Every application kind of needs two modes: a default mode where the user is railroaded into making the right decision, and an “I’m not an idiot and will actually read the documentation before/after trying to make things work” mode. If you stick the toggle for the two modes somewhere that you’d only find by reading the documentation, people will automatically categorize themselves into the mode the ought to be in.
You actually need proper documentation, though. I’ve had to read source code to discover or figure out how to use cli flags way too many damn times. (I’m not a real programmer, I just work on infrastructure).
Thats totally fine for someone learning. Some really good coders i know still cannot explain complicated data structs or complicated topics. Nobody can “measure” you as a “real programmer” anymore, try as they might to replace us with LLM AI. You wrote code? You’ve been thru it? You’ve learned a good amount? You’re a programmer.
android does it well, if you want “developer” mode that let’s you have better control over your system you have to do some funny IT rituals you can only access by 1. knowing they exist 2. googling how to do it
Steam OS has kind of the same philosophy too. Normal users can treat it like a switch, only ever downloading from steam, and have a perfectly intuitive experience. But power users still have the options to run other software, customize the os, and even outright replace the os.
Although it’s pretty easy to stumble upon some guide that you don’t understand that gets you to enable dev mode. Not saying it happens a lot, but there’s not a very high bar for the test for enabling dev mode.
Every application kind of needs two modes: a default mode where the user is railroaded into making the right decision, and an “I’m not an idiot and will actually read the documentation before/after trying to make things work” mode. If you stick the toggle for the two modes somewhere that you’d only find by reading the documentation, people will automatically categorize themselves into the mode the ought to be in.
You actually need proper documentation, though. I’ve had to read source code to discover or figure out how to use cli flags way too many damn times. (I’m not a real programmer, I just work on infrastructure).
I’m sorry to tell you this but you are a real programmer.
Fuck
Oh yes you are a programmer!
I guess I shouldn’t have switched from CS to IT when we got to recursion (I can read it, but I can’t write it to save my life)
Thats totally fine for someone learning. Some really good coders i know still cannot explain complicated data structs or complicated topics. Nobody can “measure” you as a “real programmer” anymore, try as they might to replace us with LLM AI. You wrote code? You’ve been thru it? You’ve learned a good amount? You’re a programmer.
android does it well, if you want “developer” mode that let’s you have better control over your system you have to do some funny IT rituals you can only access by 1. knowing they exist 2. googling how to do it
Steam OS has kind of the same philosophy too. Normal users can treat it like a switch, only ever downloading from steam, and have a perfectly intuitive experience. But power users still have the options to run other software, customize the os, and even outright replace the os.
I love my Steam deck for this reason. I started out using it to replace my switch and now I’m easing my way into learning Linux.
Although it’s pretty easy to stumble upon some guide that you don’t understand that gets you to enable dev mode. Not saying it happens a lot, but there’s not a very high bar for the test for enabling dev mode.