42 // Self-made tools with Linus Lee

In a world dominated by mass-produced software, making your own tools is a way to take back agency in your digital life. Linus joins Mark and Adam to talk about his experiences building a personal software ecosystem; tools that are a reflection of the maker’s values and taste; and packaging/sharing solutions like Docker, CodePen, Replit, and Deno. And: is it possible for software to ever be “done”? — Linus thinks so.

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Show notes

• Linus Lee @thesephist
• Surface Duo
• Nintendo DS
• Backbone.js
• Spensa (farming technology startup)
• Django
• Replit
• Monocle
• full-text search
• Ink (programming language)
• changing lightbulb meme
• DigitalOcean
• August (Linus’ self-made x86 assembler)
• Metamuse episode with Weiwei Xu
• situated software
• stream fusion in mathematics
• reverse proxy
• software erosion aka bit rot
• FileMaker Pro
• newline-delimited JSON
• flat dependency trees
• dynamic linked libraries
• Go static linking
• not invented here
• Hundred Rabbits
• lil apps
• Szymon Kaliski
• An app can be a home-cooked meal
• Lucerne (Linus' self-made Twitter client)
• TweetDeck
• Taylor Swift
• Go by Example
• multi-tenancy
• Metamuse episode on local-first
• whoami
• game modding
• Deno
• Deno’s sandboxing and permissions
• Qubes OS
• Docker container
• Heroku Buttons
• macOS .app bundles
• CodePen
• xkcd on modern software dependencies
• ProseMirror
• Metamuse episode on filmmaking
• curl maintainer has been at it for 23 years