Celebrate the Code You Didn’t Write, by @ryan:
https://ryanharter.com/blog/2025/06/celebrate-the-code-you-didnt-write/
Celebrate the Code You Didn’t Write, by @ryan:
https://ryanharter.com/blog/2025/06/celebrate-the-code-you-didnt-write/
Temma is now an official sponsor of Smarty a simple, modern, and efficient PHP templating engine.
A great fit for HTML/CSS integrators.
Huge thanks to Simon Wisselink for keeping the project alive and evolving
https://smarty-php.github.io/smarty/stable/#_2
https://github.com/smarty-php/smarty
#caturday on a Thursday: sleeping Qubit on the dining room table and Giro d’Italia on the tube in the background. Perfect Ascendion Day activity after trimming good old Openbox on OpenBSD. #simplicity is sometimes hard work to achieve. #toebeans
The Story of Fastify and Vue, by @anothergalvez.bsky.social:
"Simply This" teableau for 04/24/25
In a world gone mad, I have to start my day with some grace, however small.
Micro-Scrum, by @j9t [@frontenddogma.com]:
The original #LISP had 7 primitives: \(\texttt{cons}\), \(\texttt{car,}\) \(\texttt{cdr}\), \(\texttt{atom}\), \(\texttt{quote}\), \(\texttt{eq}\), and \(\texttt{cond}\). And the original #Smalltalk syntax could fit on a 5×7 card. That meant a novice could learn the syntax in a matter of minutes, and direct all his efforts to learning how properly to wield the power of that Turing-complete language. This was why, in the 1970s and the 1980s, many college freshmen were taught FP in Scheme (a more modern LISP) and many middle school children were taught OO in Smalltalk. These were surely the best "first" #programming languages.
#FORTRAN and #BASIC were simple, too. FORTRAN, the first high-level language, has been in continuous use since the late 1950s by engineers, who are not keyboard warriors. BASIC was invented in the early 1960s for teaching programming to non-STEM students at Dartmouth. It sired a whole generation of self-taught children in the 1980s.
Compare those to C++, Erlang, Python, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Scala, Rust, Kotlin, and pretty much every language in popular use today. Most consider Python and JavaScript to be the simplest of modern languages. Yet, they are massive, complex languages. No 10-year-old could teach himself those, nor should he.
The original versions of those classic languages cannot be used to solve modern problems. But they should still be taught to youngsters as their first language. Throwing in the kids' faces a modern enterprise language confuses them and discourages them. Consequently, many novices never attain that state of flow, when the joy of programming gushes forth.
#Simplicity is a virtue. Self-motivated learning is virtuous.
I like all #programming languages. I like even more those languages that an experienced #programmer could learn in a few hours, like #Elm, #TypeScript, #Gleam, and a few other similar ones.
I am not claiming that these languages will make all jaded programmers happy, for each has its own set of pluses and minuses. I am simply pointing out that "unquantifiable something" in their design that makes these languages easier to take up.
That "something" could well be #simplicity. The designers of these little languages seem to be more concerned with making the language users' lives easier through simplicity, instead of with impressing other language designers through complexity. This is also the same philosophy behind FORTRAN, LISP, C, and Smalltalk. And I would add ML, MATLAB, and Go to this list, too.
Perky Sue
Johns Canyon Road, UT
Stumbled across this older photo and found it very pleasing to my eye. I hope you find it so, as well.
Great Software Design Looks Underwhelming, by @sjgoedecke@x.com:
Complexity vs. Simplicity!
"An idiot admires complexity, a genius admires simplicity, a physicist tries to make it simple; for an idiot, anything the more complicated it is the more he will admire it. If you make something so clusterfucked he can't understand it, he's gonna think you're a god because you made it so complicated nobody can understand it. That's how they write journals in academics; they try to make it so complicated people think you're a genius."
— Terry A. Davis
The water tank is full, the wood burner going, batteries charged and composting loo clean. The splash of the otter between the bank and boat makes you smile. A simple life, off grid life, a life of appreciation.
#lifeaboard #offgrid #riverlife #simplicity #gratitude
I plugged a USB key into the Internet Box, formatted it, set up an FTP, and now I can send/receive stuff from all the machines with just a terminal/command line.
I love this old fashion method! :0)
And I save miles and time. :0))
On this site I have been reflecting deeply on the way we live – not merely as individuals but as communities and as a species. It is difficult not to feel overwhelmed by the numerous challenges we face: #ClimateChange, #Inequality, and #Loneliness, the last 20 years of #techshit to name a few. Yet, a simple but profound idea continues to resurface: What if we chose to live differently? What if we focused on building paths, like the #OMN project, that works harmoniously for people and the planet, rather than the normal path of attempting to repair what is broken?
This is not a new, humanity has long dreamed of utopias and alternative ways of living. Numerous communities have attempted to bring these visions to life, and admittedly, many have failed or faded away. However, these past efforts have left us with invaluable lessons, which is why, with the current #openweb reboot, I believe this time can be different.
The key lies in the technological and social path we collectively take. We are not striving for perfection because perfection is unattainable. Instead, we aim to create something real and adaptable. This is not about rejecting modernity or pretending the world’s issues will vanish if everyone adopts ethical consumption or #DIY self-sufficiency. It is about establishing spaces where people can collaboratively create, grow and adapt—striking a balance between #Innovation and #Simplicity, as well as between #IndividualFreedom and #CommunityCare.
This path is not simply my own. It is shaped by countless conversations with people from diverse backgrounds: #Developers, #Activists, #Educators, both online and offline. What stands out is the shared sentiment that our current way of life no longer makes sense. There is a collective yearning for something better—not to escape the world, but to build a way of living that reconnects us with each other, with nature, and with ourselves.
The path we can take, what makes this feel achievable, is that it does not require starting from scratch. It involves building on existing foundations—acknowledging both successes and failures—and asking critical questions: “What has worked in the past, what is currently working? What is not? How can we approach this differently?” This willingness to experiment, learn, and grow together is what sets this path apart from the normal #deathcult worshipping mess.
Yes, this might sound idealistic, and in some ways, it is. However, bold ideas are often the catalyst for meaningful change. If this resonates with you, I encourage you to share your thoughts. What changes would you like to see in how we live? What would it take for you to feel like you are contributing to something greater than yourself? These questions hold potential—not necessarily in the answers, but in the act of asking them. If you feel inspired to engage with this path, feel free to add to this thread. #openweb #4opens #collectivechange
https://hamishcampbell.com/we-need-to-live-differently-and-this-time-it-needs-to-work/
After many #LinuxMint #LMDE Cinnamon pitfalls moved to #Xfce, given that not being a heavy UI user (mostly CLI, IDEs and Firefox) #simplicity is the key. I hope
Not that Cinnamon is memory hungry or badly designed/implemented but starting fresh with just the bare minimum functionality, resources and complexity seems a good fit
Now the magic words:
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y && sudo apt install xfce4 xfce4-goodies -y && sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm && sudo shutdown -r now