Software Stack
I have to use a lot of software for my job. I want to use a lot of software for my interests, organization, curiosity and betterment. Thankfully I get to choose that software.
I'm very particular in what I use. I have respect for thought out, well designed and opinionated software. Programs that make a specific set of tasks delightful and intuitive to do simply, but also allow for high level manipulation. If you know what you’re doing.
I highly prize 4 things in great software:
- Performance: opens quickly, runs efficiently and remains stable under a reasonable load.
- Design: makes what was previously difficult to do simple, and the previously impossible, graspable.
- Customization: allows you to change the placement of buttons, the look of icons, colors and font.
- Malleability: the possibility to expand the tool to fit your use case. I don’t want an appliance, I want a tool.
I have perfect examples for software that mostly fits my criteria (and some that win by monopoly power, see if you can spot them):
- Web - Vivaldi, Firefox, Zen, Arc, Safari, Chromium.
- Design - Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects,
- Development - Windsurf, Zed, VS Code, Ghosty, Ollama, Claude Code, Gemini.
- Writing - Upnote, IA Writer, Typora, Scrivener, Hemingway Editor.
- Productivity - Todoist, Raindrop, Libre Office,
Detailed thoughts and extras coming soon.