It is still unclear to me what the author wants to build. The story is cool to the level hippies-on-a-boat can be, but I'm unsure of its message, apart from software requiring internet can be tricky while at seas.
jonahx · 1h ago
> but I'm unsure of its message
My takeaway:
Modern software stacks are usually cloud-dependent, and much bigger and more complex than they need to be, especially for offline, low-bandwidth, or low computing power use cases.
Small, simple, useful software can be written for these use cases and has ownership and longevity benefits.
Not a groundbreaking message, but a true one. And brought home by their interesting cirumstances.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF · 1h ago
Yeah. I'm skeptical that software made for 2 people on a boat in international waters is going to generalize to people living on land under the ongoing American situation
It's good for them, but the only person I know who owns a boat is richer than me, and I'm already richer than basically all my friends
poink · 1h ago
I agree with your first paragraph, but there are lots of basically-broke people who live on boats
Old sailboats can be had for practically (and in many cases actually) nothing. If you’re reasonably handy and willing to learn you can do all the maintenance they require yourself
Boats can be some of the cheapest housing there is, even more so if you want to live somewhere picturesque
(There are, of course, significant downsides)
b_e_n_t_o_n · 1h ago
I've met people who live on boats, they work odd jobs to buy scrap parts to fix their boats themselves and eat mostly fish that they catch. Just like travelling in general, you can basically do it on nothing if you wish.
ioseph · 6m ago
I'm sorry but no this is fantasy, unless you plan on everything failing in under decade to actually look after your boat takes money. Even salvaging a boat that's sunk can be very expensive.
For example, a through-hull needs replacing. Sure you could find a secondhand one that fits, but you still need to have it hauled out to replace.
cess11 · 54m ago
They thoroughly document their lives, you could just go check whether this skepticism is warranted.
lmm · 7m ago
Very often people doing this kind of thing neglect to mention a significant safety net (e.g. parental wealth) that radically changes the kind of things you can do even when you never touch it.
cess11 · 58m ago
They're building games, interactive fiction and music software, for example. Famously they've invented a rather portable platform for software development that is more like a Commodore 64 or Amiga than MICROS~1 Visual Studio.
hiAndrewQuinn · 2h ago
>When your connection to the internet fails and that the software locks up, that skill that you thought was yours was actually entirely owned by someone, and can be taken away.
There's a middle ground between locally installed software that fails as soon as you don't have an internet connection for the phone home, and locally installed software that can be used totally unplugged. You can stick a countdown timer within the software that allows 7, 30, 90 etc days of consecutive offline interactivity before the user needs to phone home again. Heck, if you really wanted to, you could sell copies or subscriptions to that software at varying price points depending on how many days the user expects to need - if it's a feature people want, it's a feature you can price in.
Why isn't this model more common? Mm, plenty of reasons. You need to implement pretty sophisticated techniques under the hood to deter software crackers, for one, which aren't required when you make an API call every sixty seconds to an Azure Function. For two the modal human mind really hates middle grounds of this sort. I actually suspect that some "online-only" local software implements something like this under the hood, and just doesn't advertise it, or perhaps gates it being being an enterprise feature. (I have unfortunately learned firsthand that advertising my software as "works up to 30 days off-grid" gets considerably more ire than "ah, sorry, it does require an internet connection, everything's in the cloud these days, you know how it is".)
But probably the most common reason is simply that most people don't need it! Most regular people aren't using software at all when they go off grid.
AlotOfReading · 1h ago
I have a deep hatred for software with x days offline capability. It's not fun to discover something won't work because someone else had a bad model of what's "reasonable" when you're doing field work in rural Mongolia or wherever. It's happened to me twice. Once I was lucky enough to accidentally discover this before leaving (PDF reader), and once while already in the field (drone software).
Now I'm a lot more diligent about FOSS for anything important.
Right. From the title, I thought it was going to be about programmer survival in the age of LLMs.
Uptrenda · 1h ago
Such a rambling mess of an article (no offense.) Author just blabbered on about obscure-nothingness and nothing cohesive ever appeared. I suggest putting together one single philosophy and posting it. We don't need to see every piece of obscure info that made you believe something. It's confusing as all hell to read.
myaccountonhn · 33m ago
Not everything needs to be told in a YouTube short. Fwiw I thought it was well told and illuminating.
My takeaway:
Modern software stacks are usually cloud-dependent, and much bigger and more complex than they need to be, especially for offline, low-bandwidth, or low computing power use cases.
Small, simple, useful software can be written for these use cases and has ownership and longevity benefits.
Not a groundbreaking message, but a true one. And brought home by their interesting cirumstances.
It's good for them, but the only person I know who owns a boat is richer than me, and I'm already richer than basically all my friends
Old sailboats can be had for practically (and in many cases actually) nothing. If you’re reasonably handy and willing to learn you can do all the maintenance they require yourself
Boats can be some of the cheapest housing there is, even more so if you want to live somewhere picturesque
(There are, of course, significant downsides)
For example, a through-hull needs replacing. Sure you could find a secondhand one that fits, but you still need to have it hauled out to replace.
There's a middle ground between locally installed software that fails as soon as you don't have an internet connection for the phone home, and locally installed software that can be used totally unplugged. You can stick a countdown timer within the software that allows 7, 30, 90 etc days of consecutive offline interactivity before the user needs to phone home again. Heck, if you really wanted to, you could sell copies or subscriptions to that software at varying price points depending on how many days the user expects to need - if it's a feature people want, it's a feature you can price in.
Why isn't this model more common? Mm, plenty of reasons. You need to implement pretty sophisticated techniques under the hood to deter software crackers, for one, which aren't required when you make an API call every sixty seconds to an Azure Function. For two the modal human mind really hates middle grounds of this sort. I actually suspect that some "online-only" local software implements something like this under the hood, and just doesn't advertise it, or perhaps gates it being being an enterprise feature. (I have unfortunately learned firsthand that advertising my software as "works up to 30 days off-grid" gets considerably more ire than "ah, sorry, it does require an internet connection, everything's in the cloud these days, you know how it is".)
But probably the most common reason is simply that most people don't need it! Most regular people aren't using software at all when they go off grid.
Now I'm a lot more diligent about FOSS for anything important.