š¾ Archived View for zaibatsu.circumlunar.space āŗ ~shufei āŗ phlog āŗ 20200612-Reply-Demifiend-Games.gmā¦ captured on 2023-11-14 at 08:05:55. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
ā¬ ļø Previous capture (2023-03-20)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
On
Said f(r)iend makes quick and nimble hash of the basic con job which is proprietary video gaming. Computers with locked down OSās indeed they are, and as such may be up to all sorts of mischief besides their grotesque inaccessibility. Especially given how many video gaming platforms are now mostly software driven, even at the personal expense of users downloading content, their high price point is probably an overwrought profit.
Part of said rant was that all games ought to be easily compilable by no more than
./configure make sudo make install
This frustration is certainly one I must co-sign, and a mete criticism of the high walls around ānix culture in general. Itās understandable when a dev is fiddling with a smol or new doohickey and hasnāt had time for proper documentation. But Iāve come up against many projects in which steps to basic installation were assumed of the user, especially neglecting to mention dependencies which may be exotic or hard to install themselves. If any trouble in compilation is encountered, there is nigh no support for remedy. Iād say about 2/3 of Unix doohickeys I utilize are such a muddle.
This dovetails with discussions Iāve had recently on fediverse around the grotesque obtuseness of man pages. If there isnāt ample use of examples, they are useless for many users. Poor documentation is endemic to this culture and one wasting gigahours, I wager.
Man pages are a pickle. But installation guides should be an easy fix. If a ware is released, please provide a QuickStart section in the readme using the most lucid of terms. If compiling requires more than the above, or if exotic dependencies must be had, that is jake. But the acquisition of these dependencies ought to be spelled out without much uncertainty.
Testing is a vague rĆ“le in the dev process insofar as criteria for being a āgood testerā hasnāt been spelled out to my mind at least. But Iād hazard much of this muddle could be sorted out by having intermediate Unix user but non-coder testers simply try to install the product and report any issues. It wouldnāt take long to hash out any obscurity in the readme from such an effort. This should be a āstandard thingā in the development process.
An arrogantly naĆÆve suggestion, this, perhaps. But having banged my head against many a poorly documented ware, I offer it with tearful implorement.
-EOF-
.