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Free software scares normal people

(danieldelaney.net)
917 points cryptophreak | 6 comments | 30 Oct 25 15:07 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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squeedles ◴[30 Oct 25 16:12 UTC] No.45761639[source]▶
Good article, but the reasoning is wrong. It isn't easy to make a simple interface in the same way that Pascal apologized for writing a long letter because he didn't have time to write a shorter one.

Implementing the UI for one exact use case is not much trouble, but figuring out what that use case is difficult. And defending that use case from the line of people who want "that + this little extra thing", or the "I just need ..." is difficult. It takes a single strong-willed defender, or some sort of onerous management structure, to prevent the interface from quickly devolving back into the million options or schizming into other projects.

Simply put, it is a desirable state, but an unstable one.

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DrewADesign ◴[30 Oct 25 16:23 UTC] No.45761787[source]▶
Overall, the development world does not intuitively understand the difficulty of creating good interfaces (for people that aren’t developers.) In dev work, the complexity is obvious, and that makes it easy for outsiders to understand— they look at the code we’re writing and say “wow you can read that?!” I think that can give developers a mistaken impression that other peoples work is far less complex than it is. With interface design, everybody knows what a button does and what a text field is for, and developers know more than most about the tools used to create interfaces, so the language seems simple. The problems you need to solve with that language are complex and while failure is obvious, success is much more nebulous and user-specific. So much of what good interfaces convey to users is implied rather than expressed, and that’s a tricky task.
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1. ozgrakkurt ◴[30 Oct 25 16:50 UTC] No.45762139[source]▶
IMO they just don’t care enough. They want people to use it but it is not the end of world if it stays niche
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2. Imustaskforhelp ◴[31 Oct 25 05:59 UTC] No.45768843[source]▶
> It's statistically very likely a hot chick does not know calculus.

It would be honestly interesting if someone actually did a study regarding it.

I do agree with this statement but it isn't as if everybody doesn't have other opportunity costs, people might have video games as hobbies or just normal hobbies in general as well which could be considered opportunity costs

The question to me which sounds more interesting which I feel like I maybe reading in the lines but does the society shower attention to beauty which can make them feel less susceptible to lets say calculus which might feel a lot more boring respectively?

Generally speaking, I was seeing this the other day but female involvement overall in the whole stem department has reduced in %'s iirc.

Another factor could be the weirdness or expectation. Like just as you think this, this is assumed by many people about hot chicks lets say, so if a hot chick is actually into calculus and she tells it, people would say things like oh wow I didn't know that or really?? which could feel weirdness or this expectation of them to not be this way and be conventional and not have interests it seems.

I have seen people get shocked in online communities if a girl is even learning programming or doing things like hyprland (maybe myself included as it was indeed rare)

Naturally I would love if more girls could be into this as I feel like talking to girls about my hobbies when she isn't that interested or not having common hobbies hurts me when I talk to them, they can appreciate it but I feel like I can tell them anything, I am not that deep of a coder right now as much as I am a linux tinkerer, building linux iso's from scratch, shell scripting and building some web services etc. , I like to tinker with software, naturally the word used in unix/foss communities for this is called hacking which should be the perfect way to describe what I mean except they think I am talking about cybersecurity and want me to "hack something", Sorry about this rant but I have stopped saying this hacking just because of how correlated it is to cybersecurity to the normal public. I just say that I love tinkering with software nowadays. Side note, but is there a better word for what I am saying other than hacking?

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3. csin ◴[31 Oct 25 07:20 UTC] No.45769202{3}[source]▶
It sounds like you are a Linux UI designer.

Which is a rare thing in this space. Linux is rough around the edges, to say the least. You don't need me telling you. We are in a thread about how open sources software suck at UI design. We could use more people like you in this space.

The men aren't fussed with the "hacker" label. It sounds cool. It's like when people mistakenly think all Asians know Kung Fu or something. The Asian guy isn't complaining lol.

There's definitely stigma/sexism that deter women away from this field. But I think opportunity cost is a factor, gravely overlooked.

Society demands a lot from women, when it comes to appearance. The bar is set very high.

So high, you don't have the time to be a good programmer AND pretty. Unless you won the genetic lottery.

I follow women's basketball avidly. Some of the women are not pretty. They are just very good at basketball. It's refreshing to see women be valued, not just because of their beauty.

4. imtringued ◴[31 Oct 25 09:52 UTC] No.45770159[source]▶
I think you got everything backwards. I've seen a lot of people who are specialized in a non software domain learn programming and write their own projects. Very often these people know more about what they want to accomplish and work on than someone who has learned how to do software development properly, but has no clue about what software to develop.

I was that type of person when I started working. I had a burning passion to work on an open source project, but no clue what exactly to work on. Meanwhile at work the project manager gives me a ticket I'd execute rapidly to everyone's satisfaction.

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5. csin ◴[31 Oct 25 10:08 UTC] No.45770273{3}[source]▶
No I think we are on the same page.

The people who specialized in non-software domain, and wrote their own projects, are amazingly talented.

They are not specializing in 1 field. They are so smart, they've managed to specialize in 2 fields.

I bet you they also suck at UI design. And wrote projects like Handbrake.

It's totally understandable.

I don't expect them to have the time to specialize in THREE fields. There is an opportunity cost to everything.

6. chasd00 ◴[31 Oct 25 13:27 UTC] No.45771759[source]▶
I think, statistically, it’s likely no one is a “hot chick” otherwise the phrase wouldn’t exist. I get what you’re saying though, personalities and natural talent/gifts pull people to a specialty that makes sense to them and therefore they get good at it.