Comment by einpoklum
1 day ago
> Consider: what does computing look like in a world where many (maybe most) applications have an audience of just 1-2 people? How is software distributed? What does it run on?
The same. The slop apps remain just that. They may do something useful for you, but that's it. A bit like a branch in a repository.
Have you thought carefully about this? What does it mean to call a piece of software that solves a real problem you have in your life "slop"?
It's the same thing as looking down your nose at people who use Excel as a database because it's not a "real" database.
Yes, I'm sure we all have horror stories about spreadsheets that got out of hand, but that ignores the thousands (or more) spreadsheets that are silently productive everyday.
That's a pretty good simile in fact. Excel programs are very useful to the people who write them (including myself sometimes); and yet - almost none of them are widely shared, becoming fundamental tools.