Malleable Software: i3blocks, LLMs and the case for apps you can reshape

The discovery

A recent personal essay collected on Lobsters and a developer’s blog argues that software should feel like clay — something you can reshape instead of merely tweak. The author cites Armin Ronacher’s line about Pi and OpenClaw being “malleable like clay,” and says the turning point came when they swapped GNOME for i3 and discovered i3blocks. For the first time, they wrote tiny scripts that printed to stdout and suddenly the computer felt genuinely theirs. That feeling — “this is my computer” — is the emotional heart of the piece. Who hasn’t wanted that?

Small scripts, big feelings

i3blocks accepts any script that writes to stdout, whether bash, Node, or a one-shot from an LLM. It has been reported that the author used i3blocks to toggle CPU power states, show battery in the exact way they like, start and stop screen recordings (ffmpeg + slop), and run time trackers — even a counter that clicks up to 40 hours a week. The work is tiny, but the payoff is huge: customization without hunting through walled gardens or paying for a one-off app. The writer even admits, with a wink — “don’t judge how I track my time.”

Why developers should care

The bigger argument is strategic: it has been reported that code generation via LLMs has made building small apps almost trivial, but allegedly runtimes and distribution remain the choke points. If getting working code is cheap, software vendors should stop pretending sliders and checkboxes are enough. Ship an SDK. Ship a runtime. Let users — or their AI copilots — bend your app into something that actually fits their day. Would you ever pay for a Pomodoro timer again if you could drop one into your menu bar in minutes? Exactly.

Sources: blog.cemunalan.com.tr, Lobsters