Suckless.org: software that sucks less
197 comments
·February 21, 2025saidinesh5
jclulow
The thing is, dynamic linking doesn't mean using LD_LIBRARY_PATH or building full blown OS packages as the only way to find the correct libraries. There's a first class facility for locating shared libraries, using the -R flag to provide a RUNPATH/RPATH in the binary. The runtime link editor will use that path to locate shared libraries. You can make your binaries relocatable as well, by using $ORIGIN in the RPATH: this gets expanded at runtime to the path of the executable, so, e.g., $ORIGIN/../lib would go up one from bin/ where the executable is and down alongside into the lib directory for your software.
LD_LIBRARY_PATH is a debugging and software engineering tool, and shouldn't ever be part of shipped software.
vlovich123
And the main advantage of doing all that work vs statically linking is? Don’t get me wrong - dynamically linking for dev builds makes a lot of sense to cut down on relink times. But I just don’t see it for distribution since doing that RPath work reduces the main argument for dynamic linking (i.e. the OS can patch the vulnerability for all installed packages without waiting for each to release).
jimmaswell
There's definitely value in the static approach in some cases, but there are some downsides e.g. your utility will need to be recompiled and updated if a security vulnerability is discovered in one of those libraries. You also miss out on free bugfixes without recompiling.
If you require a library, you can specify it as a dependency in your dpkg/pacman/portage/whatever manifest and the system should take care of making it available. You shouldn't need to write custom scripts that trawl around for the library. Another approach could be to give your users a "make install" that sticks the libraries somewhere in /opt and adds it as the lowest priority ld_library_path as a last resort, maybe?
saidinesh5
> e.g. your utility will need to be recompiled and updated if a security vulnerability is discovered in one of those libraries. You also miss out on free bugfixes without recompiling.
This was the biggest pain point in deploying *application software* on Linux though. Distributions with different release cycles providing different versions of various libraries and expect your program to work with all of those combinations. The Big famous libraries like Qt , gtk might follow proper versioning but the smaller libraries from distro packages - guarantee. Half of them don't even use semantic versioning.
Imagine distros swapping out the libraries you've actually tested out your code with with their libraries for "security fixes" or whatever the reason. That causes more problems than it fixes.
Custom start up script was to find the same xml library I've used in the tar ball i packaged the application in. They could then extract that tar ball wherever they need - including /opt and run the script to start my application and it ran as it should. Iirc we used to even use rpath for this.
viraptor
> Half of them don't even use semantic versioning.
This is a red herring. Distros existed before semantic versioning was defined and had to deal with those issues for ages. When packaging, you check for the behaviour changes in the package and its dependencies. The version numbers are a tiny indicator, but mostly meaningless.
sidewndr46
I often refer to semantic versioning as "semanticless versioning". Everyone disagrees about what constitutes a change warranting each version number to be increased
wakawaka28
>Imagine distros swapping out the libraries you've actually tested out your code with with their libraries for "security fixes" or whatever the reason. That causes more problems than it fixes.
I don't believe that it causes more problems than it fixes. It's just that you didn't notice the problems being silently fixed!
There are issues related to different distros packaging different versions of libraries. But that's just an issue with trying to support different distros and/or their updates. There are tradeoffs with everything. Dynamic linking is more appropriate for things that are part of a distro, because it creates less turnover of packages when things update.
butterisgood
"Free bug fixes without compiling". I think YMMV.
It depends a lot on ABI/API stability and actual modularity of ... components. There's not always a guarantee of that.
Shared libraries add a lot of complexity to a system for the assumption that people can actually build modular code well in any language that can create a shared library. Sometimes you have to recompile because, while a #define might still exist, its value may have changed between versions, and chaos can ensue - including new, unexpected bugs - for free!
dgfitz
My current day job has probably 60 apps the depend on one shared library.
Static linking has its place pace, no doubt, but it should not be the norm.
hyperbrainer
https://github.com/oasislinux/oasis is also a a small statically-linked linux system using musl and the like. Curious about your thoughts on that?
delta_p_delta_x
Fun fact... Many Windows programs generally do some sort of 'hybrid static linking' (this is my own terminology) where programs are distributed with the `.dll` libraries just next to the binary. There is no concept of RPATH on Windows—the loader looks for dynamically-linked libraries in a fixed set of locations which includes the binary's directory.
