something's got to give

what i mean:

toolchain bloat is everywhere in so-called modern development. while it's fun to laugh about node_modules being huge or rust taking a while to compile, isn't it a problem? not an inconvenience, a problem.

the personal computer was supposed to be the great machine that would empower humanity—and it has, just not in the way we thought. the dream of the personal computer was that anyone could have access to the most powerful force multiplication technology ever devised. and while massive corporations reap the harvest of their digital empowerment, the tools for true individual empowerment are locked away, hidden behind the incantations of a special few.

microsoft windows was, originally, designed to let you use your work's computer, not your own computer. the dominant way to access computation wasn't built for its user to control it. if what one owns boots up to BASIC, they might pick up a little bit of programming. they might even master it. if what they own boots to some friendly GUI, if the keys to programming are made obscure, hidden behind a second purchase that a layperson would never think to make, there's a good chance they never will.

of course, in the modern era, we've seen the endpoint of this. far from an instrument to universal empowerment, the smartphone is a computer bound and gagged. it is a machine for consumption and (ostensibly) communication, nigh-impossible to use for anything not dictated by someone else, by an "app". it is a machine opposed, fundamentally, to individual empowerment. it is a thing which its buyers cannot own.

of course, it is better on the more traditional computer. the internet overflows with guides for the installation of a linux distribution, and countless nerds would be happy to help someone who knows not the mystic rites of the computer, to learn them and bask in newfound power. though one still needs to seek out digital empowerment, the resources one finds are plentiful and free.

but what resources? what might a newbie flock to? there are many lightweight ways to build software. but The Future is being built in rust. The Future is being built in typescript. The Future is being built on expensive, powerful computers, with hefty toolchains only tamed by high core counts and swathes of ram. The Future is being built by people whose work supplies them with machines that make the bloat of their code invisible to them.

in $current_year a smartphone, a decent one, will run you at least maybe $500. a laptop, a nice one, will run you at least maybe $1000. it is impossible, in this world to live without a phone. it is possible to live without a computer. if the choice is between a cheap phone and nice laptop, or nice phone and cheap laptop—or no laptop at all—what choice do you think someone strapped for cash would make?

what might it feel like, for the novice, to want to learn the tools with which The Future is made, and find that they run painfully slow. what might it feel like, to realize that the tools of The Future aren't for you?

I do not know. I am not a novice, nor am I particularly deprived of speedy computing hardware. but I have spent the last few months on a limited machine, a modified chromebook with a celeron-class chip and 4GB of RAM, and in that time I have come to resent rust.

I resent the arrogance with which it forces its bloated toolchain on me, and I resent the code which forces me to run it. I resent the obscenely long compiles for even simple things. I have had no real issues with writing code in C, in python, in dlang, in perl, in tcl, even in java. but I feel, overwhelmingly, like the language in which The Future will be built, and in which the past will be rewritten, is not for me. not like this, anyway.

the classism of it all is striking. but I suppose this is typical of the march of "progress".