The Readme goes right to how to install it, and other than the logo saying "sell your stuff, see what sticks" there is 0 information about what it does. Sure I can Google, but I think it should be right there, at the top of the Readme.
god we are so spoiled. this is a successful, pretty well known commercial project. it's now source available. you have plenty of resources to get context in 2 minutes. lets appreciate the big stuff, have some agency for the rest.
usually if the project comes with a big lengthy beautiful readme thats actually a contra indicator that the thing is a production repo
Is it really "spoiled" to say it'd be convenient for maybe a one-liner at the top of the file that's supposed to explain stuff about the project?
>you have plenty of resources to get context in 2 minutes.
I always laugh a little bit at this line of thinking. Whoever wrote the readme can spend 2 minutes to write a line or two about the project, or the potentially thousands of people who want information about the project can spend 2 minutes to look it up. It makes a lot more sense to spend 2 minutes vs. 2000 minutes.
In the end, for me, it's not a big deal to spend the 2 minutes. But sometimes I like to think a little bit bigger than just myself.
pretty much sums up the contents of the repo. If someone can't be bothered to check out gumroad.com there's no amount of documentation that will help them.
gumroad.com does not say what it does. It's a list of products being sold. You have to navigate to the About page, then scroll about 1/4 of the way until you can get an idea of what it is.
Is it hard? No, of course not. It's like a minute or two. But it's a minute or two for lots of people vs. a minute or two for one person, once.
But yeah, I totally get it, why would I waste 2 minutes of my time when I can have a bunch of other people waste 2 minutes of their time instead.
I was also wondering what this was about. Should I care and why?
It's not only that I don't want to, but literally can't use extra 2 minutes for _every_ link I open while browsing news sites. And that attention span window is only getting shorter.
It's definitely not the first or last time for github repo not using the best real estate they have in "selling" their product.
> but literally can't use extra 2 minutes for _every_ link I open while browsing news sites
The expectation to open every link may be the real issue. If the title and Readme don't speak to you, just let it be. You will always miss out on most things on the Internet.
“I can’t afford to spend 2 extra minutes for every link I open on news sites” does not mean “I expect to open every link that exists on the news sites I visit”.
I had no idea, and I've been a "Rails guy" for 15 years, and keenly interested in high-profile successful Ruby projects for a long time. Even clicking through to their actual site from the source repo page, I had to surmise what it was.
I don't think they do intend that. I think they intend to get free contributions from keen people who think erroneously they're contributing to a public good.