Windows programs generally do link dynamically to core Windows libraries—which users are never expected to mess with anyway—and the C and C++ runtimes, but even these can be statically linked against with `cl.exe /MT`. Some programs even distribute newer versions of the C/C++ runtimes; that's where the famous Visual C++ Redistributables come from.
I agree, though—static linkage should be the default for end-user programs. I long for a time when Linux gets 'libc' redistributables and I can compile for an old-hat CentOS 6 distribution on a modern, updated, rolling-release Arch Linux without faffing with a Docker container.
torginus
Imo this is a much saner solution for a system that supports precompiled applications.
Every time I tried to get a third-party binary app running on Linux, I discovered what the vendor did is they shipped half their dependencies as blobs, and relying on the system for the other half - which is an incredibly brittle system that breaks constantly.
The entry point usually is a script that sets LD_LIBRARY_PATH and then calls into the executable.
sunshowers
For Rust, cargo zigbuild lets you compile against arbitrary old glibc. Probably can get that working with C as well.
forrestthewoods
> I long for a time when Linux gets 'libc' redistributables and I can compile for an old-hat CentOS 6 distribution on a modern, updated, rolling-release Arch Linux without faffing with a Docker container.
The Linux linking model is so bad. So extremely very bad. Build systems should never rely on whatever garbage happens to be around locally. The glibc devs should be ashamed.
aqueueaqueue
There was a time when 200Mb was a big HDD. Can forgive for that reason.
torstenvl
It's true. I keep an Ubuntu 16 LTS VM around for making binary redistributables on Linux. It's the only way to ensure compatibility.
anacrolix
Noice
snarfy
It's a trade-off.
Consider how dynamic linking libc works when a critical security bug is found and fixed. To update your system you update libc.so.
If it were statically linked, you need to update your whole distribution.
fc417fc802
I would be more accepting of the trade-off if it wasn't so brittle in practice.
Nix is much closer to a "good" dynamic linking solution IMO except that it makes it overly difficult to swap things out at runtime. I appreciate that the default is reproducible and guaranteed to correspond to the hash but sometimes I want to override that at runtime for various reasons. (It's possible this has changed since I last played with that tooling. It's been awhile.)
beefsack
I generally find with Nix and NixOS that I'm able to just use a dev shell to create little custom environments at runtime as needed. Another option is `mkOutOfStoreSymlink` if you want some dynamic config for some GUI you are running.
Depends on what you are trying to achieve though.
aqueueaqueue
The article touches on that. If "your whole distribution" comparable to a Chrome in size? That gets updated.
the-lazy-guy
Unrelated to suckless, there's a project (confusingly) named stal/IX: https://stal-ix.github.io/
It is also a statically linked Linux distribution. But it's core idea is reproducible nix-style builds (including installing as many different versions/build configurations of any package), but with less pl fuff (no fancy funcional language - just some ugly jinja2/shell style build descriptions; which in practice work amazingly well, because underlying package/dependency model is very solid - https://stal-ix.github.io/IX.html).
It is very opionated (just see this - https://stal-ix.github.io/STALIX.html), and a bit rough, but I was able to run it in VMs sucessfully. It would be amazing if it stabilizes one day.
o11c
The problem is that static libraries are actually more likely to break across time in practice, since "the system" is more than just "syscalls".
For example, in places where the a filesystem-related "standard" has changed, I have old static binaries that fail to start entirely, whereas the same-dated dynamic libraries just need to bother to actually install dependencies.
I am convinced that every argument in favor of static linking is because they don't know how to package-manager.
torginus
Nobody knows how to use the package manager. What happens in practice, is every single program uses the the package versions the distro happens to ship with.
If you want a newer version, too bad - your OS doesn't ship that so better luck in the next release. OR you can set up a private repo, and either ship a binary that has the dependencies included (shipping half the userland with your audio player), or they package the newer version of library, which will unwittingly break half your system, if not today, then surely at the next distro upgrade.
