For the past couple of years I've slowly realized that I haven't been using google that much for many things, instead choosing to go directly to a source or finding something on reddit. I'm using google more as a frontend for search reddit than an actual tool to search the web.
This is largely because most of the results from google are ad filled and have huge banners that are cumbersome. For general queries and especially product reviews and suggestions its much better to type the query and tack on reddit than it is so search general web.
The other main use for google was always to find answers to programming related questions. I would search for how to do things or simple syntax issues. Now I'm finding myself reaching more for the documentation or even github for sample code than google. This is probably due to having more experience now and that for most things I already have an idea of how to do something, I just need a refresher.
I've also slowly been creeping ever downward in google results such that it's not out of the norm to hit page 2. This is something I don't remember doing a few years ago but now I wouldn't be put off going to the next page of results.
All this is to say that I think how I view and use search is changing and I'm finding that I don't really need google to find things on the web anymore. I can find all sorts of things now and the most general of questions have an obvious place to look. Instead what I want is the deeper stuff, I want to read someone's random thoughts about coding and programming. I want to read personal articles about weird stuff. I want to see the smaller internet stuff and I really enjoy gopher for that. This is also why I'm enchanted by gemini but both of these protocols are harder to browse for and that is by design.
I follow a few gopher blogs and I follow some web blogs as well but they don't post too frequently. Following the webrings is also great but often times I find that I want to read more about what I'm currently working on and see if I can get some new ideas or jumping off points.
For example, I'm currently working on my templating language, I want to consume content about people writing and struggling with templating languages. I want to read about people messing with BASIC. I want to read some simple things people are doing with processing postfix notation.
With that all said, I think the wider echo chamber I'm in is also feeling this way. Either because I feel it and so I'm looking for it or maybe there is a bigger movement happening to go to the smaller internet, Marginalia Search seems to fill a niche for search that I didn't realize.
Marginalia means {non-essential notes} [I didn't realize my notes here are marginalia, crazy coincidence] in the margins of a book. The search engine tries to index the stranger and deeper part of the internet and I think it does it pretty well. I've searched a few different things related to writing programming languages and I came up with some interesting posts and thoughts. Some of the article are from 2010 and others are from 2018.
The coolest part is that it is run by 1 guy using a server in his house that he spent 5k on. He is currently getting about 55 queries per second and so I imagine there is quite a bit of movement happening on that server. It's very cool!
I'll need to use it more but I think it's very interesting to see this kind of search engine I think it will lead to more people trying to do something like this. He actually wrote some custom logic to search recipes and he has the value of kale higher than others so recipes involve kale will rank higher. This is a search engine first and foremost for the creator and I think there is something very special about it. I think these kinds of things will be more and more important in the coming future.
⇒ Designing a Programming Language for the Desert
This is an interesting post about the Futhark Programming Language which I'm still not sure what it's about but the idea of creating a language that is designed to do one thing well and nothing else is very cool. Most of the languages I've seen and used started off niche but you can tell the aim is to grow a wide userbase. The goal of Futhark is explicitly not that, they want to build a language that isn't popular and only has limited users but it does the core thing so well it doesn't matter.
⇒ 12 New Programming Languages in 12 Months
The author tries to learn 12 languages in 12 months. An admirable goal but he fails due to getting busy with life but he does try 3. Very cool and the kind of stuff I want to read about. Not everything works the way we want.
⇒ Programming and Human Languages
A look at programmnig languages and human languages. It's something I've thought about and its crazy to me that I know so many languages when I know just 2 human languages. I also like the idea that frameworks are dialects of a language. By using a framework it might be the same language but the structure and idioms are completely different.
The idea of template languages being in 3 categories. The first is stupid templating languages where they have looping and conditionals and that's pretty much it. There are no macros and no ability to do any work in the template. The second idea is that there are smart langauges that let you write functions inside the template. The final step is what the author calls genius templating languages where you can execute real code inside the template and execute database queries. This is the bucket my templating language falls into and the author explains why this is not a good thing. I definitely agree. The footguns in my templating language is immense and you need to be aware of the language compiler to be able to really use it which means that I haven't made the language well. This is something I'll need to work on.
⇒ Not So Stupid Template Languages
This is rebuttal of sorts to the previous post and it's interesting. The author goes into why these languages exist and specifically that jinja2 maybe a smart language but it allows macros for a specific reason. A very interesting case but I think the overall idea of the previous post is still valid.
This is an article about the state of operating systems in 2017 and much of it is still true in 2023. I realized that I could probably jig something up where I can launch commands by using my voice. Ideally something like pressing a key in vent and then saying explorer or command prompt. This would be extremely useful as I currently need to drag my mouse to it or type cmd into the search. There are much more ideas in the post.
These are all interesting posts I found using Marginalia. Searching this in google gives me 1 full page of articles that are riffs of Top 10 Languages to Learn. This very clearly highlighted something I've noticed but not really thought about. I'm sure there is a much deeper thing that we can talk about because this isn't really google's fault. They expose the web pages on the internet and in doing so they are exposing ads. If they are exposing ads then there is money to be made and then people will want to game the system. So really the search results for google will be optimized to make money rather than to answer or surface content.
I'm going to use Marginalia for a bit and see how it goes but for now it has done well for me. I'll be curious to see where this goes and to see how other search engines do. I put this in the same bucket as the Serenity OS and the Ladybird browser. These big projects will hopefully get people to try more extreme things that people have been shying away from.