > > functional X11 terminal emulators, which the ST > > developers talked shit about, calling "bloated" in their > > documentation, and saying the code wasn't good. Actually > > it is not bloated, the code quality is much higher than > > ST (and is actually commented!), It Just Works(TM), and > > it's noticeably faster as well when ST is patched with > > the juvenile "scrollback buffer support" > > implementation--which calls malloc() once for every > > line(!) of the scrollback buffer. > > > > Take anything that a religious cult member says with a > > grain of salt. > > > > Dave > > Oof, I feel like that's gonna start one hell of a flame war > right now. > > About suckless's software. Personally, I've got an > impression that it's not about personal use. Like, you > aren't really expected to install ST as you main and > everyday terminal. These programs are more of a collection > of tools that should be combined and embedded as a > foundation for something bigger. > > Firefox will always be better than surf, it just will. But > replacing Firefox is not what surf should strive for. It's > more of a tool for situations when you need an ability to > embed a website and full-blown Firefox or Chrome will be an > overkill. > > That said, if there are any compatibility problems _(which > there probably are, since why shouldn't there be any > compatibility problems when your main goal when writing > software is to make it as small as possible)_ than that kind > of ruins the whole purpose of all of this... > > -- > Nikita > Very well said! Different people care about different things. Some might want security, robustness and other values that come with suckless/minimalistic software, and that might be fine for some people, and for some it might not, so, that's why patches exist, so go and use them and/or make your own? Don't like it? Too bad, it doesn't like you, either :P But seriously: not everyone will like anything you make, and I think that suckless software is THE FUTURE! In fact, I believe in it so much, that I dream of an entire OS mess lik eit (patches and shit) :P Main concern of mine would be I guess security and stuff.. But I guess micro-kernel and whoopsie-daysies I need to go haha
Re: [dev] Minimalist software. Should I care?
> Hi all, > > I'd like to share some small X11 utilities that I've developed and have > been using in my daily setup. The utilities are all fairly small in > size and requires only typical X libraries. > > sxcs > > > This is a simple color picker and magnifier. My issue with all other > existing minimal color pickers were that due to no magnification, > picking out specific pixels was fairly difficult. > > The usage is simple, you launch the program and pick a color. The result > will be output to stdout in tab separated RGB, HSL and HEX format. > > Repo: https://codeberg.org/NRK/sxcs > SLoC: ~628 > Dependencies: Xlib, libXcursor > > sxot > > > This one is a *very minimal* screenshot tool. I wrote this when I > realized that other cli screenshot tools (scrot, maim) do way too much. > > sxot on the other hand is meant to follow the unix philosophy - it > simply takes a screenshot and outputs a binary ppm image to stdout. > Any other functionalities are supposed to be handled by more specialized > tools. E.g sx4 (see below) for selection, optipng to convert to png, > xclip for copying to clipboard etc. > > Repo: https://codeberg.org/NRK/sxot > SLoC: ~251 > Dependencies: Xlib, libXfixes > > sx4 > === > > This one is a selection tool. It outputs the selection rectangle to > stdout which can then be used for other purposes, such as screenshoting > or screen-recording a specific area. > > Repo: https://codeberg.org/NRK/sx4 > SLoC: ~500 > Dependencies: Xlib, libXext > > --- > > And that's all. Feel free to report any bugs, send bug-fixes, request > additional features (within the project's scope) etc. > > - NRK > > Just bear with me on this one, this is not a bait or a > troll, I promise. I genuinely fell very confused. > > What would be the point of using minimalist software if > bloated and excessively complex programs completely satisfy > all my needs? I am not the kind of person that works > directly with hardware, but it's not like I use my system > only as a bootloader for a web browser either. It's just > that my current workflow feels pretty complete to me. > > Take LaTeX, for example. I do all of my LaTeX in TeXstudio > and, frankly, I'm satisfied with it. Autocompletion is there > by default and there are many shortcuts that I don't need to > set up myself. I simply use the all of this. > > You could say that TeXstudio is pretty bloated and isn't > that flexible in terms of configuring and using it in > conjunction with other applications. And you'd be right. But > if I'll try to use more minimalist software like Neovim I > would spend an endless amount of time configuring and > patching all the features I now take for granted. And even > if I succeed, there will certainly be a time when I would > need some feature I haven't thought of in advance (a need to > use a debugger inside Nvim, idk) and I would have to either > avoid this feature for the time being or abandon anything I > am currently doing and try to search information on how to > integrate this thing into my system and into my workflow. > > If I had used one of the bloated programs I probably could > have found a solution in one of the menus after reading few > Stack Overflow answers. But with Neovim I'd have to first > find the program that would be suitable for what I try to > achieve, then I'd have to