I remember stumbling onto this site a year or so ago: https://www.reactionary.software/
I originally found it on r/shittysysadmin when a screenshot of the discord for it (so much for modern software being bloated and unusable) had the person behind it defending that the site didn’t have an ssl cert, since that was a way “modern browsers control you”.
I was curious and poked around on the site, and first thing you see is this:
Make software great again! For programmers who hate modern software. Modern software is overcomplicated, bloated, unreliable, incomprehensible, pointlessly ideological, and mostly unusable. We like the values of older software: simplicity, reliability, and usability.
This seems pretty fashy, but there is some legitimate criticisms of modern software.
Saving programming from modern culture
Nevermind, fash.
On the about page, he starts by mentioning html swipers, and one he made himself. The one he made is pretty dogshit on anything but a phone.
After talking a bit on how terrible modern software he then compares it to brick walls, which were also so much better back in the day (?).
He then rambles about ancient greece and rome.
An excerpt:
Why did it take to long? Because humanity had become just too stupid to appreciate good ideas. They weren’t completely retarded. Ptolemy’s horrible system did require some intelligence to create. […] Today’s West is currently at the level of the decaying Greeks, heading toward complete idiocracy. The programmers in Silicon Valley are like Ptolemy, able to construct and maintain horrible overcomplicated monstrosities, but totally unable to innovate at a fundamental level. All good programming ideas are rejected because they don’t fit into current programming ideologies. Any programmer like Aristarchus who comes up with a good programming idea will be rejected and ridiculed for violating orthodoxy. Modern programmers are in love with their own ideas and love complexity. They hate simplicity and anything that violates their ideologies.
He then complains about how his parser was met with scorn by Modern Programmers, because they were too stupid to appreciate how good it was?
The post is here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Compilers/comments/cv78b3/parsing_for_programmers_who_hate_modern_software/
Some excerpts:
What is good? The short answer is that everything that modern culture hates is good, and everything that modern culture loves is bad. But we need more details than that. You can find good values in scripture or in good traditional culture. These values should be applied to programming and to everything else in life. I wrote an Old Testament guide to programming. I also discussed applying traditional Japanese culture to programming. These are just two examples. Any other scripture like the Quran or any traditional culture should work fine to give you good values, in contrast to the horrible values of modern culture, and these good values can guide you to writing good reactionary software.
So, anything anti-modern is good?
Going back to the homepage, there’s a page for existing reactionary software.
Java 8.
One of the pinnacles of software, to him, is Java 8.
Not java specifically, just java 8.
Luan is a language he made, which I can only describe as a mash of lua, java and php.
Here’s a snippet from the docs:
local Io = require "luan:Io.luan"
local Http = require "luan:http/Http.luan"
return function()
Io.stdout = Http.response.text_writer()
%>
<!doctype html>
<html>
<body>
Hello World
</body>
</html>
<%
end
So, this is basically a lua clone, written in java. with a few missing features .
The why page on the luan site is probably the most deranged bit of this.
Luan rejects the complexity of modern software. […] Luan will appeal to you depends on who you are. Members of modern culture will not like Luan because they hate simplicity. Luan will only appeal to good cultures that value simplicity, so I will address the two good cultures that I know of.
The mentioned two good cultures are the Mennonites, and the Japanese.
Japan is the only remaining country that I know of that values quality.
You cannot expect to achieve Japanese standards of quality and reliability if you use modern western software. So use Luan instead.
He has a chronically inactive forum at https://mikraite.arkian.net/Reactionary-Software-f1999.html .
Also, shoutout to this political take: https://web.archive.org/web/20240831203139/http://mikraite.arkian.net/Are-democrats-actually-our-allies-td4846.html
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takes massive bong hit.
JSON is fundamentally untyped
If you think about it, programs are all just bytes. Types aren’t real, dude. It’s just The Man trying to control how you think.
segues into incoherent 3 hour monologue on craniometry of (((haskell developers)))
By modern values he is referring to 64-bit numbers
he starts by mentioning html swipers, and one he made himself. The one he made is pretty dogshit on anything but a phone.
The best part is that’s it just a bunch of
<div>s. Like, how are you going to rile against modern software and then handwrite HTML like you’re the latest js framework.Gouda dog, my name is Herr Fschmidt.
I’m a 27 year old American Reactionary Programmer (Mennonite coder for you morons). I write parsers and text editors on my TempleOS PC, and spend my days perfecting my html and playing superior Mennonite games. (Determining the closest connection I have with Mennonite strangers, reading the bible, and shunning)
I train with my Holzaxt every day, this superior weapon can cut clean through Peruvian Walnut because it is hammered over a thousand times, and is vastly superior to any other weapon on earth. I earned my axe license two years ago, and I have been getting better every day.
