I was curious why this Apple ][ story is posted on atariarchives.org. Glad to found this:

  Digital Deli

  The Comprehensive, User-Lovable Menu of Computer Lore, Culture, Lifestyles and Fancy
  by The Lunch Group & Guests
  Edited by Steve Ditlea
  published 1984

> Digital Deli[0] is copyright ©1984. It is posted on www.atariarchives.org with the approval of Steve Ditlea, editor of the book, for archival purposes only. Commercial reproduction or use of any of this material without the permission of the individual author and/or photographer is prohibited.

What follows on the page is the MENU of contents.

[0] https://www.atariarchives.org/deli

I interviewed Paul. Interesting man.

https://corecursive.com/remote-developer/

I should say Paul is more interesting then that article. He now lives in a bigger cabin, a proper house in the woods and is into drones. He answers emails and has lots of stories to share.

He sailed solo a lot and also spent time with bears and still programs.

paul lutus himself is an occasional hacker news commenter:

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=lutusp

I like the big Thoreau energy happening in this article. That said, vim was the vision of one (even that’s debatable) with the support of many and it’s far better than apple writer. The idea that the best software is the product of one or two is often touted and in my experience, never the case.

This guy seems a whole lot more devoted to the whole solitude and self-sufficiency thing than Thoreau. He only did it for a couple years, right? Lutus seems to have made a life of it, and found a sort of steady-state way to sustain himself while doing so.

Reminds me of Joey Hess (joeyh.name).

That said, I think this take has aged poorly in light of recent history. For instance, Google was started as a small collaboration, but has since grown into an enormous company. Presumably, this growth was (at least initially) the natural result of finding that a couple people can only do so much. For another example, Sublime Text (a for profit text editor written by a small group of developers) is massively less popular than VS Code, which is the bloated work of a small army.

> For another example, Sublime Text (a for profit text editor written by a small group of developers) is massively less popular than VS Code, which is the bloated work of a small army.

Were you around in the Sublime 1/2 days? It used to be massively more popular than the alternatives, including Code, Brackets, Atom, etc. They fell behind because they cost 70 (then 80, now 100) USD and weren't as versatile or quickly iterative.

that was a fascinating read. here is another "interview with an extraterrestrial" writing from him

https://arachnoid.com/lutusp/alien.html

Sigh that's my favorite life style, only in dream.

Pretty amazing story