Mentions

“downsides characterizing self-designed frameworks. Precisely such issues as incompatibility with the newest versions of browsers, operating systems, problems with responsiveness on mobile devices can be seen as some vast disadvantages. Personally developed structure, especially if one’s programming skills are not continuously exercised and regularly updated, can get quickly sidetracked and outdated in the context of popular, mainstream technological developments. This is obviously a disadvantage if one looks from a perspective of someone willing to be in constant touch with the rest of the online realm and sees value in a constant refashioning of technologies and thus the modes of living with them. ⤴️

dogfood provotypes

In the spirit of dogfooding I personally have built an endless number of half-finished systems that I abandoned before using due to changing requirements, environments and technical contexts. I’ve learnt and lost and relearnt a lot of specific technical knowledge in these processes, and wasted a lot of time. I still love to half-build things; I respect the process, and am considering how to document partial practise. I’m currently enjoying the notion of ‘provotypes’ (Smolicki, 2017), a term I identify in my practise of designing/building half-complete prototypes as a learning exercise. The artifact is either abandoned or remixed or iterated later on, but the process and insights have ongoing use and impact of ‘provoking’ insight.