It speaks volumes of Linux package management woes, that no vendor ships anything analogous to brew or chocolatey.
gugagore
I thought it spoke to windows and macOS woes that package management was a third-party concern.
What is the gap between e.g. `apt` and Homebrew?
null
7bit
> I am convinced that every argument in favor of static linking is because they don't know how to package-manager.
Which would be a fair reason. People who like to build things might just not want to also learn how to package stuff.
kelnos
It's not all-or-nothing, though. If you need a dependency that isn't widely available on distros, then statically link it. It's fine. No big deal. But if you actually care about being a responsible maintainer, make sure you follow new releases of that dependency, and release new versions of your app (with the new version of the dependency) if there's an important bug fix to it.
If you're linking to libX11 or libgtk or something else that's common, rely on the distro providing it.
I really don't get all the anti-shared-library sentiment. I've been using and developing software for Linux for a good 25 years now, and yes, I've certainly had issues with library version mismatches, but a) they were never all that difficult to solve, and b) I think the last time I had an issue was more than a decade ago.
While I think my experience is probably fairly typical, I won't deny that others can have worse experiences than I do. But I'm still not convinced statically linking everything (or even a hybrid approach where static linking is more common) would be an overall improvement.
skywal_l
Linus Torvalds agrees with you: https://youtu.be/Pzl1B7nB9Kc?feature=shared&t=65
unclad5968
> Do not use for loop initial declarations
> Variadic macros are acceptable, but remember
Maybe my brain is too smooth, but I don't understand how for(int i = 0...) is too clever but variadic macros are not. That makes no sense to me.
astrobe_
That's a bad coding style document. There's no rationale given, except for a bunch of references at the top, which are clearly argument from authority.
I think the no "loop initial declarations" is for consistency with "all declarations at the top". Other coding style guides favor "declarations as close as possible to first use", including guidelines for mission critical systems (if you resort to argument from authority I have some too...) [1].
As much as I like Suckless, this section is just pet peeves that can safely be ignored; unless you submit a patch to a project that aligns with it.
guenthert
> There's no rationale given
True and it would indeed be desirable that it were. Here I go out on a limb and assume it's because someone got bitten by attempting to use the loop index outside the loop (common for search operations) while declaring the index within and outside the loop. A bug (gcc and clang can warn about using -Wshadow, but which sadly isn't part of -Wall) which might easily occur when multiple people edit the code over a longer time-span.
zzo38computer
At least in my opinion, "for loop initial declaration" is especially useful in macros (although many programs will never need such macros, they are especially useful when you do have them).
An example of such a macro is the following macro (the loop and the variable declaration will both be optimized out by the compiler; I have tested this):
#define lpt_document() for(int lpt_document_=lpt_begin();lpt_document_;lpt_document_=(lpt_end(),0))
#define win_form(xxx) for(win_memo win_mem=win_begin_();;win_step_(&win_mem,xxx))lugu
It's been around ten years that my desktop barely changed except a few pixels thanks to dwm and dmenu. I am a bit exaggerating but I love the stability that minimalism brings. If only they could make a pdf viewer...
homebrewer
zathura is close enough — it's very minimalistic and supports everything under the sun: pdf, djvu, comics, epub...
vq
Are you aware of Sioyek[0]? It's a PDF viewer with a fairly minimal UI and a focus on keyboard interaction.
[0]: https://sioyek.info
naasking
SumatraPDF: https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/free-pdf-reader
No frills, super fast and small. Been using it on Windows for years.
SoftTalker
Thanks, I love finding little nuggets like this here.
BoingBoomTschak
Eh, it vendors an old version of mupdf. Very bad idea, considering that it's a C program/library handling a notoriously complex format often shared on the Internet.
Personally, I just use mupdf (which I sandbox through bubblewrap).
flubbergusto
Have any issues with mupdf? I find it suckless.
fc417fc802
Seconding this. It's my default choice for many file formats, not just pdf. However it doesn't support jpegxl so in those cases I use Okular (very much not minimal but quite usable).
