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Show HN: Thi.ng – open-source building blocks for computational design

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Re: Show HN: Thi.ng – open-source building blocks for computational design

#31

Post by PH01 »

toxmeister wrote: post #18
PH01 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the comments in this thread it's clear that there are readers who haven't understood from the submission title or from the landing page what thi.ng is. When I read the word 'computational design' I don't immediately think of 'parametric design', 'algorithmic design', 'generative design'. Instead, I have to use google and read around. The landing page itself describes thi.ng as 'a truly manifold long-term…

That one is interesting indeed. I'm a bit curious about you taking issues with "manifold" and "polyglot" here: - manifold - something taking many forms - polyglot - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyglot_(computing) I'm pretty sensitive to marketing BS/buzzwords myself, but unlike the usual "blazing fast" and similar hypephrases, the above two words actually are 100% correct use of the terms (IMHO) See my other reply…

To be frank, I take issue with manifold and polyglot because both come across as unnecessarily pretentious use of english. The secondary problem is that I looked in two places to find 'what' the project is. Instead of finding information I found adjectives which can convey an intention to impress, this can easily give a negative first impression.

With no context the sentence 'truly manifold long-term project devoted to ...' is meaningless to me, because I don't know if we share common definitions of four highly subjective terms: 'truly', 'manifold', 'long-term' and 'project'. On first impression this does not come across as a singular 'project' in the way I would define one. Consequently, as a first time reader a get confused.

In contrast to the site, your description in this thread 'thi.ng is definitely not a framework - it is a collection of ...' makes immediate sense. Here you expressed the essential information in a 20 word sentence. On the site the same thing is expressed in a meandering 40 word sentence.

Re: Show HN: Thi.ng – open-source building blocks for computational design

#32

Post by toxmeister »

vanderZwan wrote: post #29
toxmeister wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I think the issue is that people really just don't read anymore :) First paragraph, second sentence: "Not a framework, nor bound to any specific use case, environment or even language, it's a vast and mature set of complementing code libraries, which has organically grown to approx. 250 sub-projects" As for the topic search: The search box says "search by topic" (fuzzy search) - the tags in the tag cloud are all…

> Ok, I think the issue is that people really just don't read anymore :) The willingness to invest in reading many paragraphs of fine print (and really, as presented it is fine print) comes after a successful sales-pitch, not before it. (Also, blaming bad UX on the user won't help in the long run) > As for the topic search: The search box says "search by topic" (fuzzy search) - the tags in the tag cloud are all click…

I didn't mean to imply that your comments are invalid, they're fair enough. Though, this is NOT a sales website, it's a springboard/archive of a body of work, spanning 15-20 years (eventually)...

My sense from some of your above argumentation and issues re: word choices, is that there's somewhat of an implicit expectation of the uniform format of SV-stylee startup landing pages and JS libraries: snappy big letter bullet list of selling points, 5-line code examples and a big fat get started button...

People with such expectations really haven't been the audience so far and likely never will be. Can I/we do a better job to demonstrate use cases and help guiding people discovering relevant projects for their use cases? Yes, definitely, but bandwidth issue, function over time. Though, it's very likely the following will remain an unmovable truth (as explained on the thi.ng/umbrella readme):

> This project is NOT a framework, provides no turn-key, one-size-fits-all approach and instead encourages a mix & match philosophy for various key aspects of application design.

There're many (likely experienced) developers who do very much appreciate such an approach, just as there will be developers for which this means a no-go zone. I think this is fine.

(...and again, I sincerely thank you for your feedback - food for thought!)

Re: Show HN: Thi.ng – open-source building blocks for computational design

#33

Post by nrjames »

toxmeister wrote: post #28
nrjames wrote: post #21

I've used Processing extensively, including toxilibs, and follow the creative coding community relatively closely. When I look at projects like openFrameworks or libcinder or Processing/p5.js, it's pretty clear to me both what those project are and how to get started with them. I've kept an eye on thi.ng for years. I like the visuals on the former and current homepage and it seems like something that I would like to…

This is great feedback! I've got a lot plans for those areas, but the main roadblock is personal bandwidth. This has primarily been a spare time project for the past 4-5 years... There're ~100 examples for thi.ng/umbrella alone, all commented, all linked from the readme's of each package used. Additionally, I've spent a lot of time this year adding more readmes, docstrings (again with examples), create diagrams etc.…

The "no core" note is a good explanation but also points to the exact reason why folks coming from other creative coding ecosystems might need help resetting their expectations. Thanks!