I speak Mennonite fluently, both Plautdietsch and the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect, and I write fluently as well. I know everything about Mennonite history and their anabaptism, which I follow 100%
When I get my Mennonite visa, I am moving to Pennsylvania to attend a prestigious High School to learn more about their magnificent culture. I hope I can become a farmhand at a puppy mill or a pastor!
I own several zipperless trousers, which I wear around town. I want to get used to wearing them before I move to Lancaster County, so I can fit in easier. I bow to my elders and seniors and speak Bernese German as often as I can, but rarely does anyone manage to respond.
Wish me luck in Pennsylvania!
My name is Schmidt F. I’m 27 years old. My house is in the Mennonite region of Dutch Pennsylvania, where all the farms are, and I am trad-married. I work as the manager for the Single Sushi matchmaking service, and I get home every day by sunset at the latest. I don’t smoke, but I occasionally drink. I’m in bed by two candles and make sure I sleep until sunrise, no matter what. After having a glass of warm unpasteurized milk and doing about twenty minutes of prayer before going to bed, I usually have no problems sleeping until morning. Just like a real Mennonite, I wake up without any fatigue or stress in the morning. I was told there were no issues at my last one-on-one with my pastor. I’m trying to explain that I’m a person who wishes to live a very quiet life, as long as I have Internet access. I take care not to trouble myself with any enemies, like JavaScript and Python, that would cause me to lose sleep at night. That is how I deal with society, and I think that is what brings me happiness. Although, if I were to write code I wouldn’t lose to anyone.
I’ve raised over 300 confirmed barns etc.
No emacs? Not even vim, or ed (the standard text editor)? I feel oddly bereft 😢
ok this is likely nothing of real substance but I searched the name of the dude, and discovered that A) there is a wiki of notable incels/incel influencers and B) the OOP has an entry. It’s the same username as in the reddit screenshot.
E: originally I had embedded a link to said incel wiki. Removed because the wiki is run by incels. It’s not hard to find.
wiki-editing weirdos (derogatory)
Advocating for simplicity and including Java 8 in their examples is certainly a choice. Probably a case of, I have learned this language therefore it is simple. They should join up with the traditionalists software developers over at suckless; I am sure they would get along.
Java 8 was what I learned in my community college intro to programming class a decade ago, therefore the computer must not ever change
I didn’t get to use Java 8 features when I was working on an Android app because the sdk level was too low :(
I think it’s even a step further: “why should I learn new things and improve, fuck all the new things”
“So anyways I built a new language luan and you are a bad person if you don’t appreciate it”
Wait, suckless are fash?
yep, see this recent post for receipts (in the answer key) — they’re not even close to not being fash, though they’re still denying it in ways that don’t hold any water at all
Oof. That sucks. Thanks for the info 😞
I was actually reminded of the site after seeing a post on suckless here.
Wait, just saw this: https://www.arkian.net/
A Family Ark Save your family from evil dysgenic modern culture.
Ok, this is much less subtly fascist, it straight up endorses eugenics. This guy also thinks of himself as a centrist.
And if farm animals can be bred, why not people?
The Arkian idea is to form a eugenic intentional ethnicity. For what purpose? To produce a group of people with high intelligence, religiousness, and ethnocentrism.
actual anti-Semitism
The Jews that remain Jews are either stupid or they like the evil Talmudic nonsense. This is why today’s Jews are generally evil. This is why Jewish intellect declined so rapidly. And this is why Israel implemented a covid vaccine holocaust on their own population, because modern Jews are too stupid to know any better and too evil to allow dissent.
Again, this guy thinks of himself as a centrist, and is not a fan of “the right”.
straight up nazi
The “master race” is a construct that exists in the the future within esoteric nazi lore
There’s also this: https://mikraite.arkian.net/
It seems to me that a lot of these rightists always blabbering on about how good the free market is. But now, OpenAI urges the banning of deepseek, Elon musk takes hold of the trump administration in the tariff laws, seeking protection from the state when the free market doesn’t benefit him (Tesla, spacex and x are all doing badly) The hypocrisy on the right is just as bad as the left. They only adhere to their values when it benefits them
So yeah, fascist enlightened centrist.
Maybe its like the modern day equivalent of the Amish or Mennonites. You can program and use technologies, but nothing newer than 2014 (when Java 8 was released, the pinnacle of technology)?
