> A happy home: I love having both plants and homemade projects in my living space.
This reminds me of various programs I've made to improve the quality of my digital life. Humble little things that I didn't want to build, addressing minor problems that could be mostly solved by other means, but nevertheless appeared on my mental wish list often enough that I eventually dedicated some time to creating them.
These tools do exactly what I need, all day, every day, quietly making things more pleasant than they would be otherwise. With them, I feel at home.
Not sure we need another term for this, as "utilities" has been the accepted term for various one-off programs that do miscellaneous things, and of which power-users will tend to have a rather large collection of.
However, the term reminded me of a memorable interaction I had many decades ago with an old woman who wanted to write a program in x86 Asm to manage various aspects of the plants in her garden. (She did succeed at doing so.)
I was surprised when I actually dabbled in x86 ASM (in the guise of MASM which arguably is a higher-level language than direct ASM) with BIOS and DOS interrupts as functions - it's quite close to C and not at all difficult - just tedious.
A powerful editor/IDE makes it ... not the worst programming experience in the world.
And since it's "so detailed" it's pretty easy to understand and explain, unlike higher-level languages that "do everything for you".
"Utilities" is a generic term suggesting it is small, potentially reusable, purpose-limited, and used to simplify a task.
"Utilities" doesn't indicate the audience or the intended longevity of use of the tool like "houseplant" and "bouquet" do.
Both indicate they are built for personal use cases, suggesting potentially low reusability. The longevity of "houseplant" suggests it's intended for ongoing use, while "bouquet" suggests a limited use tool.
With work, either could be made reusable for others, but I think it's implied that the scope is an edge case or uncommon case that likely only applies to its creator or a very limited audience.
I see value in the terms, but these terms may themselves be houseplant terms, not sure if general adoption is useful to someone not building houseplant software, they are mostly hobbiest terms by definition.
Yeah this place has been depressing lately. The hope is that AI could be used to automate the parts of our lives that bring us no joy or growth and help us become fully actualised human beings, but instead it seems like it's just used as a tool to boost profits while making the world a worse place.
The article has a bonus cat video so I highly recommend it. I like the houseplant metaphor, but I don't see how the author is tending to the programs like the plants. The plants are getting regular care, do the one of programs?
Cool, can you provide some more info on how you got in to this, recommended dabbling strategy and what sort of ROI you're getting from time invested? I have been getting in to botany pretty heavily already.
While interesting, that seems unrelated. A software equivalent might be turning an agent loose on a codebase unrestricted and seeing what it comes up with (which is followed by cleaning up the mess, analogous to the rounds of outcrossing that follow irradiation and selection).
foresto|1 hour ago
This reminds me of various programs I've made to improve the quality of my digital life. Humble little things that I didn't want to build, addressing minor problems that could be mostly solved by other means, but nevertheless appeared on my mental wish list often enough that I eventually dedicated some time to creating them.
These tools do exactly what I need, all day, every day, quietly making things more pleasant than they would be otherwise. With them, I feel at home.
userbinator|11 hours ago
However, the term reminded me of a memorable interaction I had many decades ago with an old woman who wanted to write a program in x86 Asm to manage various aspects of the plants in her garden. (She did succeed at doing so.)
bombcar|6 hours ago
A powerful editor/IDE makes it ... not the worst programming experience in the world.
And since it's "so detailed" it's pretty easy to understand and explain, unlike higher-level languages that "do everything for you".
wonger_|7 hours ago
"Home-cooked apps" is still my preferred phrase. Personal software and subsistence development are also good terms.
yuppiepuppie|10 hours ago
midnitewarrior|8 hours ago
"Utilities" doesn't indicate the audience or the intended longevity of use of the tool like "houseplant" and "bouquet" do.
Both indicate they are built for personal use cases, suggesting potentially low reusability. The longevity of "houseplant" suggests it's intended for ongoing use, while "bouquet" suggests a limited use tool.
With work, either could be made reusable for others, but I think it's implied that the scope is an edge case or uncommon case that likely only applies to its creator or a very limited audience.
I see value in the terms, but these terms may themselves be houseplant terms, not sure if general adoption is useful to someone not building houseplant software, they are mostly hobbiest terms by definition.
Almondsetat|7 hours ago
ku1ik|12 hours ago
kubb|11 hours ago
slopinthebag|11 hours ago
Voklen|2 hours ago
skyberrys|3 hours ago
phito|8 hours ago
contingencies|1 hour ago
amelius|4 hours ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_gardening
fc417fc802|1 hour ago