to quote Wendell Berry, “the more superficial and unsatisfying our lives become, the faster we need to progress"

My dentist uses a software that seems pretty efficient. All the x-rays and other notes are right there. One big plus is that the screen is faced towards me so I can also see what they are doing.

It's not just filing the X-rays. Back in the day, for a big crown you got yourself a full mouth cast, ship it away, and eventually you got a crown which hopefully fit. Today you get a much less invasive scan before the root canal. one after, and the 3d printer in the back creates a crown that fits. Much faster, cheaper and typically even more accurate.

> Computers no doubt can improve things; a lot of it seems like a no-brainer. But I'm starting to doubt that they're there to improve things.

They stopped the improvement around Win 10. Since then, everybody (Microsoft, linux, Apple - Google never had a wheel) is reinventing a worse wheel, regularly.

Dental software is terrible as far as I can tell. I’m at school /practice were the staff cheered loudly when it was announced they were planning to upgrade or change vendors.

I never saw such passion about software.