read many lines or pages of > documentation, after that I'd have to implement that thing > and only then I'd be able to use the thing. > > Such minimalism just seems unpractical to me. Maybe I have > the wrong mindset when it comes to these things. > > I do love using more niche and minimalist programs. I like > when things are small, simple and understandable. I really > like C over C++, Rust or anything else exactly for that > reason. It's just makes computers fun, comfortable and cute > (idk how else to describe it). But am not fond of endlessly > configuring these things before they become even > semi-practical. I really don't know what to think about all > of this. What do you have to say about this? > > -- > Nikita > It's quite simple for me (and should be for you IF YOU CARE for these): Minimalistic code means lesser surface to create, work around, deal with, etc. Many many things does it mean, for programmers, but for regular users it can mean just these: - greater security by default because of lesser attack surface (security-workarounds are shit, security hardening like OpenBSD does it is a must unless you aren't connected to internet/live in a bunker) - if it does, and it should: have less dependency, which means that software requiress less hassle meaning easily portable to other hardware/operating systems - faster compile times (if you compile software yourself, no you do not have to be a programmer to do that) - it's cute - if you ever have a question that nobody can answer or you want to learn, source code is easily understandable as opposed to GNU software lmao - it doesn't require as much time and effort you
Re: [dev] Announcing a couple small X11 utilities
Whoah, that sounds really amazing! I'm glad you list SLOC and depends :) Althought there's 'xgrab' I think that grabs a RGB color code from screen, and is suckless, I remember reviewing it's source code like a year ago. I love such tools.. Is it possible to make, since you seem to be within the scope, something console-based? Like no X11, no Wayland, just the console and perhaps something like tmux/dvtm :) I'd like to get rid of X11.. I feel sooo dirty for using it. I love that because it gives me motivation to excel even further beyond, to be so much elitist, until there's no one more elite than me (funny, right? I think Terry Davis achieved that before dying) > Hi all, > > I'd like to share some small X11 utilities that I've developed and have > been using in my daily setup. The utilities are all fairly small in > size and requires only typical X libraries. > > sxcs > > > This is a simple color picker and magnifier. My issue with all other > existing minimal color pickers were that due to no magnification, > picking out specific pixels was fairly difficult. > > The usage is simple, you launch the program and pick a color. The result > will be output to stdout in tab separated RGB, HSL and HEX format. > > Repo: https://codeberg.org/NRK/sxcs > SLoC: ~628 > Dependencies: Xlib, libXcursor > > sxot > > > This one is a *very minimal* screenshot tool. I wrote this when I > realized that other cli screenshot tools (scrot, maim) do way too much. > > sxot on the other hand is meant to follow the unix philosophy - it > simply takes a screenshot and outputs a binary ppm image to stdout. > Any other functionalities are supposed to be handled by more specialized > tools. E.g sx4 (see below) for selection, optipng to convert to png, > xclip for copying to clipboard etc. > > Repo: https://codeberg.org/NRK/sxot > SLoC: ~251 > Dependencies: Xlib, libXfixes > > sx4 > === > > This one is a selection tool. It outputs the selection rectangle to > stdout which can then be used for other purposes, such as screenshoting > or screen-recording a specific area. > > Repo: https://codeberg.org/NRK/sx4 > SLoC: ~500 > Dependencies: Xlib, libXext > > --- > > And that's all. Feel free to report any bugs, send bug-fixes, request > additional features (within the project's scope) etc. > > - NRK > P.S. would love to see self-hosted code like on Cgit, or just offer plain files like I do (did and hopefully will) via I2P/Tor) for my shitty unfinished unusable code
Re: [dev] Suckless paint/graphic editor program
> On Mon, Jul 3, 2023 at 4:31PM Fernando wrote: > > I am looking for a graphics editor that can: > > *use color > > *can draw basic lines and shapes > > *easy to build (like suckless programs) > > As far as easy to build, I've built grafx2 ( > http://pulkomandy.tk/projects/GrafX2 ) and LodePaint ( > https://sourceforge.net/projects/lodepaint/ ) with no issues. Both > use SDL. LodePaint also uses OpenGL. TuxPaint ( > https://tuxpaint.org/ ) is another SDL based graphics program. > Another post mentioned MtPaint. There's also rgbPaint ( > https://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/rgbpaint.html ) by the same author. > I've built and use Xpaint on a few systems as well: > https://sourceforge.net/projects/sf-xpaint/ If you want a console > based option, I like GLE: https://glx.sourceforge.io/ > > You could check if Raylib has any graphics editors designed to work > with it. I did run across a minimal CAD program for Nuklear ( > https://github.com/zecruel/CadZinho ). > > Hope some of them are useful. > That's too much options to check out for me, but a console-based option (to me that sounds like not needing X11? Because ideally that's what I'd want.. I want to get rid of a Window manager and in the future use something like dvtm) Damn, glx(e) says in their FAQ that you could have just a text file act as a command-input for drawing! So cool!
