Hi, I'm James. Eternal dilettante and purveyor of nonsense, much of it about #Python or #physics. I work for a computer vision company whose customers actually care about results, so the current """AI""" craze is slowly melting my brain. I boost more than I post. TANSTAAFL
spent part of my day walking a new non-engineer hire through the process of building our core product to get access to one small facet that they currently need
anyway I think it's time for my irregularly-scheduled hate-editing of the core product's README to catch it up with all the various load-bearing changes that were made that nobody bothered to mention because they're "obvious"
I know that these posts are full of bile but it is actually quite rewarding to help someone avoid the huge time-suck of rediscovering all the "obvious" stuff
Possibly one of the most rewarding things I've done here recently, which is something I should probably reflect on some more
look, docs are hard, I'll be the first to admit it
this is not an excuse to shrug and not write them at all
start with the general description ("install the dependencies, configure with cmake, invoke the build with cmake") and work your way forward from there (what dependencies, and from where? what config flags should unfamiliar readers know about?) in terms of what matters most to your local context
specific info is great, but in lieu of it, a breadcrumb is still better than nothing
we use CMake, and we regularly chase the bleeding edge for some new baubles to add to our rat's nest config
So the README can't rightly name the minimum version of CMake, right? What to do?
Mention that we must have a newer CMake than the one provided by [reference system], link to the sources, and point the user to the CMakeLists.txt where we declare the minimum version.
Not 100% precision, but a lot better than "lol idk figure it out yourself"
I have this open source thing I wrote some years ago, mostly for learning, but also because my employer at the time had a need I could fill if I could manage to build it.
Today, years later, I have not given much thought to it, but suddenly I find people opening PRs to contribute to it. I don't know how to politely say, "hey - I don't have the context to properly review any of this." It's a bunch of unsafe rust too, being mostly FFI.
@onelson yea the only thing in the margin is the timeout between now and when the collective downstream reaches that decision point (and, as you say, you don't owe them anything, even that time)
@onelson it really deflates the cool fight that precedes it by shoving the "what if creaky old character who hobbles everywhere is actually spry when fighting teehee" thing down the viewer's optic nerves
@onelson I've never before considered it but man they really missed an opportunity to do an awesome fight by having him still be creaky and old, but whipping ass in the fight anyway?
my recent interest in #mahjong has collided with my on-going interest in #Unicode as I remember that the block U+1F000 through U+1F02B are allocated for encoding tiles
🀀🀁🀂🀃🀄🀅🀆🀇🀈🀉🀊🀋🀌🀍🀎🀏🀐🀑🀒🀓🀔🀕🀖🀗🀘🀙🀚🀛🀜🀝🀞🀟🀠🀡🀢🀣🀤🀥🀦🀧🀨🀩🀪🀫
this information has no practical use to me, but it's nice that the UCS represents them
If you've ever found yourself missing the "good old days" of the #web, what is it that you miss? (Interpret "it" broadly: specific websites? types of activities? feelings? etc.) And approximately when were those good old days?
No wrong answers — I'm working on an article and wanted to get some outside thoughts.
@molly0xfff for me, the thing I miss most is the up-front feeling that the web was built by people and for people.
Rationally, I know that people are still building the web, but everything feels so smoothed over and dehumanized now.
And when I ask myself "why does this exist" about most websites now, the answer is "to make money [on ads/investors]" rather than "because someone thought this should be on the web"
Kind of an abstract answer, but everything is so featureless now.
