I’m talking about programs that can’t be improved no matter what. They do exactly what they’re supposed to and will never be changed.

It’ll probably have to be something small, like cd or pwd, but does such a program exist?

  • VitoRobles@lemmy.todayEnglish
    8·
    2 days ago

    I wanted to say VLC because to me, it’s the gold standard of fully working open-source software that just destroys the commercial competitors.

    But it’s not perfect only because society changes. New video formats forces VLC and open-source devs to adapt. Bigger video and new tech specs require VLC to update. If it wasn’t for all those external needs, VLC would be perfect.

    Did I also mentioned the many times rich companies wanted to buy VLC and they laughed?

  • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    361·
    3 days ago

    Automotive engine control computers.

    They just work, for decades and millions of miles.

  • IanTwenty@piefed.socialEnglish
    20·
    3 days ago

    There was a moment in time where maybe it was qmail:

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

    Ten years after the launch of qmail 1.0, and at a time when more than a million of the Internet’s SMTP servers ran either qmail or netqmail, only four known bugs had been found in the qmail 1.0 releases, and no security issues.

    More on how it was accomplished:

    https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/01/17/some-thoughts-on-security-after-ten-years-of-qmail-1-0/

    • kalpol@lemmy.ca
      1·
      2 days ago

      Djbdns was excellent too, and ezmlm,.in fact all DJB’s software was quality for its single purpose. The world moved on though, and you had to have your basic Internet servers just…do more

  • bleistift2@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    261·
    3 days ago

    No; since every user defines the perfect program differently. Which should be the default behaviour(s)?

      • bleistift2@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        7·
        3 days ago

        But I can critisize it for having only one sharp edge instead of 2. Or for being too short or too long. Or for having a handle that’s not shaped well for my hand. (That last metaphor is probably the correct one for the sentiment I’m going for.)

        • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
          21·
          3 days ago

          The answer remains, this tool is not flawed, it’s just not the one you want.

          Vim could be feature-complete and formally verified and I’m still using Xed.

      • FishFace@piefed.socialEnglish
        3·
        3 days ago

        A hammer is a completely different tool, but different defaults in a single program are not.

        Point is there’s no objective standard for “perfect”

  • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    TeX?

    Development is considered to be complete, and the version numbering is just adding a digit of pi. Last change was 5 years ago.

    • ehxor@lemmy.ca
      1·
      23 hours ago

      This was going to be my point. The idea that as the software slowly makes new releases the version number more and more closely approximates Pi

  • kibiz0r@midwest.socialEnglish
    16·
    3 days ago

    Is there a perfect building?

    Probably not, since they exist in an environment — which is constantly changing — and are used by people — whose needs are constantly changing.

    The same is true of software. Yes, programs consist of math which has objective qualities. But in order to execute in the physical world, they have to make certain assumptions which can always be invalidated.

    Consider fast inverse sqrt: maybe perfect, for the time, for specific uses, on specific hardware? Probably not perfect for today.

  • Kissaki@programming.devEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    For software to be perfect, can not be improved no matter what, you’d have to define a very specific and narrow scope and evaluate against that.

    Environments change, text and data encoding and content changes, forms and protocol of input and output changes, opportunities and wishes to integrate or extend change.

    pwd seems simple enough. cd I would already say no, with opportunities to remember folders, support globbing, fuzzy matching, history, virtual filesystems. Many of those depend on the environment you’re in. Typically, shells handle globbing. There’s alternative cd tools that do fuzzy matching and history, and virtual filesystems are usually abstracted away. But things change. And I would certainly like an interactive and fuzzy cd.

    Now, if you define it’s scope, you can say: “All that other stuff is out of scope. It’s perfect within it’s defined target scope.” But I don’t know if that’s what you’re looking for? It certainly doesn’t mean it can’t be improved no matter what.

    • ne0phyte@feddit.org
      2·
      2 days ago

      If you just need the functionality then fzf does (among other things) exactly that. Interactive fuzzy cd. If you use the shell bindings you can do cd foo/bar/**<tab> to get a recursive fuzzy matching or you can do alt+c to immediately find any subdirectory and directly cd into it upon pressing enter. You can also use Ctrl+T to find and insert a path into the prompt.

      • Kissaki@programming.devEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        Thanks for the suggestion. As a first step, I set it up in Nushell with a ctrl+t shortcut:

        $env.config.keybindings = (
    $env.config.keybindings | append {
        name: fzf_file_picker
        modifier: control
        keycode: char_t
        mode: [emacs, vi_insert, vi_normal]
        event: {
            send: ExecuteHostCommand
            cmd: "commandline edit --insert (fzf | str trim)"
        }
    }
)

        Maybe I will look into more. :) I’ve known about fzf but I guess never gotten around to fully evaluating and integrating it.

        Nushell supports fuzzy completions, globbing, and “menus” (TUI) natively. Still, the TUI aspect and possibly other forms of integrations seem like they could be worthwhile or useful as extensions.