it’s been quite a while now since I last sat down to write requirements documentation for a computer project, and even longer since I did so interrogating myself as the source of requirements (so not “what do you want to happen when…” but “what do I want to happen when…”) and I’m trying to be really hard on myself as the interrogator (“am I sure that’s what I want?”) and it’s a little unsettling to think about how much I’ve been settling for what’s around over the last couple decades, being far more focused on implementing things that I was getting paid to implement so we could continue to live than on implementing anything for me.
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do I really want to be notified when one of the programs I’m running is waiting for my input before being able to continue?
no, not usually.
usually, I want there to be a visible indication that a program is in that state when I intentionally look at a list of the programs I am running in a switcher of some type, but I don’t necessarily want it to try and get my attention. occasionally I would definitely want that, but those occasions are just as likely to mean that I am actively monitoring that program because something important that I know is going to need my input is about to happen.
whole entire layers of our current computing environments have been specified by people with a financial interest in being able to program the user to behave in ways conducive to their economic model.
if you want to change your relationship with computing, you’re going to have to not bring along all of that, no matter how familiar it may feel. your familiarity is often one with the state of shit sucking. try becoming familiar with other stuff instead, maybe!
it sounds like pure snark to say “log off and touch grass” and the like, but there were drastically different social dynamics and use patterns and dopamine triggers involved with participating in the same sorts of chats that we have on fedi but on a dial-up bulletin board system with a single phone line and modem for incoming calls.
if you wanted to interact with the other users (other than the sysop who may or may not be hovering near the computer running the BBS ready to intercept you for a chat or to see what you’re up to) you had to log off so someone else could log in.
because of this, some BBSes had session time limits - you get 60 minutes and then you’re done until next time, you get two sessions a day, that sort of restriction - to ensure other folk got access to the shared resources and could also use them according to that BBS’ setup and norms and so forth.
so you’d develop your own optimized loops for any given set of favorite BBSes but eventually you’d be done for the day - you’d read all the posts and responded to the ones you were gonna respond to, you used all your turns in tradewar for the day, you downloaded your allotment of files for the day, it was contained.
does your computer always need to be connected to the internet?
does your computer need POSIX?
tough but fair questions to consider up and down the twenty-layer dip we call an operating system these days, and millions of embedded assumptions, often made arbitrarily or capriciously in the moment by someone who was just trying to figure out how to make something work one time in the late 1990s. keep an eye out for them; they’re everywhere and they deserve to be re-examined. all of them.
