Software that’s useless by design

Download the file and it can’t be opened. What does it do? Nothing. Yet it comes with all the “documentation,” testimonials and updates of a more useful software title.

Strangely conceptual and deftly amusing, NaDa is the creation of Montreal designer Bernard Belanger. “It’s not software,” he says, “because software usually does something. It may be slightly more like poetryware.”

Indeed, there is a bit of poetry on the site Belanger created to tout his free creation (www.bernardbelanger.com/computing/NaDa/index.html).

“What is NaDa(TM)?” the site asks. “NaDa(TM) is a simple document that will make you feel good. NaDa(TM) does not take much place on a hard disk drive, it is only 1 byte. NaDa(TM) does nothing and does it in a very efficient way.” NaDa, it adds, is “as light and as deep as a simple thought.”

Belanger is in the process of updating the 2-year-old NaDa with his latest, Version 0.5. “We’re moving toward Version 0.0,” he says. “At that point it will be so light it will be immaterial. It will be the ultimate.”

-- Michael T. Jarvis