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My Lack of Attention

champonthis.de

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Re: My Lack of Attention

#31

Post by baxtr »

baxtr wrote: post #27
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like advertizing gospel to me. It implies that people aren't actively looking for better solutions to their problems, which is just blatantly false. If industries spent all of their marketing budget on research and development, we'd live in a very different world. Maybe even a better one. A world where companies aren't asking "how can we fool people into buying more of what we're already making" and instead as…

This topic is well researched. Those who actively look and are open to new solutions are called “Early adopters” and are just a tiny minority of the entire target audience. But even they won’t find you if you don’t have an SEO-optimized page, for example, to give you a somewhat extreme example. Just doing nothing and waiting for someone to come is not an option.

PS: I just realized that doing a project and not telling people is in essence just like having an idea in your head.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#32

Post by Nowado »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #16
bruce511 wrote: post #7

So here's the thing. It takes work and effort to get attention. "if you build it, they will come". Never has one cliche been so exactly wrong. Programmers, myself included, believe(d) that the code is the product. That the code will speak for itself. That being "better" (for some definition of better) is enough. If I build it, they will come. The truth though, the code is about 10% of the effort to make a successful…

Sounds like advertizing gospel to me. It implies that people aren't actively looking for better solutions to their problems, which is just blatantly false. If industries spent all of their marketing budget on research and development, we'd live in a very different world. Maybe even a better one. A world where companies aren't asking "how can we fool people into buying more of what we're already making" and instead as…

It would be the same world in which countries don't spend on armies. It's the same exact thing.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#34

Post by denysvitali »

coldtea wrote: post #24

> I am not a person who needs or even wants to gain attention (...) The problem for me start's when other software gets more attention and I know mine is better or at least even and I was first. There's some contradiction here...

I think, although not explicitly mentioned in these two paragraphs, that the two kinds of attentions are different.

The first is on the personal level, the second is on the project level.

Although the author seems to separate the twos as being completely separated, I'm pretty sure they aren't. You can't have one without having the other.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#35

Post by Lurkars »

Pxtl wrote: post #4

Wait, back up, Gloomhaven Helper is gone? I shut down my campaign when the pandemic started and was just gearing up to resume!

Haha, yes. But I hope I created a really good successor. So check it out, of you need an app.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#38

Post by Lurkars »

coldtea wrote: post #24

> I am not a person who needs or even wants to gain attention (...) The problem for me start's when other software gets more attention and I know mine is better or at least even and I was first. There's some contradiction here...

Yes, it was just first introduction where I am a bit unsure how to really say what I mean. It's more when it get more attention for not obviously reasons or more like complaining why people don't do more research and find me (yes I know that's not how markets work as mentioned in other comments).

Re: My Lack of Attention

#39

Post by Lurkars »

ahaferburg wrote: post #37
Pxtl wrote: post #4

Wait, back up, Gloomhaven Helper is gone? I shut down my campaign when the pandemic started and was just gearing up to resume!

I wonder what happened to it. Copyright issues?

Here is the statement from Esoteric Games to the story: http://esotericsoftware.com/gloomhaven-helper

They declined to create a FH app and Cephalofair declined then to make any more money with GHH. So it was shut down.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#40

Post by rikroots »

I had to chuckle as I read the post. I, too, suffer from occasional bouts of jealousy when I see "competitor" JS canvas libraries get some sunshine and appreciation in various venues for features that I think (in my own very opinionated opinion, of course) my library does better[1].

But this state of affairs is, as other commenters have pointed out, entirely my fault. For a library or product to gain traction in the target market, it needs three things: easy access, awareness of its existence, and good support. For a library like mine, this boils down to the following:

+ Easy access - it's my responsibility to make the library easy for other developers to find (GitHub, website), add to their projects (npm/yarn, compatibility with bundlers, etc), use in their code (well documented API, TS support, etc), and cause them minimal problems within the wider project (plays nicely with frameworks, doesn't destroy page efficiency, doesn't break the toolchain, etc). This is the work I enjoy and spend a lot of non-dev time doing.

+ Awareness of its existence - which is marketing. Either I have to spend a lot of time telling people about my library and (more importantly) telling them how my library solves their problems. Or I have to find "champions" - people who use, and like using, the library so much that they will go out and promote it for me. Or I can spend money on getting proper marketing help, adverts, etc ... which is not going to happen.

+ Good support - beyond documentation, I need to be willing to either spend time helping people resolve issues and misunderstandings they have with the library, or I need to build a community of people happy to help me do that work. Sadly I am not the sort of person who enjoys the high level of social engagement that's needed to build that community.

So, yeah ... it is my fault that the competitors get the glory. But then again they deserve their place in the sunshine because they've done the work I've not been willing to engage with. As for the occasional bouts of jealousy? They remind me that I'm still human, that I still care. Which is a Good Thing!

[1] I keep track of what the competitors are up to mainly by following their repos on GitHub. Most of the issues people raise seem to be about TypeScript errors and breaking updates. But sometimes I'll see someone ask for a feature they want added to a library, and I'll find myself thinking: "my library does that already!" and I'll get a little shiver of jealousy. Like this request for a "Transformation box for texts" made in the Fabric.js repo - https://github.com/fabricjs/fabric.js/issues/8195

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