the more i exist, the more i hate what people do with computers. there are exceptions, which i refer to as friendly code. but i am here to talk about unfriendly code first and foremost. i am increasingly finding that i dislike not just windows and macos, but linux too. and for the same exact reasons the others cause me agony to use: linux is becoming ever and ever more infested and slow. why exactly should my system take 30 seconds to boot? there is nothing happening. i could write a shell script and it would be less shit. but most of the linuxes demand a systemd. i could make my own distro, but interacting with the mess and everhorror that is the process of doing so makes me sick just thinking about it.

an example of a theoretically good os would be 9front. unfortunately, it is practically shit nonetheless. did you ever want to interact with convoluted and cluttered documentation that has no index and is full of RTFM despite BEING THE MANUAL?

this is exactly as repulsive as i want in theory because that way there will never be corporatization. unfortunately it is also full of archaic design decisions that dont work very well for the utilizer. the utilizer being a combination of developer, creator, and user. i can modify systems. i can use systems. i can make systems. i can understand systems. but i dont want my tool to get in my way for no reason. linux gets in my way by being slow and increasingly scary in the surveillance and security department. 9front gets in my way by having design decisions that make it unnecessary hard to use. you Must use the mouse. you Must use it for everything. you Must have a three-button mouse (and some are not recognized). this is not true you can use a two button one and use the shift key together with the right mouse button for the middle one (always referred to as the second mouse button) except this is only mentioned once in a relatively unrelated section of the manual. the manual also repeatedly has to mention that "snarf" refers to what other systems more intuitively call "copying" but of course we must not change what its called. it must be called snarf.

so far that put me off a bit. fortunately all of this is avoidable or solvable. i can read the convoluted manual even if it is not task-oriented at all. (i will reiterate that i am a developer myself (along with being a user): i ordinarily know how to handle manuals written by devs. this one is just so component based instead of task-based that getting started is made many times harder. the FAQ does not help.) either now, after at least somewhat coming to terms with the inputs and general strangeness (strangeness is okay though if documented), i wanted to start writing a self about my thoughts on OSs, in fact one that wouldve been quite a lot more positive on plan9/9front. i tried to clone the git repo. it didnt work. the ssh documentation specifies no way to use an ssh key. the rsa documentation specifies no way to use an ssh key. from the file system i was at least able to rhyme together how to get the public key. private key though? no luck. i could not write and publish an html file on this os. test failed, i give up.

thats probably a lie. i will try again and again and again and again and again and maybe one day i will figure it out. but damn is this pain unnecessary. im sure its possible. but where is that documented?

the source code for these things is included in the system. GOOD! but why do i need to open it to figure out how to change the port ssh conntects to? hint: it cant be done. i need to modify the ssh binary.

the shell is okay. but it really isnt. there is no autocompletion, there is no arrow up to quickly repeat the last command, generally the density of any QOL features is zero. i dont mind brutalism, but like, why? the system is repulsive enough to not become corposlop already, we dont need the shell to suck.

the window manager rio is the most understandable on the surface but i have issues with the motivation behind why it is the way it is, namely a flawed study about whether doing something with the keyboard is faster or not than with the mouse. this study was on text editing, not window management. dragging a window each time is definitely and obviously slower than a tiling window manager (or, hell, a non-tiling window manager). its fine. i can click and drag. but i dont think it should be justified like that.

its a shame. i really want to like that os. it is the closest i can get to a computer that is mostly a typewriter, not an entertainment distraction machine. not that my current setup is particularly entertainmentdistractionmachinelike, but it certainly is getting enshittified, and i would like to flee at least for some of the things i might want to do.

i also dont want to be the one adding many of these features because from the looks of the documentation, the review process will be *agonizing*. maybe not. but the attitude sings "i dont want to know" (from the manual): 2.4 Reporting Bugs; 2.4.1 Your bug report SUCKS; 2.4.2 How do I get more useful info for developers? [note: i am a developer. i know how to write good bug reports. why are you insulting me?].
but maybe the sending fixes department is nicer. oops. even here the manual is relatively hostile: it gives many tasks to do, implies a change that lacks a good reason to be added wont be, says to update the documentation but now how to do that. great!

its a shame. i really want to liks that os. but it is also sadly a great example of unfriendly code that draws a hard barrier between the developer and the user. the developer is the people writing it, the user uses it, and there is no need for the user to know how to change it, and there is no need for the user to exist in the first place. unfriendly code is code written for the people who wrote it only, and specifically in such ways that it remains intransparent to others. i dont mind writing some bits of hostile code. i do it myself. but i do this specifically when i dont want to bother with making something good, whereas 9front is not trying to be a scrappy fiddle purely for fun, as can be seen by the strict criteria for patches.

im sure some people can use it fine. im sure im just yelling at a cloud here. im sure the documentation wont get better. but i find that really unfortunate, because if there was usable documentation that was written for utilizers, people who are both dev and user in one and thus have the needs of both, this would probably be an os i would use on a regular basis. friendly code is not just computer language, it is also human language.

almost all software sucks. we have existing ideas for how user interfaces work. we keep breaking them for ideas that are unnecessarily inferior. there is not a single operating system that doesnt suck. they are either terrible to use or consumed by shit or terrible to develop or all of the above (like windows!). linux is good to use, and has been for a pretty good amount of time. but it is getting consumed by shit and everterribler to develop. macos is the same way but worse.