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| title | meta_title | description | date | image | categories | author | tags | draft | |||
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| Our Summer Update | See where we stand halfway through the year | 2025-06-21T12:00:00Z | /images/hmc/ocean.jpg |
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Abner Coimbre |
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Catch up on our progress this year. Ticket discounts end soon!
Things to Discuss
- Conference Theme: Handmade at Home
- Shutting Discord Down
- My Thoughts on AI
- Bonus Video: Is Handmade like Suckless?
Dear community member,
Summer is here! I’ve extended the Spring Sale a few more days, but the discounts vanish after Wednesday:
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Check out our new downloadable calendar to keep track of event dates.
"Handmade at Home"
This year’s conference theme is Handmade at Home, and it has two meanings.
Meaning #1: Cleaning House
With our industry in upheaval, it’s rather difficult to settle down and reflect, let alone evangelize our values. Here’s what we’re facing:
- Handmade Cities is full of gamedevs and they're in major trouble
- International travel dropped to near zero. I'm not the only organizer suffering the consequences
- Morale is at an all-time low due to AI (more on this later)
Therefore I'm keen for talks or demos that offer hope, strategies, and inspiration against these realities. Whoever knows speakers near Boston or Seattle, please send suggestions my way! This theme is open-ended.
Reminder: Our new content will be 80% technical and 20% about programmer well-being.
Meaning #2: Elevate Our Own Talent
Historically, I've chosen high-profile speakers outside our community to come talk to us. This is valuable. However, I haven't spent nearly enough time platforming community voices.
We have astounding system programmers at our meetups and I wish to hear from them.
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Someone reading this may be a worthy candidate and not even know it. Send an informal proposal to submissions@handmadecities.com
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Shutting Discord Down
It's not controversial to say I want to shut down Discord: everyone can sympathize for one reason or another! I’ve already left all servers except for my own HMC and TC.
I’m moving us to Revolt with an invite-only system. Here’s how it’ll work:
- I invite people I know personally
- Meetup hosts can invite their attendees
- Conference ticket holders are auto-invited (2025 onwards)
Indeed, meetup hosts will be able to send chat invites through my command-line tool, which they already use to send newsletters. (I'm in the middle of completing this feature.)
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I am, in essence, heeding the advice of this HN comment:
I honestly couldn't tell you right now what the long game looks like. Only to find your humans, build your digital fortresses, and help each other as best you can.
Revolt won't be foolproof of course. The host could go rogue and invite randos, or the ticket holder might take on a fake identity. I'm fine with some cracks on the floor though. This transition is happening over the summer and I’ll keep folks posted if they're subscribed.
My Thoughts on AI
All right, it's a stretch to call my take on artificial intelligence a "real" philosophy, but it is informed from personal study.
I'm no longer a stranger to AI; I can effectively use the cline bot and deploy MCP servers. I review, quantize, and self-host open models. I stay on top of the "latest and greatest" and have vibe coders on speed dial (I keep dissenting opinions closer than friends.)
So what's the conclusion? I offer two.
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Conclusion #1: Handmade Ethos is Competitive
Serious Handmade projects, like my own Terminal Click, doesn’t gain from AI. It does help at the margins: I've delegated website work since last year, and I enjoy seamless CI/CD for my builds. This is meaningful.
However, it fails at novel problems and isn’t practical for my systems programming work. (Skeptics should check out the bonus video at the end.)
Conclusion #2: A Market for the Artisanal
Let's imagine LLM agents become essential for true innovation: the top 5% of 'manual' coders are officially threatened! From what I observe at our in-person events, there remains the eternal craving for what's purely human.
Even the True Believers conceded to me users will crave Handmade projects the same way people crave artisanal crafts, furniture or goods. They called this futuristic market fringe - I call it sustainable.
TL;DR: I don't lose sleep over my craft disappearing. I lose sleep over the automation of mediocrity.
Is Handmade like Suckless? (Video)
Anyone who made it this far deserves a cool video! I've set up a permalink at terminal.click/suckless
<script src="https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.js"></script>Over the years some new community members think suckless and Handmade are similar if not the same. Out of respect for both, I felt it was time to clarify.
P.S. Don’t expect a deep philosophical breakdown. Instead, I casually compare their signature terminal software against my own: two real-world products from different ideologies.
Your indie organizer,
Abner Coimbre