Paul Graham
Writing and Speaking
Write Simply
The Age of the Essay
Early work
What doesn't seem like work?
The Top Idea in Your Mind
Cities and Ambition
Taste for Makers
Good and bad procrastination
The still life effect
How to do what you love
Hackers and Painters
The Right Tools for the Job
A representational tension
The teleology of tool-building
Urban form and grain
Software often feels inevitable
Software often feels inevitable because its backstory is often invisible. We click a download link, run an installer, and suddenly have a new tool to use. Yet this conceals years of human decisions, experiences, and constraints shaping software outcomes that are in no way pre-destined.