Imustaskforhelp
Yes okular is just brilliant for PDFs i love okular
zamadatix
To the currently dead sibling comment by kjrfghslkdjfl (on the off chance they get to see this): mupdf is extremely cross platform. I felt that should have at least been mentioned before your comment reached being dead over that misunderstanding.
andrewflnr
That's, uh, not why the comment is dead.
kjrfghslkdjfl
[dead]
null
alkonaut
> surf is a simple web browser based on WebKit2/GTK+. It is able to display websites and follow links.
That’s… certainly a low bar for not sucking
sitkack
One can embrace minimalism without all of this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25751853
indrora
Or the self-reich-ousness of folks like Suckless[0], like telling the OG author of redare (pancake, who is a very competent malware reverse engineer) he's an idiot [1].
[0] https://tilde.team/~ben/suckmore/ [1] https://dev.suckless.narkive.com/mEex8nff/cannot-run-st#post...
Y_Y
I had a look at your links, and I think the assertion that the people involved in Suckless are National Socialists is insufficiently supported. I don't know these people outside their software, but if you're going to accuse someone of being part of some reviled political group I think you should have something stronger than "they went on a hike carrying torches around the time some extremist group had a march with torches".
tomtomtom777
Suckless has a beautiful coding philosophy and I wish all software was written with this in mind, but surely a window manager and X-menu aren't really the best showcases? These aren't the types of programs where complexity is the biggest enemy.
I'm not claiming I could write these tools as simple as these, but surely the importance of these paradigms arise when actual complicated software is needed?
imiric
The drama around this community is silly. I use these tools because I absolutely love their philosophy on software, and software alone. I couldn't care less what the authors personal beliefs and political leanings are, or who they offended on IRC or social media.
I recently spent a few hours evaluating different terminals. I went back to urxvt, tried Alacritty again, gave Ghostty a try, and spent quite some time configuring Kitty. After all this I found that they all suck in different ways. Most annoying of all is that I can't do anything about it. I'm not going to spend days of my life digging into their source code to make the changes I want, nor spend time pestering the maintainers to make the changes for me.
So I ended back at my st fork I've been using for years, which sucks... less. :) It consists of... 4,765 SLOC, of which I only understand a few hundred, but that's enough for my needs. I haven't touched the code in nearly 5 years, and the binary is that old too. I hope it compiles today, but I'm not too worried if it doesn't. This program has been stable and bug-free AFAICT for that long. I can't say that about any other program I use on a daily basis. Hhmm I suppose the GNU coreutils can be included there as well. But they also share a similar Unixy philosophy.
So, is this philosophy perfect? Far from it. But it certainly comes closer than any other approach at building reliable software. I've found that keeping complexity at bay is the most difficult, yet most crucial thing.[1]
Philpax
> I couldn't care less what the authors personal beliefs and political leanings are, or who they offended on IRC or social media.
I just don't really want to use or support software by people who, at best, think it's appropriate to joke about an ideology that wants me [0] dead, or at worst, actively subscribe to that ideology. There are some things that I'm not willing to look past.
[0]: non-white, non-straight, left of the political spectrum
ninjin
Having been on their mailing lists and IRC channel for over four years, I have seen maybe a handful of "edgy" comments that made me go "sigh" or "Ew!" and they are generally from two or so people that are on the fringe of the community. Yes, it is possible that this is some sort of elaborate trick, but they sure give the appearance of mostly a bunch of helpful folks that care deeply about their own code and projects while caring very little to police people and rather just ignore them.
Oh, there are also the edgelords occasionally lured in by Luke Smith's videos (who has never sat foot in community or contributed code while I have been around and I am not sure if he ever did) who usually get laughed out of IRC after delivering an unhinged chanspeak rant.
kelnos
> ... and they are generally from two or so people that are on the fringe of the community.
How do the people at the center of the community react to this, though? If they are not condemning that sort of behavior, and possibly kicking people like that out of the community, then they are complicit at best, and tacitly approve at worst.
imiric
I get that, they're probably assholes. But if I limited my usage of software and consumption of art to only those not authored by assholes, I would probably have a less enjoyable and boring existence. Not to mention exhausting.
