Starting a journey

Who am i ?

A not so grumpy computer guy with strong preferences in simplicity and efficiency in
computing environment, some would say, deprecated and old-fashioned.

I had the chance to see the birth of the Internet and saw it grow and take a
bigger and bigger place in our daily life. First an area reserved to a small
group of dedicated geeks and then reaching a very large part of the human population.


Hopes and Deception

I had big hopes for this technology, support knowledge and culture, help people
to share and discuss, bridging the gap between indivuals and organizations, ...

I was (am ?) mostly optimistic.

At some point i began to have questions about the direction we have taken and
today i'm quite afraid of the beast we unleashed.

In an effort to stay objective, i can say we have made big progress and built
useful tools to help people, but the main trend is definitely going in a bad
direction : big companies in charge, division instead of reconciliation,
manipulation, money and power concentration, massive surveillance, ... [1][2]


Build

The only thing worth doing i can think of (in my area of knowledge) is to build
useful tools and help others learn the skills to do the same.

We need specifically to help the younger generation because they will have to
pay for our mistakes. Teenagers (even children) can learn to program and do stuff.

But everything seems too complex, bloated, slow for a single individual or a small team
to do something useful.

We can use more simple tools, but too simple means also simplistic.
The problem is the learning curve. Language and abstraction must not stay in
the way. People will always prefer a solution with less constraints.
Our brain is built for that. [3]


So, i embarked in the visual programming boat and tried to develop something to
lower the barrier and at the same time allowing to develop "real" applications.

But this tool itself relies on heavy environment, you need Firefox or some
large browser to use it and a, not so small, computer.
A simple platform build on the fondations i aim to avoid ???

I find now a contradiction between the goal and the mean to reach it.

The goal is not to hide things but to help the programming process. In the
end you just compile regular source files, no need to chain yourself to an
external tool.

Can i achieve the same goal with much more lighter environment ?
Perhaps.  I'm not sure, visual stuff is often not compatible with CLI, TUI.

Or i don't care at all as long as the goal is reached ?

Time will say.


Live long and prosper

[1] : https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/02/age-of-surveillance-capitalism-shoshana-zuboff-review
[2] : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26195941-the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism?
[3] : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11468377-thinking-fast-and-slow