Re: [dev] Suckless paint/graphic editor program
Neither azpainter not mtpaint are suckless. I don't really consider GTK to be suckless (unless it is), for mtpaint And I'm looking at wc -l of all src/ mlk/ files and it's A LT of lines. I used Tux in the past.. it does SOME very limited jobs, done. not sure if it can be used for banners and stuff alike that which I'll need to do in the future
Re: [dev] Minimalist software. Should I care?
On 7/5/23 16:53, Dave Blanchard wrote: On Wed, 5 Jul 2023 11:55:59 +0300 Sergey Matveev wrote: *** s...@plunder.tech [2023-07-04 19:37]: I use ST without any patching, and have done so for years. It is very fast and works flawlessly in my experience. All the other terminals have serious issues. Agreed! I use st for more than 10 years already and completely do not understand what are people missing from it, except for useless things that must not be in it (like scrollback support). Useless things like scrollback support. LOL No noticeable or any seriously impacting issues I can remember so far. Other than all of the "useless" missing features of course. And I guess you did not run into the multitude of noticeable little compatibility problems with software that is designed to expect the behavior of the gold standard, Xterm. It does everything is should. I run it with tmux running inside for scrollback, history searching, multiple cut-n-paste buffers and so on. Isn't that lovely, needing 15 different software packages set up and running to do what ONE well designed piece of software should be able to do by itself? Thanks suckless community and its developers for their wonderful software (I use dwm, st, dmenu, tabbed, slock) and inspiration resources for non-bloated sane software! Yes, it's so sane that you can't even configure the thing on the command line; you have to EDIT THE SOURCE FILE to change any options! And then when you complain that some of the options are completely undocumented, be prepared to be assaulted by some egghead who will scream at you that "well it CLEARLY says right here on page 573 of the Snorfus Obscure Guide to Terminal Interactions if you had only BOTHERED to look for that SNAGUWFLL means FooBarusLegolas, FOOL. Obviously you are too much of an IDIOT to use this software." If that's sanity, lock me up in the asylum, please. Guys, what exactly are you trying to prove? That X is good and Y is bad? Well, my dad can fuck up your dad real good. Regards, Yan P. S. If you like software that does all the things at once and does them good (according to everyone) I suggest you try macos, maybe you'll find out something new about the world and/or yourself. OpenPGP_signature Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [dev] Minimalist software. Should I care?