I think it's possible to separate the art from the artist, and enjoy the art without being concerned about the artist's beliefs, and whether I disagree with them.
Also, you don't necessarily support them by using their software. The software is free to use by anyone, and you never have to interact with the authors in any way. Software is an amorphous entity. Unless they're using it to spread their personal beliefs, it shouldn't matter what that is. By choosing not to use free software, you're only depriving yourself.
But this is your own choice, of course, and I'm not saying it's wrong. Just offering a different perspective.
kelnos
> I get that, they're probably assholes.
I think you're setting up a too-general argument here. "Asshole" an encompass a huge variety of things, from "actively genocidal" to just "kinda annoying", and everything in between.
I'm pretty "mainstream" demographically (white, straight, cisgender), but if the developer of software I use said something like "all atheists should be shot", I would immediately stop using their software and find something else.
> By choosing not to use free software, you're only depriving yourself.
Sometimes making a statement means enduring some sort of disadvantage or hardship in return. In fact I think that's part of the point. If it doesn't cost me anything to stop supporting something I find offensive, then my (admittedly mild) protest doesn't really have much substance behind it.
In this particular case, there's nothing that the suckless folks have built that doesn't have alternatives that are also free software, so I don't think anyone who refuses to use suckless software is depriving themselves of free software.
Ferret7446
That would indeed be concerning if true; do you have a reference? Unfortunately, the vast majority of such claims I've found to be misconstrued which makes me skeptical (the boy keeps crying wolf).
econ
Then, when people are no longer allowed to talk about what (stupid shit) they believe and jokes should only be made behinds peoples back.
Who should be on the committee that decides what we may talk and joke about and how should the committee inform it self?
The new forbidden topics will be chosen from the set of topics people talk about which get smaller, stranger and more political. What people secretly believe will be much closer to the secret dialog while the public dialog floats away.
That people are saying things is the least of your concern.
Fascinating perspective tho. It is much easier if one is more secure, talks easy or has a more mundane world view. Not someone one can choose. Thicker skin however.
Also interesting, if one didn't like the people running the lunchroom at the end of the street or didn't like the visitors you use to be able to go to some other place. Today they are all part of the same chain. We've lost a lot of freedom there.
ihsw
[dead]
GoatInGrey
It's honestly distressing how all of these violent ideologies are growing in popularity. Nazism, socialism, and whatever else should be thrown on the pile. If you're a queer black "executive" like myself, there are a lot of people that believe the world would be a better place with you dead.
It's getting to the point that I'm considering keeping myself ignorant of developers' beliefs for my own mental wellness.
T-Winsnes
Huh, socialism as a violent ideology was not on my bingo card for 2025
klaussilveira
> I went back to urxvt, tried Alacritty again, gave Ghostty a try, and spent quite some time configuring Kitty. After all this I found that they all suck in different ways.
After moving to a gigantic monitor and gigantic resolutions, my poor st fork was suffering. zutty was a great replacement for me: https://git.hq.sig7.se/zutty.git
imiric
Ah, interesting. Thanks for sharing!
opan
I would highly recommend the "foot" terminal if you are on Wayland and can use it. I used urxvt, termite, and briefly alacritty in the past.
Imustaskforhelp
I use foot and with a catpucchin theme , oh it's so nice and cozy.
I use pure zsh with some plugins manually installed , the luke smith dot files, and the history part sometimes take a lot to load but foot is just fast
zzo38computer
> I couldn't care less what the authors personal beliefs and political leanings are, or who they offended on IRC or social media.
I agree. Such things are not relevant when considering to use their formats and programs and stuff like that.
What is relevant is their software and related stuff like that, and not their political leanings, etc. I do not agree with all of their ideas about computer software, although I agree with some of them.
Like them, I also don't like systemd, so I agree with them about not liking systemd.
