by 1vuio0pswjnm7 | 2025-08-19 18:42:49+00:00
In earlier times, before Google or OS X even existed, long before "automatic updates", it used to be own experience that Microsoft's pre-installed Windows programs would run generally faster and with fewer issues (read: none) than third party software that a Windows user would install. This was also the case with software downloaded from Microsoft that a Windows user might install. Hence I thought perhaps MS Word today might run smoother on a Microsoft laptop than an Apple laptop. I'm not a Windows user anymore so I have no idea.

For reading, editing, creating Word documents, the TextMaker Android app seems to work. Size of recent version I tried was 111MB, startup is quick. Paid features are non-essential IMHO.

https://www.softmaker.net/down/tm2024manual_en.pdf

A personal favourite program for me is spitbol, a SNOBOL interpreter written in a portable assembly language^3 called MINIMAL. I'm using a 779k static binary. SNOBOL is referenced here:

1. https://borretti.me/article/you-can-choose-tools-that-make-y...

The Almquist shell is another favourite of mine. It's both the "UI" and the language I use everyday to get stuff done on the computer. Like Microsoft Word makes some HN commenters unhappy, it seems that the UNIX shell makes some "developers" unhappy.^2

But the shell is everywhere and it is not going away.

IME, old software from an era before so-called "tech" companies funded by VC and "ad services", still works and I like it. For example, sed is still the favourite editor for me despite its limitations, and it is close to the shell in terms of ubiquity. Following current trends requires devoting more and more storage, memory and CPU in order to wait for today's programs to compile, start, or "update". As a hobbyist who generally ignores the trends I am experiencing no such resource drains and delays.

For every rare software user complaining about bloat, there is at the same time a "developer", e.g., maybe one writing a Javascript engine for a massive web browser controlled by an advertising company, who is complaining about the UNIX shell.

Developers like to frame software as a popularity contest. The most popular software is declared to have "won". (Not sure what that means about all the other software. Maybe not all software authors are interested in this contest.) To me, ubiquity is more important than "popularity":

2. https://borretti.me//article/shells-are-two-things

"There are 5,635 shell scripts on my humble Ubuntu box."

This makes me happy.

On Linux, I use vim 4.6 from 1997, a 541k static-pie binary. I use ired, bvi and toybox hexedit as hex editors, 62k, 324k and 779k static-pie binaries, respectively. If I dislike something I can change it in the source code. If I find other software I like better I can switch. No closed source and proprietary file formats like MS Word. The most entertaining aspect of the cult of Microsoft is that the company is so protective of software that it tells the public is "obsolete" or otherwise not worth using anymore, old versions of software or minimal versions that have few "features".

https://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/vim/unix/vim-4.6.tar.gz

https://codeload.github.com/radare/ired/zip/refs/heads/maste...

https://codeload.github.com/johnsonjh/bvi-lf/zip/refs/heads/...

https://www.landley.net/toybox/downloads/toybox-0.8.9.tar.gz

https://www.landley.net/toybox/downloads/binaries/latest/toy...

3. The topic of this thread is assembly language. Makes me happy

The appeal of smaller, faster software to me is not that this stuff is so _good_. It is that the alternatives, software like MS Word, is so _bad_.