Re: Show HN: Thi.ng – open-source building blocks for computational design

#34

Post by vanderZwan »

toxmeister wrote: post #32
vanderZwan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ok, I think the issue is that people really just don't read anymore :) The willingness to invest in reading many paragraphs of fine print (and really, as presented it is fine print) comes after a successful sales-pitch, not before it. (Also, blaming bad UX on the user won't help in the long run) > As for the topic search: The search box says "search by topic" (fuzzy search) - the tags in the tag cloud are all click…

I didn't mean to imply that your comments are invalid, they're fair enough. Though, this is NOT a sales website, it's a springboard/archive of a body of work, spanning 15-20 years (eventually)... My sense from some of your above argumentation and issues re: word choices, is that there's somewhat of an implicit expectation of the uniform format of SV-stylee startup landing pages and JS libraries: snappy big letter bul…

> there's somewhat of an implicit expectation of the uniform format of SV-stylee startup landing pages and JS libraries: snappy big letter bullet list of selling points, 5-line code examples and a big fat get started button...

Oh I absolutely do not wish the main take-away from my comments to be that your website should be that! Apologies if that was what it felt like

My point is that even when you do not want to give people what they expect (and you have good reasons for not doing so, as you sum up here), you still need to meet them where their expectations are and lead them out of it. Because that's the best way to make sure that they find their way to where you are coming from and where you want them to end up too.

Re: Show HN: Thi.ng – open-source building blocks for computational design

#35

Post by Arkdy »

I used thing/color on a project where I needed to generate color palettes and ensure contrast.

I was blown away by the scope of your work, and really appreciate it.

Personally, I've been trying to figure out a literate programming style for clojure, but when I saw that you had given up on it, I figured that if it was a barrier to entry for thi.ng contributions, then I might not stand a chance with my smaller projects.

1. Do you have any advice on building community around your projects?

2. Or thoughts on the more recent advances in literate programming like https://github.com/scicloj/notespace ?

Re: Show HN: Thi.ng – open-source building blocks for computational design

#36

Post by thomastraum »

yo just adding my two cents here regarding the presentation.

I am sure this is the coolest thing going because we all know the quality of your work.

If the idea is to get new people playing with the library it would really help simplifying everything. I do actually like the idea of adopting a landing page style design... (hinted at in some of the other comments_ there are reasons why they work.

the website feels cryptic and doesn't give a point of entry ("start here", "look at this thing doing something")

there is way too much text in my opinion, its more of a showcase of commits and terminology than of the project.

Re: Show HN: Thi.ng – open-source building blocks for computational design

#37

Post by nextaccountic »

toxmeister wrote: post #19
gitgud wrote: post #9

This site is a bit confusing at first, originally I thought they were modular libraries for writing general software. But it seems to be a collection of tools specifically for generating computational art/design. Still impressive and useful though!

Maybe I mentioned Compdes a bit too often... /shrug From this comment and others it seems maybe not many people are familiar with the meaning of the term: Design through/by computational means, incl. procedural, generative, evolutionary approaches... Having said this, these libraries are closer to general purpose computing, but there's somewhat of a bias in terms of topics and data structures towards geometry, graphi…

If you talked about creative computing[0] I would have understood earlier. Or made comparisons with Processing or SuperCollider.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_computing

Re: Show HN: Thi.ng – open-source building blocks for computational design

#38

Post by toxmeister »

thomastraum wrote: post #36

yo just adding my two cents here regarding the presentation. I am sure this is the coolest thing going because we all know the quality of your work. If the idea is to get new people playing with the library it would really help simplifying everything. I do actually like the idea of adopting a landing page style design... (hinted at in some of the other comments_ there are reasons why they work. the website feels cryp…

Thanks, Thomas! The #1 issue is that a singular entry point simply doesn't exist, largely because of the sheer number of different projects, platforms and use cases involved. The interactive tag cloud was supposed to be the main starting point mechanism, allowing users to explore projects by topic. Yet, somehow this doesn't seem to register with people (at all)... Also, all the timelines have tooltips, are clickable and take you to their respective project pages.