I do use farbfeld, although I wrote all of the software for doing so by myself rather than using their software (although it should be interoperable with their software, and any other software that supports farbfeld (such as ImageMagick)). Also, I do not use farbfeld for disk files, but only with pipes. (My farbfeld utilities package also includes the only XPM encoder/decoder that I know of that supports some of the uncommon features, that most XPM encoders/decoders I know of are not compatible with or are not fully capable of.)
I may consider libzahl if I have a use for big integers, although I also might not need it. (I had written some dealing with big integers before; one program I wrote (asn1.c) that deals with big integers only converts between base 100 and base 128 in order to convert OIDs between text and binary format.)
However, I would also want software that can better handle non-Unicode text (so, it is one things I try to write), which many programs don't do properly. This should mean that any code that deals with Unicode (if any) is bypassed when non-Unicode is used. Some programs should not need to support Unicode at all (including some that should not need to care about character encoding at all, or that do not deal with text, etc). (I had considered writing my own terminal emulator for this and other reasons.)
flubbergusto
> I recently spent a few hours evaluating different terminals. I went back to urxvt, tried Alacritty again, gave Ghostty a try, and spent quite some time configuring Kitty. After all this I found that they all suck in different ways
Last time I did the same (days not hours tho lol) was somewhat surprised to find myself landing on xterm. After resolving a couple of gotchas (reliable font-resizing is somewhat esoteric; neovim needs `XTERM=''`; check your TERM) I have been very pleased and not looked back.
urxvt is OG but xterm sixel support is nice.
tasuki
> spent a few hours evaluating different terminals. I went back to urxvt, tried Alacritty again, gave Ghostty a try, and spent quite some time configuring Kitty. After all this I found that they all suck in different ways.
If you don't mind, tell more? I use kitty and it seems a big upgrade from whatever I used before...
azthecx
It also makes for very "efficient" software, the amount of time Sent has saved me, with very minor styling modifications, makes it one of the best software I've ever used.
9283409232
Whenever suckless comes up, I see more people saying "the drama is silly" than I do actual drama. I don't even know what drama people are talking about.
indrora
Short form:
* One of the lead devs' laptops is named after Hitler's hideout in the forest
* Their 2017 conference had a torchwalk that was a staple of Nazi youth camping (and heavily encouraged by the SS as a nationalism thing)
* Multiple of the core devs are just assholes to people on and offline.
* Most of the suckless philosophy is "It does barely what it needs to and it was built by us, so it's superior to what anyone else has written". A lot of it shows in dwm, dmenu, etc.
mackal
It's worth noting the 2017 tiki torchwalk was with in solidarity of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. These guys are horrible humans.
asveikau
I like dwm, and dwm being pro-fascist would be disappointing to me.
At risk of putting myself out there, it shows how crazy things have gotten when neo-nazi sympathies are described as "just some political beliefs".
ivirshup
Not defending them, the Hitler laptop thing seems bad, but within Germany torchwalks are pretty normal and not Nazi associated. For example, there was one as part of a ceremony honoring Merkel as she left office.
timewizard
I took dwm and made it my own 15 years ago. Hasn't really changed since. From my point of view they're not wrong.
Open Source Software used to be about individuality.
They're not actively campaigning to remove other window managers are they? That seems to be a feature of "community software" for whatever reason.
dijit
> One of the lead devs' laptops is named after Hitler's hideout in the forest
“The Wolf’s Lair” (but in German) sounds like it could plausibly be selected coincidentally.
There are a lot of IRC nerds who use wolves as part of a moniker, “Canis”, “Lupine” & “Aardwolf” spring immediately to mind.
slithytoves
FRIGN is not a lead dev, he is simply a dev.
deadbabe
In order to write highly opinionated software you have to be some kind of an asshole, otherwise other people wear you down with their own opinions.
imiric
I'm not sure how you missed it, since it comes up in practically every Suckless-related thread[1], including this one. The drama is mostly in social media and IRC circles, though it tends to spill over here as well.
[1]: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
clintonc
From the page about dwm:
> Because dwm is customized through editing its source code, it's pointless to make binary packages of it. This keeps its userbase small and elitist. No novices asking stupid questions.