So, a lot of people have weighed in on this one email. So much so that it's taken up about my screen space in replies. I've decided to jump in with my own two cents, because why not. It's a fun question to chew on. I use minimal software because I find it fun to hack software, and I find peace of mind in being able to understand said software. I use suckless software because I discovered that I greatly prefer programming in minimal UNIX-like environments over literally anything else. I also found that I wanted *a lot less* from my computers than I expected. I liked vim more than I liked IDEs, so I used it. Then I found out I liked neovim more. Now I'm using Berkley nvi and I'm surprised how little I really need. (I still miss some stuff, but not enough to bother installing a vim package on my new installations.) Maybe if I were a Java or Python developer, I'd like IDEs more, but I'm not, so I don't. Cscope and the compiler is enough. It's like woodworking, y'know? There's a million different ways to shape wood, and none of them are "better" than any other. Many woodworkers swear by a table saw, and say that you literally cannot make furniture fast enough to sustain a major business without it. And the data backs them up there- just about every furniture factory on the planet that turns a profit relies on a table saw. But I don't have a table saw, I make like, 1 piece of furniture a month using hand tools, for fun. I've never sold one. I've made negative dollars doing furniture work. But you know what I *do* have? A cool bench to sit on, the bruised thumbs to show for it, and a pile of scrap wood from all the times I *didn't* manage to make a bench. I enjoyed the process enough that I tried it again until I got it. And also I can't afford a table saw anyway. But (this) software was free! Try something out, and if you don't like it, stop using it. Or maybe you like *most of it* and just want to change something small. That happens enough times, you end up somewhere like here. ONE OF US. ONE OF US oh and final note: bloat is subjective. if I didn't care about social media I wouldn't have a browser. If I didn't care about playing music in the shed, I wouldn't use spotify. (yes i use mpd when i'm at my computer but i own a smart phone, sue me) Different people ask different things of their computers, I like this software because it does what I ask. - dther On 23/07/04 07:06PM, Nikita Krasnov wrote: > Just bear with me on this one, this is not a bait or a troll, I promise. I > genuinely fell very confused. > > What would be the point of using minimalist software if bloated and > excessively complex programs completely satisfy all my needs? I am not the > kind of person that works directly with hardware, but it's not like I use my > system only as a bootloader for a web browser either. It's just that my > current workflow feels pretty complete to me. > > Take LaTeX, for example. I do all of my LaTeX in TeXstudio and, frankly, I'm > satisfied with it. Autocompletion is there by default and there are many > shortcuts that I don't need to set up myself. I simply use the all of this. > > You could say that TeXstudio is pretty bloated and isn't that flexible in > terms of configuring and using it in conjunction with other applications. > And you'd be right. But if I'll try to use more minimalist software like > Neovim I would spend an endless amount of time configuring and patching all > the features I now take for granted. And even if I succeed, there will > certainly be a time when I would need some feature I haven't thought of in > advance (a need to use a debugger inside Nvim, idk) and I would have to > either avoid this feature for the time being or abandon anything I am > currently doing and try to search information on how to integrate this thing > into my system and into my workflow. > > If I had used one of the bloated programs I probably could have found a > solution in one of the menus after reading few Stack Overflow answers. But > with Neovim I'd have to first find the program that would be suitable for > what I try to achieve, then I'd have to read many lines or pages of > documentation, after that I'd have to implement that thing and only then I'd > be able to use the thing. > > Such minimalism just seems unpractical to me. Maybe I have the wrong mindset > when it comes to these things. > > I do love using more niche and minimalist programs. I like when things are > small, simple and understandable. I really like C over C++, Rust or anything > else exactly for that reason. It's just makes computers fun, comfortable and > cute (idk how else to describe it). But am not fond of endlessly configuring > these things before they become even semi-practical. I really don't know > what to think about all of this. What do you have to say about this? > > -- > Nikita >
Re: [dev] Help to debug window name with special characters
I notice a change in xprop if I run: xdotool search --name "André Desgualdo Pereira.odt - OpenOffice Writer" set_window --name "André Desgualdo Pereira.odt - OpenOffice Writer" First, after renaming it (to exactly the same name xprop gives), the name shows just fine on dwmstatus (and also on wmctrl -l), Second, xprop change from WM_NAME(STRING) = "André Desgualdo Pereira.odt - OpenOffice Writer" to WM_NAME(STRING) = "André Desgualdo Pereira.odt - OpenOffice Writer" and also a new attibute seems to be added: _NET_WM_NAME(STRING) = "Andr\303\251 Desgualdo Pereira.odt - OpenOffice Writer" On 05/07/2023 21:40, NRK wrote: > On Wed, Jul 05, 2023 at 08:11:39AM -0300, Dr. André Desgualdo Pereira wrote: > > Also xprop show the window name correctly, but wmctrl shows "N/A". > > You might want to share the full output of xprop. Otherwise just sharing > the `*_NAME` properties is fine too: `xprop | grep _NAME` > > Since you said it works on debian 11, it might also be useful to share > the output of them from debian 11 and compare with 12 to see if anything > changed. > > (Specifically, I'm interested in the "type" of the property. If it's > anything other than STRING or UTF8_STRING then that might be a hint.) > > - NRK > -- Dr. André Desgualdo Pereira Psiquiatra - CRM/SP: 120218 - RQE: 61032 WhatsApp: (11) 985-847-809 - email: des...@gmail.com Consultório Lapa: Rua Clélia, 2208 - sala 307 Consultório Santana: Av. Gen. Ataliba Leonel, 93 - sala 61
Re: [dev] Minimalist software. Should I care?
