17 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
17 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Offline
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description: A conversation with a colleague caused me to consider the consequences of online-only tooling.
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date: 2023-10-20
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tags:
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- Quick Thoughts
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synopsis: A conversation with a colleague caused me to consider the consequences of online-only tooling.
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imageURL: /img/kenny-eliason-uq5RMAZdZG4-unsplash.webp
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imageAlt: A server rack in the dark with colorful cables draped between the ports of servers and switches.
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mastodon_id: "111268603361637013"
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---
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As part of a project investigating a potential new piece of software, I've been speaking with colleagues and contractors to determine which features they rely on to do their day-to-day tasks, as well as discover any wish-list items for a new platform. In one of these discussions with a colleague, we had covered her relatively simple use case, and moved on to discuss potential features that might be useful. At this juncture, she mentioned, somewhat apologetically, that should a particular workflow be translated to a new platform, it was important to be able to access data and documents offline.
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I've long been irritated by the propensity of modern proprietary software to lock in its users with monthly subscriptions and online-only access, allowing them to shut off the supply, as it were, at a moment's notice should a billing cycle fail to complete to their satisfaction, or should they be momentarily unable to subject their user to data collection or surveillance. I'm also no fan of slow, web-based software devouring gigabyte after gigabyte of memory, while requiring at least two machines to operate — a client, and a server. Still, I was struck by my colleague's comment; it seems rare these days that your average computer user has any expectation left that *anything* ought to work without access to the internet. It's a travesty, really.
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Compared to the experience of opening Adobe Illustrator or even Outlook on the computer issued by my day-job, the results of switching my personal machines and the workflows for my small business to exclusively FLOSS tooling has felt liberating — no waiting at splash-screens, advertising baked into the OS, or fans screaming from the combined load of endless electron apps competing for their share of system resources; best of all, from spreadsheets, to my IDE, to design files, in order to get work done, not a damned thing requires me to be forever online.
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