...sucks less than what? :) Simple is good, but simpler does not necessarily mean better.
baruchel
DWM is obviously not competing with GNOME or KDE and is quite a niche window manager. However, by focusing on being a simple, hackable tool—rather than adding menus, settings, help pages, and so on—it remains reliable and easy to maintain. Each DWM user typically has their own set of carefully selected patches and can (re)compile/(re)install it as a single binary in just two or three minutes.
No one is forced to use it, but the overall experience is quite convincing.
marrs
It does in this case.
swfsql
I think I miss a suckless but async and for everything (lots and lots of apps). To the point where each of those different apps are single thread, and in such a way that they collaboratively all share the same single thread. So I'm looking for a single app that has many library-apps inside of it, all brutalistic, async and single thread.
otabdeveloper4
Single threading sucks. It's 2025 and even low-end computers have dozens of hardware threads. I don't want to compute like it's 1995 anymore.
tombert
I agree, but there is a sort of beauty in programs that were written for absurdly slow hardware.
There was a thing on HN like seven years ago [1] that talked about how command line tools can be many times faster than Hadoop; the streams and pipelines are just so ridiculously optimized.
Obviously you're not going to replace all your Hadoop clusters with just Bash and netcat, and I'm sure there are many cases where Hadoop absolutely outperforms something hobbled together with a Bash script, but I still think it serves a purpose: because these tools were written for such tiny amounts of RAM and crappy CPUs, they perform cartoonishly fast on modern computers.
I don't like coding like it's 1995 either, and I really don't write code like that anymore; most of the stuff I write nowadays can happily assume several gigs of memory and many CPUs, but I still respect people that can squeeze every bit of juice out of a single thread and no memory.
[1] https://adamdrake.com/command-line-tools-can-be-235x-faster-...
otabdeveloper4
Single threading always makes it run slower though.
Also lots of 1995 assumptions lead to outrageously slow software if used today. Python in 1995 was only marginally slower than C++. It's orders of magnitude slower today.
swfsql
If it sucks we can call it suckmore then
LAC-Tech
I like that these guys are here. I definitely appreciate what they're doing.
But I think I like software that sucks a little bit. BSPWM with its config as shell commands to the bspc daemon is about right; re-compiling C code is a bit much.
xmichael909
Yah, I don't know, DWM looks like it kinda sucks imho...
SoftTalker
I've used awesome for years. Love it, and never really looked at anything else since I found it. It's based on a fork of dwm I guess, so maybe I would like dwm also.
marrs
Nah, it's great. It's the only thing that keeps me on Linux tbh.
snailmailstare
If the goal were not to suck at all a GUI would be the wrong choice of genre.
But I do hope the st buffer overflow fixes my st usage in builds..
chjj
Heresy.
jauntywundrkind
I used it for a year or two before I switched to wmii. It was pretty great... In like 1997 or so.
znpy
I wonder how they are doing in the era of X11 leaving its spot to Wayland.
christophilus
My suckless stack is Niri (Wayland WM), Foot (terminal), and Neovim. The suckless folks wouldn’t call it suckless, but it does suck less than anything else I’ve used on Wayland.
Gormo
I assume they're doing fine, since that isn't really happening.
woodrowbarlow
dwl is a great wayland port of dwm, maintains the original philosophy well
The biggest impact suckless had on me was via. Their Stali Linux FAQ: https://sta.li/faq/ .
They've built an entirely statically linked user space for Linux . Until then i never questioned the default Linux "shared libraries for everything" approach and assumed that was the best way to deliver software.
Every little cli tool i wrote at work - i used to create distro packages for them or a tarball with a shell script that set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to find the correct version of the xml libraries etc i used.
It didn't have to be this way. Dealing with distro versioning headaches or the finnicky custom packaging of the libraries into that tar ball just to let the users run by 150 kb binary.
Since then I've mostly used static linking where i can. AppImages otherwise. I'm not developing core distro libraries. I'm just developing a tiny "app" my users need to use. I'm glad with newer languages like Go etc... static linking is the default.
Don't get me wrong. Dynamic linking definitely has it's place. But by default our software deployment doesn't need to be this complicated.