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by __d 8 days ago
There’s an interesting middle ground: not fully malleable software, where the end user has full customisation ability but requires full programming skill, but eg the Unix tool model where prebuilt utilities can be composed with a simple syntax.

Pre-existing (or importable) ELisp functions are kinda similar, just a slightly higher level of user skill.
1 comments
miki123211 8 days ago
Another approach to this is "build mechanism, not policy" (also of Unix philosophy fame).

Encapsulate the hard parts in libraries, ship the topmost layer as codegen templates that depend on those libraries, and let agents / devs modify that topmost layer to their heart's content. This often beats putting everything in libraries and having to expose customization points everywhere.

This is the approach taken by the Shadcn UI library (which became popular just as agents entered the scene), but it generalizes far beyond UI.

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jolmg 8 days ago
> Another approach to this is "build mechanism, not policy" (also of Unix philosophy fame).

Might be more recognized from the X Window System design principles rather:

> Provide mechanism rather than policy. In particular, place user interface policy in the clients' hands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System_protocols_and_...

It wasn't part of the original Unix philosophy, but I see that went through several revisions.

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