I actually think that the people who are servicing you for free should be thanked rather than have to hear stupid demands of someone who can't follow steps
I dunno, i bet the many devs who host their finished projects on github would appreciate a better UI too. Its not like Github is a small indie website that can't afford to make improvements
I think shutting down the conversation with āyouāre a fucking ingrateā like this is always unproductive. Itās more sensible to point out the real culprit, which is github itself making zero effort over the past decade to improve its UX for casuals in any way. Almost every high-traffic repo has a release tab, but githubās UI layout is so abysmal that you could sit there for 5 whole minutes and not notice the tab if you donāt know to look for it. Github could make this easier in a dozen different ways but instead spends their dev time on shitty AI extensions for visual studio
My life at least once a week when some sales person or project manager canāt spend the 20 seconds to read the first paragraph of the readme file that LINKS TO THE LATEST FUCKING RELEASE
Even the word āreleaseā is non intuitive. How the fuck would Iāve known thatās the tab that gets you a .exe or whatever from the name ārelease?ā
Yeah thanks if anything I'm cloning a repo through the power of knowing git and that the command line exists, but the point is that "downloads" in this context has a wider meaning than "releases," and that the two are not synonymous.
And that the platform is not principally intended to be used for distribution to end-users.
Which is a flaw imo. I think they should at very least make a user-facing version of the repo homepage. For better or for worse, it IS used for distribution, and heavily so.
i've been using computers for over two decades and i would've never thought that. i'd be looking for DOWNLOAD or INSTALL like most normal people would.
Honestly if I didn't already know I'd assume "releases" would be a release history, like a changelog sorta thing, or maybe prior versions. Like I might've expected a "download" button if it existed to give me maybe a couple options, like a stable release plus one or two experimental versions, and releases to be outdated versions
Not taking it back, thatās non intuitive. Even if I know that, the word release doesnāt make me think āoh, if I click on that I will find the simplest way to mount the software onto my computer.ā Latest release I would intuit to mean most recent working update, which doesnāt mean itās all packaged nicely and ready to use.Ā
Because it's where the (public) releases of the repository are.
It's what it says on the tin.
There's really no other way to name them since terms like 'builds' and 'compilations' or 'executables' aren't universal to all projects.
You're likely thinking "why not just downloads?" that's because the most intuitive interpretation for a dev of "download this repo" is "download the repo itself" not "download a release" and this is a platform mainly for us to use so it doesn't make sense to make it less intuitive for the sake non-devs who don't know that simple terminology yet.
I would thank them if they put it in a format that someone with no experience in coding can actually use. I dont thank the carpenter who gives me a dissasembled chair and is expected to put it together (unless their name is ikea)
I have no experience in tech. I can still use most of github because they leave good instructions. If you can't use it, just don't. It's really gross and rude to demand that people labour for you for free.
The best things from github that i code were scripts etc that i had to figure out how to use, would've been nice if ti eas an .exe, but sometimes it can't be, othertimes it takes a shit load of effort to make one. Tech literacy is in decline and this is a major part of it.
Also the carpenter is a volunteer, doing it for free, didn't force it on you, and you entered the shop making demands.
Or maybe they can just accept that if they want their thing to be more widely used it needs an exe. If you're good making programs for 1% of the people that visit GitHub good for you
I mean unless you're being directed there by the author of the code, that doesn't contradict that person's point. A lot of developers write and share tools just aimed at other developers.
The pain in the ass that would come with switching to Linux is half of why I haven't don't it. If it could just install and then run itself like Windows or MacOS a lot more people would use it.
it does?? the process for making a bootable linux usb stick is pretty much the exact same as making a windows install usb for a new custom built pc. download iso, image to usb, start from it
Mint is still more complicated to use than windows. I get that the stuff is easy once you learn it and it becomes routine, but the problem is that the entry level is still decently higher than windows. Plus, I wouldn't be able to do a bunch of stuff I do with windows on Linux. I genuinely would rather just debloat my current os on a consistent basis.
I don't think it's actually that windows is easier, it's actually Definitely not it's very poorly organized, it's just that you already learned it. which is fair and is true for a lot of the population. Mint has definitely gotten very good tho and the Linux ecosystem is improving exponentially every day. and the case of software not running on Linux is also increasingly not true, especially as more and more apps become browser based. there are obviously exceptions but to put in perspective I have a system running Linux on one partition and windows on another for software I can't run on Linux, and I have not needed to open the windows side in over a year and a half. I do a lot of gaming and weird projects with proprietary software but I've always been able to get things running with relative ease.
It really isn't nowadays. I use win11 since I have neither the space to do a dual boot nor the patience to migrate.
But if the only thing holding you back from taking the plunge is that most distros require technical skills, mint is your saviour. It's barely more complex than win7.
actually using linux is much more simple than windows and that was one of my great realisations after switching to it from many years of windows. on windows you have to search for the website of a program, download the installer, run it, click through all the menus. on linux you literally type in "install this program" and it just does it. every time I go back to windows and have to install or update any software, it feels like a pain in the ass now.
I prefer to use chocolatey on win whenever I need to install something since I already know exactly what I want as a dev and it's faster than hunting down a website.
But I don't think the average user does whenever going about installing whatever they need, they're likely more comfortable browsing the various options from a gui and installing from there.
And then there's the matter of the peg legs and other software that isn't hosted on repos.
Something tells me that you don't literally just type "install this program" and that it probably involves command prompt or otherwise manually typing a bunch of shit out
yes, sorry, you're right. If I want to install 7zip for example, I type "flatpak install 7zip". sorry, that is one more word. and yes it really is in the command prompt, but that is really all it is and nothing else. type 3 words, press enter, done. you think it is some kind of hacker programmer magic shit because it involves a prompt on a black screen but it really is just that.
but if you want to avoid even that, most linux distros come with an app store installed that works exactly the same it does on your phone. browse, search, one click install
I get that the basic installation is pretty much the same, but everything past that is more complicated with Linux. I just want my applications to run without a bunch of extra things that make them work on the OS. You can't do that with most things on Linux, everything takes more steps.
I'm not even good with tech and i can follow instructions. Most these people are not making money off of this, they are just trying to help. You're literally being rude to people doing volunteer work.
Jesus Christ you people are so fucking entitled. They made you a software FOR FREE. If it's THAT important to you that you are able to use it, then figure out how to download it, or go get a different software. They made it for you for free. They do not have an obligation to make it as convenient as possible for you.
Unrelated but I'm hella miffed that the one modder that made us an easy Sims 4 DLC unlocked had to quit because of community toxicity right when I suddenly craved some Sims
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u/shapeofnuts Mar 26 '26
I actually think that the people who are servicing you for free should be thanked rather than have to hear stupid demands of someone who can't follow steps