Permacomputing is a computing design philosophy which aims to improve resilience by using regenerative design in computer and network technology.

History

The term permacomputing was coined by Finnish artist and writer Ville-Matias “Viznut’’ Heikkilä in an essay on their website,[1] although it has earlier roots in a talk given by Kent Beck titled "Programming as a garden: Permaprogramming",[1] as well as Amanda Starling Gould's 2017 doctoral dissertation on "Digital Environmental Metabolisms"[2] which treats digital networking as a kind of geography.

Principles

Permacomputing generally centers on a set of principles:[3]

  • Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst: designing for resilience even when you do not expect issues;
  • Care for All Hardware — Especially the Chips: pay attention to the digital foundations of technology and aim to avoid producing waste;
  • Observe First: assess what is valuable, beautiful, and necessary before taking action;
  • Not Doing: do not assume that technological progress is necessarily beneficial;
  • Expose The Seams: make the meaning, motivation, and materiality of software design tangible and visible;
  • Consider Carefully The Interaction Between Simplicity, Complexity and Scale: do not assume that a simple system is necessarily better, and avoid scaling up for its own sake;
  • Keep It Flexible: make systems adaptable to different purposes and circumstances;
  • Build On Solid Ground: avoid becoming strongly dependent on systems, platforms, or formats that may change rapidly;
  • (Almost) Everything has a place: avoid thinking of the history of technology as a linear story of progress and obsolescence, and value diversity;
  • Integrate Biological And Renewable Resources: encourage the greater integration of computational resources with sustainable and renewable materials.

Self-obviating systems

A design principle in line with permacomputing is the self-obviating system,[4] which is a system which intends to render itself unnecessary.[5] In this paradigm, abandonment of the technology does not represent failure; for example, users may abandon a digital exercise system because they move onto other forms of exercise, like running outdoors or attending a gym, so that the system becomes unnecessary to them.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Heikkilä, Ville-Matias. "Permacomputing". Retrieved 5 March 2026.
  2. ^ "history". permacomputing.net. Retrieved 5 March 2026.
  3. ^ "principles". permacomputing.net. Retrieved 5 March 2026.
  4. ^ "self-obviating system". permacomputing.net. Retrieved 5 March 2026.
  5. ^ Tomlinson, Bill; Norton, Juliet; Baumer, Eric, P. S.; Pufal, Marcel; Raghavan, Barath (2015). "Self-Obviating Systems and their Application to Sustainability" (PDF). iConference 2015 Proceedings. Retrieved 5 March 2026.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)