Boastful story of Frontier and how it relates to today

Boastful story of Frontier and how it relates to today

From Scripting News podcast by Dave Winer

November 30, 2025

About this episode

Dave Winer shares the story of how the software product Frontier was developed and its relevance to modern software development.

I recorded this 23 minute podcast on October 31. I didn't publish it then, but I figured at some point I would. It's the story of how a product like Frontier comes into existence. I had done this before, in 2020, in an oral history I did for a book a friend was writing. This podcast is how I remember it in 2025. :-) If you want to hear how a complicated project comes together when you're developing as you're designing, which I always do -- this is for you. It takes a while to get started, and then I talk fast, and use technical terms without explaining them. Sorry for all that. I want this kind of story told, because the folklore about how software is built or even that software is built at all, by humans, is usually wrong. It's not about invention, it's about building a new machine out of mostly pre-existing parts. Note that in the story there are zero components in the mix that we had not already perfected and commercialized. Some of them came from other developers, but most of them were remixes of themes that had appeared in earlier stories, or maybe ones that had been considered for inclusion but ended up on the cutting room floor, as in a movie editing process. The thing…

People in this episode

Host: Dave Winer

Topics covered

  • software development
  • history of technology
  • blogging tools
  • product design
  • iteration process

Keywords

  • Frontier
  • software development
  • blogging
  • iteration
  • technology history

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Frontier

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