Tech hot takes presented without nuance, context, or evidence
I wrote this post as an exercise during a meeting of IndieWebClub Bangalore.
- There has never been a difference in the quality of user experience between Windows and macOS. They’re slightly different spins on the exact same idiom.
- Graphical interfaces are strictly superior to command line interfaces in every way that matters.
- Any sufficiently complicated UI framework contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of HTML and CSS.
- HTML and CSS are the best technologies for building user interfaces in 2025.
- Learning CSS expands your mind in the same way learning Common Lisp or Haskell expands your mind. If you dislike CSS, you probably don’t understand CSS.
- Mobile operating systems (iOS/Android) require as much skill and knowledge to use as desktop operating systems (Windows/macOS). Anybody who can comfortably use a smartphone today can also learn to use a desktop computer.
- LLMs are not such a big deal. Learning to use them well nets you marginal productivity gains, but ignoring them completely at this juncture won’t do much harm.
- LLMs will only improve productivity when we build better UIs for interacting with them. A chat box is the worst possible way to use an LLM.
gitis an impediment to good software engineering. Its baroque and confusing UI results in hundreds of thousands of wasted developer hours across the world every year, costing organizations tens of millions of dollars in developer salaries.- Social media as it exists now should be regulated the same way we regulate gambling.
- Bonus non-tech take: writing is not thinking, good writers are not necessarily good thinkers. You don’t even need words to think.