Third Software

We learned with our hands. We shaped stone into edges. The edge shaped us back. Tool and mind took turns.

A flat rock became a table. Then paper. Then glass. Same move each time: make a surface that can hold a thought outside the head. Once outside, we can point, compare, erase, try again.

The screen is today’s flat stone. Not magic. A plain place to lay out steps. If a person can do it there, a patient machine can too. Not perfect. But honest enough when it shows its work.

People ask for big leaps. Nature prefers short ones. Scratch a mark. Look. Scratch again. Progress is the habit of small tests in public.

Here is the simple pattern: pick a surface; mark it; try; check; keep what works. The marks changed: cuts, ink, pixels. The pattern did not.

Most value sits behind slow tables and stubborn forms. We wait for clean APIs and perfect plans. We forget that people already use these tools by hand. The humble path is to watch the hands and copy their care.

Keep it gentle. Short runs. Small steps. Bounded retries. When something fails, leave a receipt. The point is not to impress. The point is to carry the work forward with fewer surprises.

Third software is just this: treat the screen as a protocol; let workflows become scripts; prefer proof to pride. Bold guesses. Sharp checks. Less waste.

Touch the world. Mark the surface. Test the mark. Keep what holds.