Comparisons with tools like Processing/OF aren't right or fair either, because they focus on a much smaller feature range and then rely on external plugins to expand scope. thi.ng projects have a bias (in terms of percentage of sub-projects) towards data structures, geometry and graphics, but, at large, ALSO cover the "full stack" (arrrgh!!) via tools for: baremetal programming (e.g. on Cortex M4/7 ARM devices), functional & reactive programming, data processing (transducers, datastructures, querying), there're several DSLs & general DSL tooling for creating new ones (parser generators, interpreters, transpilers, VMs), audio/DSP (signal generators, oscillators, filters), file format support (importers, exporters) to UI (for web, desktop, in multiple languages)... Also don't forget most of these libraries are independent. So I'm genuinely, genuinely wondering how one would distill this into a traditional landing page setup? Also, how this is comparable to say P5? It isn't, not even close!

What this discussion has brought out and confirmed again (to me, at least) is the commodification of ideas and the explicit expectation of ideas packaged into easily consumed products. Products, which can be consumed and need to provide a quick sale, regardless of conceptual depth (or breadth in this case)... it's a little sad to see! By that logic I'd need to create 250 websites... and there also somewhat are already: Most projects have their own URL (e.g. http://thi.ng/transducers, http://thi.ng/morphogen etc.)

I'm really not trying to be defensive (even if it might come across as such, merely trying to provide more subtlety & context to some of the comments). I'm thankful & there's a lot of food for thought how to approach the next phase of development, but I'm honestly surprised by some of the comments (esp. from this crowd)

Re: Show HN: Thi.ng – open-source building blocks for computational design

#39

Post by toxmeister »

nextaccountic wrote: post #37
toxmeister wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I mentioned Compdes a bit too often... /shrug From this comment and others it seems maybe not many people are familiar with the meaning of the term: Design through/by computational means, incl. procedural, generative, evolutionary approaches... Having said this, these libraries are closer to general purpose computing, but there's somewhat of a bias in terms of topics and data structures towards geometry, graphi…

If you talked about creative computing[0] I would have understood earlier. Or made comparisons with Processing or SuperCollider. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_computing

Creative computing is just a subset of computational design though and wouldn't have sufficed... also see my answer here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25263818

Re: Show HN: Thi.ng – open-source building blocks for computational design

#40

Post by toxmeister »

Arkdy wrote: post #35

I used thing/color on a project where I needed to generate color palettes and ensure contrast. I was blown away by the scope of your work, and really appreciate it. Personally, I've been trying to figure out a literate programming style for clojure, but when I saw that you had given up on it, I figured that if it was a barrier to entry for thi.ng contributions, then I might not stand a chance with my smaller projects…

Thanks - some of the reasons for giving up on LP using org-mode are here (mainly external factors):

- https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/9w8i2g/orgmode_liter... - https://www.reddit.com/r/Clojure/comments/9deyxe/thinggeom_a...

The main feedback re: LP style was the additional layer of indirection and unfamiliarity with the idea of code blocks within an .org file. Also obviously the dependency on Emacs for a decent editing experience of these files didn't help either, even though I always thought for Clojure this was less of an issue (at least back then). With more popular IDEs available by now, I'd say it'd be even harder to convince people to contribute in that style...

The only practical advice re: community building I can provide is trying to be there for new users, providing answers/guidance/examples/infrastructure, a space to exchange ideas (i.e. our Discord). That's especially important if other things like extensive documentation/tutorials are still missing. Doing this isn't always easy and there're periods when I'll have to disconnect, but I'm super grateful that we now are starting to have more people helping out on that front, even though the community is still rather small...

Thanks for the notespace link, will it check out asap...

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