The Virtue of Finished Things
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The Virtue of Finished Things
An email asking if my software was abandoned made me realize how the ideal of completeness has disappeared from our lives. In an era of mandatory updates and disposable goods, I reflect on the value of boring software - the kind that is finished, reliable, and simply does its job.
https://my-notes.dragas.net/2026/01/06/the-virtue-of-finished-things/
@stefano Thank you for an amazing piece. Just recently I thought about some examples of "feature-complete" software and how it's actually important.
fluxbox and lilo come to mind. -
@stefano but if you have no updates, how can you build a subscription model for your app? 🤔
@peterk exactly
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@stefano Thank you for an amazing piece. Just recently I thought about some examples of "feature-complete" software and how it's actually important.
fluxbox and lilo come to mind. -
@stefano Thank you for an amazing piece. Just recently I thought about some examples of "feature-complete" software and how it's actually important.
fluxbox and lilo come to mind. -
The Virtue of Finished Things
An email asking if my software was abandoned made me realize how the ideal of completeness has disappeared from our lives. In an era of mandatory updates and disposable goods, I reflect on the value of boring software - the kind that is finished, reliable, and simply does its job.
https://my-notes.dragas.net/2026/01/06/the-virtue-of-finished-things/
@stefano That's fine if your users don't insist on regular updates to dependencies to fix each day's crop of CVEs.
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The Virtue of Finished Things
An email asking if my software was abandoned made me realize how the ideal of completeness has disappeared from our lives. In an era of mandatory updates and disposable goods, I reflect on the value of boring software - the kind that is finished, reliable, and simply does its job.
https://my-notes.dragas.net/2026/01/06/the-virtue-of-finished-things/
Very insightful. Thanks.
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@mms Tiling WMs, I think, are more active. Most old stacking WMs seem to be feature complete with occasional bug fixes.
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The Virtue of Finished Things
An email asking if my software was abandoned made me realize how the ideal of completeness has disappeared from our lives. In an era of mandatory updates and disposable goods, I reflect on the value of boring software - the kind that is finished, reliable, and simply does its job.
https://my-notes.dragas.net/2026/01/06/the-virtue-of-finished-things/
Thank you for sharing. Interesting read
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The Virtue of Finished Things
An email asking if my software was abandoned made me realize how the ideal of completeness has disappeared from our lives. In an era of mandatory updates and disposable goods, I reflect on the value of boring software - the kind that is finished, reliable, and simply does its job.
https://my-notes.dragas.net/2026/01/06/the-virtue-of-finished-things/
Absolutely right! I use several programs that are rarely upgraded and work very nicely. Bluefish and calibre immediately jump to mind. Both have slowly added features over around 20 years that I've used them and have stayed solid. I have another one for maybe 5 years that has glitzy new features often and a couple years ago a bug appeared that is annoying and limiting. The upgrades keep coming (one came this morning) and the bug I reported and got an email back saying they are a small shop, etc., is still there.
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The Virtue of Finished Things
An email asking if my software was abandoned made me realize how the ideal of completeness has disappeared from our lives. In an era of mandatory updates and disposable goods, I reflect on the value of boring software - the kind that is finished, reliable, and simply does its job.
https://my-notes.dragas.net/2026/01/06/the-virtue-of-finished-things/
A really interesting read. Thanks 👍🙂
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The Virtue of Finished Things
An email asking if my software was abandoned made me realize how the ideal of completeness has disappeared from our lives. In an era of mandatory updates and disposable goods, I reflect on the value of boring software - the kind that is finished, reliable, and simply does its job.
https://my-notes.dragas.net/2026/01/06/the-virtue-of-finished-things/
@stefano The versions of TeX started with version 3. The next update was 3.1, then 3.14, 3.141, 3.1415, etc. The current version is 3.141592653. Each update adds a digit of pi, with the idea that every update makes it not much larger, but closer and closer to the ideal pi.
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@stefano The versions of TeX started with version 3. The next update was 3.1, then 3.14, 3.141, 3.1415, etc. The current version is 3.141592653. Each update adds a digit of pi, with the idea that every update makes it not much larger, but closer and closer to the ideal pi.
@vagnretur this is great
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The Virtue of Finished Things
An email asking if my software was abandoned made me realize how the ideal of completeness has disappeared from our lives. In an era of mandatory updates and disposable goods, I reflect on the value of boring software - the kind that is finished, reliable, and simply does its job.
https://my-notes.dragas.net/2026/01/06/the-virtue-of-finished-things/
@stefano It's not the same thing exactly, but your essay reminds me of one I read a few years ago about what the author called "home-cooked apps": software that solves your problems, but doesn't feel the need to be all things to all people. https://blakewatson.com/journal/the-joys-of-home-cooked-apps/
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The Virtue of Finished Things
An email asking if my software was abandoned made me realize how the ideal of completeness has disappeared from our lives. In an era of mandatory updates and disposable goods, I reflect on the value of boring software - the kind that is finished, reliable, and simply does its job.
https://my-notes.dragas.net/2026/01/06/the-virtue-of-finished-things/
@stefano Having software that’s “done,” doesn’t fit into any business plan people can think of. And yet it was always what I aspired to, as well.
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The Virtue of Finished Things
An email asking if my software was abandoned made me realize how the ideal of completeness has disappeared from our lives. In an era of mandatory updates and disposable goods, I reflect on the value of boring software - the kind that is finished, reliable, and simply does its job.
https://my-notes.dragas.net/2026/01/06/the-virtue-of-finished-things/
@stefano
I think there are FUDs.
"No updates" could cause them (especially security officers) fear whether or not there are vulnerabilities, even if there are actually none by design and "the size of codes".
Maybe announcements "We've reviewed our code finding CVExxx for product A by (3rd party name), resulting no same vulnerabilities exists in our codes. You don't need to worry about updates here." could help? "Updates" are not limited with codes. -
@stefano That's fine if your users don't insist on regular updates to dependencies to fix each day's crop of CVEs.
@TimWardCam just one more reason to minimise the number of dependencies...
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@aeva I like csv and ini files. Don't do extensibility, kids
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@aeva maybe we should go back to "everything's a file" and use the folder structure as the language
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@ratsnakegames @aeva oh, in that sense, yes.
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@oblomov @aeva Like, there's too many XML-adjacent technologies that come round the corner and surprise you when you REALLY can't be arsed to learn about them, but you have to do it RIGHT NOW to do the thing you're trying to do
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