Ask HN: What software sparks joy when using?

39 points by newswasboring ↗ HN
I've spent my last few hours working with Jira-Align. I am beginning to hate computers at this point. To up lift my mood I'd like to use something which sparks joy. Does anyone have any suggestions?

105 comments

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Open Media Vault, Photo Prism, VLC, WinAmp, Flashpoint, eXoDOS
A lover of the old school. I'll never forget how much winamp kicks the llamas ass.
+1 for WinAmp (version 2.9 specifically). Runs without issues on every single Windows OS I've been using through my life (98, XP, 7, 8, 10), supports obscure file formats through plugins, has everything that's needed for music player and no blot whatsoever.
Nothing comes to my mind that is not a game, sorry.
Cozy (audio books for Linux)

youtube-tui (allows local management of YouTube saves and playlists, written in the frankly lovely ratatui framework)

Iotas (nextcloud enabled notes software)

My default setup for writing C[1] literally puts me into a good mood when I start it up.

Full-screen uxterm, with vim with 3 splits, LHS for a terminal. Multiple tabs when necessary, proper syntax highlighting (I use a monochrome/shades of grey color scheme), with Guake mapped to ctrl-~ and 9 workspaces arranged in a 3x3 grid.

I really enjoy writing code, especially when learning something new, or feeling mastery over what I already know. JetBrains IDEs help with that a lot and I genuinely love it.

Claude or ChatGPT let me bash out my frustrations.

But, honestly, when I feel like that it's often best to get away from the computer entirely. Go for a walk, read a book, spend time with friends, do some old fashioned craft - whatever floats your boat.

JetBrains is definitely one of my favorite software companies.
vim
Yup, especially vim mode pretty much everywhere.

Dunno how people edit code without vim.

Sublime text, Windows, Steam, VLC, OBS, Winamp, Chrome, 7-zip, Snipping Tool
I'd suggest not software at all.
Yes, pen & paper ftw. Get some stamps and envelopes too, then start playing chess via correspondence.
lichess.org would be my pick. Awesome software
Might as well bring back play-by-post Dungeons & Dragons while we're at it.

I know it's still going in a more modern capacity on myth-weavers.com and other sites, but I miss the mail version, chore that it was.

Nit really spark joy but more if a relief from everything that seems to need a database is obsidian and the community plugins. Your database is your markdown files which mean I don't have to rely on it can edit the files from terminal when I want.
whimsical.com is a really nice diagram builder that just works. Everything is intuitive. I've built some reasonably complex diagrams in it without every needing to refer to a help page. It's great.

I'll also give Excel a shout. It's brilliant. The learning curve is steep, but once you're there it's a joy to use.

Excel was the peak of programming by end users. One of the only apps ever to create a model that gives users that much power to do things on their own.

I rarely use it since I don't generally work with that kind of arbitrary data hands-on much, and I don't tend to use a lot of math outside of code, but whenever I do it's usually great

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Not current by any means but the original TextMate. Beautiful in its simplicity and you felt like you were using the editor of the future, which you were because everybody uses TM grammars now.
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What consistently amazes and pleases me is software that cleverly uses algorithms and data structures to prevent complexity. In particular, everything CRDT-like still seems like magic to me.

So I'm unreasonably excited by bittorrent, storage based on consistent hashing, and rsync (rolling checksums are just amazing).

Interestingly I hate distributed consensus with a passion because it always seems to achieve the opposite - causing more complexity.

Starting Blender and changing to Cycles render mode and seeing how the shadow falls over the items you place has always felt special to me.
the Helix text editor.

the fish shell.

atuin.

Linux with Sway window manager.

Sourcehut, Superkey (if I don’t want to use the mouse then I don’t have to), Orion (browser), Zulip (Web, their mobile app can be frustrating).
Is there something like /r/eyebleach for software where you can go at the end of day? That being said, the best would be no screen at all and some greenery.
The hack for that is walking the dog after work.
Deluxe Paint, Turbo C, Krita
I will never go back to using Windows Explorer & Taskbar after downloading Altap Salamander and StartAllBack. Also, "Everything" for searching.
Everything is so great. In addition to my local drive at work I also have it set up to index a huge network drive, and I can actually find things.
I remember first using Expensify after years of wrangling various ERP monstrosities. Serious joy.
In a similar vein, I had a Pleo payment card at a previous job, and the speed with which it notified me on my phone when I had paid on the card, prompting me to take a picture of the receipt, always made me smile.

More often than not the notification came through before the receipt had even printed.

ChatGPT.
ChatGPT is amazing. Even when it is completely hallucinating, the fact that it can do so with such a nicely worded response just puts a smile on my face.