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Making Software

makingsoftware.com

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Re: Making Software

#21

Post by promiseofbeans »

virogenesis wrote: post #12
khaledh wrote: post #11

Very nice. The design reminds me of a website that I forgot to bookmark a long while ago, it was about explaining network protocols at the wire level, and it had some of the most amazing visuals that I ever saw. It's a shame that I forgot what it was, and googling doesn't help. If anyone knows what I'm talking about please share the link.

Let us know if you find that site asking for my kid :)

Looks like it might have been VisualLand.net, which isn't around anymore. Looking at the archive of the site (https://web.archive.org/web/20130811073141/http%3A//www.visu...), most of their animations / diagrams were Flash, so no longer run, and don't seem to work with archive.org's emulator either.

Re: Making Software

#25

Post by dirtybirdnj »

I really like those illustrations I hope you keep going with this progress. Looks great and I think it could be a very engaging tool because of its visual appeal.

Don't let the haters get to you. Let him cook people.

Re: Making Software

#26

Post by agos »

the design is really cool, but the two columns are really confusing on a screen that is not tall enough to fully contain them

Re: Making Software

#27

Post by khaledh »

promiseofbeans wrote: post #21
virogenesis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let us know if you find that site asking for my kid :)

Looks like it might have been VisualLand.net, which isn't around anymore. Looking at the archive of the site ( https://web.archive.org/web/20130811073141/http%3A//www.visu... ), most of their animations / diagrams were Flash, so no longer run, and don't seem to work with archive.org's emulator either.

No, that's not it unfortunately. It was a single page with a style of diagrams that shows a high-level format of something, with arrows to a zoomed-in version that details the structure of the fields. I remember its colour scheme being dominated by light blue and green, IIRC.

Re: Making Software

#28

Post by jaapz »

felipemesquita wrote: post #3

The subtitle “A reference manual for people who design and build software” seems at odds with the description: > This book won’t teach you how to actually make software […] It’s a manual that explains how the things you use everyday actually work. You don’t need to be technical to read this - there are a lot of pictures and diagrams to do the heavy lifting. You just need to be curious.

Audience: people who design and build software

Subject: how the things used every day by people who design and build software work

Not the subject: how to design and build software

Re: Making Software

#29

Post by dimal »

Apfel wrote: post #6

Stunningly beautiful landing page. I would never normally comment on the aesthetics of anything in the dev sphere but that completely blew me away. I'll preorder for sure. I'd echo the other comment mentioning that a coffee-table version of this would be great.

Agreed, it's aesthetically beautiful. It should be a coffee table book. But for the web, it has terrible usability. Really, really terrible in multiple ways. My comments will be harsh, but since the creator is obviously very skilled, he should know better.

Why multicolumn text? So it looks like an old printed manual? At first view, it's not clear where the first column ends. This is not something we see on the web (because there's no need for it), so it's not clear that the content flows from one column to the next. When the viewport is sized to two columns, I need to scroll down to finish the first column, then scroll back up to read where it continues on the second column.

Justified text is bad on the web. We're starting to get some better features to make it usable, but it's not widely supported, so right ragged text is always more readable.

There are numerous animations that never stop. This is highly distracting and makes it very difficult to read the text.

I'm sure there are more issues but the site is so unusable for me, I won't continue trying.

So, yeah. It's gorgeous design. I love it. But it's for the sake of aesthetics, not for the user's sake. It's completely unusable to me. Since this is the first installment, I hope the designer will keep the aesthetics but improve the usability in future installments.

Re: Making Software

#30

Post by dsego »

dimal wrote: post #29
Apfel wrote: post #6

Stunningly beautiful landing page. I would never normally comment on the aesthetics of anything in the dev sphere but that completely blew me away. I'll preorder for sure. I'd echo the other comment mentioning that a coffee-table version of this would be great.

Agreed, it's aesthetically beautiful. It should be a coffee table book. But for the web, it has terrible usability. Really, really terrible in multiple ways. My comments will be harsh, but since the creator is obviously very skilled, he should know better. Why multicolumn text? So it looks like an old printed manual? At first view, it's not clear where the first column ends. This is not something we see on the web (b…

> Justified text is bad on the web.

Is there any reason why justified is okay printed but not on the web.

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