Thread

1. dmdiefjeidnn · 1790567748 · focus · HN ↗

   I always find these ideas funny. Been working with computers for decades and never once have I thought software “malleable”. Maybe back when I had to actually type the program into my Speccy to get anything to work… but then again it wasn’t a “let’s make software malleable” situation, it was more of a “this is how we can distribute software right now” type of thing.

   Software was never malleable. User agency is a tale you tell yourselves to try and justify your rose-tinted glasses. Could things be better in computer world? Absolutely. But you could’ve ask us the same way back then and the answer would still be “absolutely”.

   1. josephg · 1790570697 · focus · HN ↗

      Sure, but the point is to try and fix that.

      Our software is already malleable in a bunch of ways: APIs, integrations, extensions, plugins and compatible formats (eg lots of programs can edit a .md file). But all of this stuff is special-cased. Every program that wants to read a .psd has to write its own - probably buggy - parser. I can't just take the data in application A as JSON - at least not without claude. And I can't connect applications A and B and have them bidirectionally sync except with hacky scripts which will break in lots of situations.

      I love the idea of fixing that.

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