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"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 tricky 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 very hot water
International attendance is dropping to near zero. I'm not the only organizer suffering 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 grim realities. The 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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Discord Off-Ramp

It's not controversial to say I want to shut down Discord: everyone can sympathize for one reason or another! I’ve left all servers except for my own HMC and TC for now.

I’m moving us to Revolt through an invite-only system. Here’s how it’ll work:

I invite people I know personally
Meetup hosts can invite their meetup groups
Conference ticket holders are auto-invited (2025 onwards)

Indeed, meetup hosts will send chat invites with 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 careful 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, don'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 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

Over the years some new community members often think suckless and Handmade are similar if not the same. Out of respect for both, I feel it's time to respond.

The payoff is worthwhile if viewers watch patiently.

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 competing ideologies.

Your indie organizer,
Abner Coimbre

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