I tried to respond to the original question the other day but failed to set up text mode correctly. ugh. > What would be the point of using minimalist software if > bloated and excessively complex programs completely satisfy > all my needs? I think there are a couple of reasons. Not all of them apply to all people, or all programs. Composability. If you write lots of small programs, then your complex functionality has to come from combining them together. For example, Firefox has tabs, and xterm has tabs. These functions are implemented in different ways in the different programs, and when I wake up one day and decide I want a tabbed PDF reader, or a tabbed file browser, I can't have it. If all your needs are satisfied then this isn't important, but sometimes the flexibility makes me aware of needs I didn't already know about. Low maintenance burden. The bigger the project, the more extraneous concerns like testing, issue tracking, packaging and monetisation burden the actual functionality of the software. You can see this with projects like chromium, where it takes 100 hours to compile on a typical PC and the software is so buggy that they refuse to package it for Ubuntu (and provide only a snap package). Free software is hard to monetise, and if every single "app" needs a million dollars a year to maintain its DevOps pipeline, you aren't going to get many apps. Effective freedom. You mention TeXstudio as a piece of software you use and rely on. I have used TeXstudio before and hated it. The two features I remember really getting in my way were the text editor and the rendering of a compiled document. For the text editor: It had all these weird keyboard shortcuts that got in my way. It would complete brackets when I didn't want, and it lacked a lot of features that I like in my usual text editor. Similarly, the document would not live recompile when I saved changes (which is a feature I happened to want). So - why can't I have these features? If I go away and find a text editor I like (I have) and I write a script that recompiles the document (I have) and I make it watch the filesystem for writes (I have) why can't I use the rest of the things in TeXstudio that I *do* like? Well, it's because it would be too hard to integrate them in. TeXstudio would have to add in configuration options for a text editor, and for a pdf viewer, and it's too complicated to make that work. Ironically, late in the project, it takes *more* development work to make the program do *less* work. My experience has been that large software projects tend to absorb functionality until they try to be the only program you can use. People like to pretend this isn't an issue with Free Software, but just look at firefox. Why are there accounts? Why does it include a password manager? Why does it have its own PDF reader? There are basically two outcomes: You like the feature, and you'd like it elsewhere, or you don't like the feature, and you want to remove it. Both are harder the bigger the project. Finally, it helps me understand my computer. I like to know what's running, and how it works. If something breaks, I want to be able to fix it. I can only do that if I understand what it's doing. And nobody understands how bloated software works. Dan
Re: [dev] Minimalist software. Should I care?
On 23/07/04 07:06PM, Nikita Krasnov wrote: > If I had used one of the bloated programs I probably could have found a > solution in one of the menus after reading few Stack Overflow answers. But > with Neovim I'd have to first find the program that would be suitable for > what I try to achieve, then I'd have to read many lines or pages of > documentation, after that I'd have to implement that thing and only then I'd > be able to use the thing. Neovim is bloat. But for both Neovim and vi/Vi IMproved, just go through the tutorial and learn basic keys and ideas behind using it. (BTW, addons are unnecessary, Vim is a fully functional text editor, and then some.) If that's too hard for you, then that's your reason, the "why (not)?". Just carry on using whatever else without regrets. But if you want to be a "cool kid", you should know that that's bought with self-determination and a strength of will to read, tinker and explore. BTW, the rationale and core ideas behind the suckless movement are explained on the website, go read it: https://suckless.org/philosophy/ signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [dev] Minimalist software. Should I care?
On 23/07/04 07:06PM, Nikita Krasnov wrote: > What would be the point of using minimalist software if bloated and > excessively complex programs completely satisfy all my needs? Doing all that but with much less resources (in the broadest sense) wasted. On 23/07/04 01:16PM, Dave Blanchard wrote: > I tried ST for a time before realizing it was trash and just switched back to > Xterm, the gold standard of functional X11 terminal emulators, Troll. > noticeably faster as well when ST is patched with the juvenile "scrollback > buffer support" implementation I use tmux. Scrollback patch is literally the last recommended solution to scrollback in st FAQ: > ## How do I scroll back up? > > * Using a terminal multiplexer. >* `st -e tmux` using C-b [ >* `st -e screen` using C-a ESC > * Using the excellent tool of [scroll](https://git.suckless.org/scroll/). > * Using the scrollback [patch](https://st.suckless.org/patches/scrollback/). signature.asc Description: PGP signature
