What I Need From A Computer

My attention is following the constant ebb and flow of simplicity and complexity: I want technology to do as much as I need, and no more

Now, here's the tricky part: what do I need from a computer?

Often, we get told what we need by the mega-corporations: you need Google Chrome, VSCode, Facebook, Github, iPhone, etc. And even well-meaning folk might nudge you towards a certain software or paradigm. Its easy to get swept into a convoluted mess of dependencies

Roughly, I can think of three main categories:

• Communication: Sending/receiving information
• Entertainment: Making pixels dance
• Compilation: Creating software

The challenge, then, is to solve each of those problems in as few dependencies as possible

I had previously thought that there were a few concrete requirements, like X/Wayland for GUIs, Firefox for the web, and GCC/Clang for C. But, recently I have begun to question that belief

• A few entrants to the Old Computer Challenge have experimented with life without a display server, using only the console and willpower. And, surprisingly, it was (mostly) fine. The problem of displaying images is the main concern. So, do I really need X?
• I have also recently discovered Gemini and Gopher, which are alternative web protocols to rival HTTP/HTML (and the mighty leviathans within). It is essentially a plain-text format, which means you can read a Gemini page in a simple one-line sh script. So, do I really need Firefox?
• As for GCC/Clang...I think I might be stuck with it. There are smaller alternatives out there, like tcc, scc, cproc, and Musl, that all work well. However, almost every kernel compiles using GCC/Clang (with the exception of Plan9). So, if you want to be able to compile your operating system, you are probably going to have to rely on one of the big-guns. This raises the question, do I really need one of the big operating systems?

I don't have any answers to these questions, and any answer I could give would undoubtedly change rapidly. But, I think these questions are worth asking anyway