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My Lack of Attention

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Re: My Lack of Attention

#71

Post by winnit »

HWR_14 wrote: post #65
winnit wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends whether you consider things must either be just or unjust or whether they can simply not be just, without being an injustice.

I don't see what the distinction you're making is. It seems things are either just or unjust. That seems like standard logic.

There can exist a third category in which things are neither just nor unjust. It really depends on whether your logic system is two-valued or many. There isn’t any universal standard. Can’t you see that there are distinctions in strength between trust, don’t trust and distrust? If you’ve never dealt with someone before, you might not trust them. But you wouldn’t distrust them without specific reason.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#72

Post by rmellow »

mlatu wrote: post #49

totally get it. i havent released much. and the quality is questionable. but i totally get it. me and my SO discussed this briefly, her suggestion is to only do things for yourself. my thoughts to that: yeah, sure. but working a dayjob _and_ working the dream, who is going to cheer me on? im bad at multitasking, so after a day or two of spinning my wheels i will most likely loose all drive, because i can see that i w…

> what am i supposed to make that will make my life a bit better: an automatic doomscroller? scoffs

One heuristic is to think of what problems you face in daily life, and imagining a way to deal with them with technology. Problems don't have to be big, and your solution doesn't have to be perfect, just helpful enough.

"omg Netflix's recommendations suck" -> Personal recommender system

"omg I want to watch this movie, but I have to search all of the streaming services individually to find out if it's even available" -> Scraper

"I have lots of tasks to do, but want them to interface with my calendar and follow a particular priority, and remind me according to some set of rules" -> To Do list

Build small things and write about them. Eventually some will find success and you can choose to keep building or not.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#73

Post by [deleted] »

winnit wrote: post #71
HWR_14 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what the distinction you're making is. It seems things are either just or unjust. That seems like standard logic.

There can exist a third category in which things are neither just nor unjust. It really depends on whether your logic system is two-valued or many. There isn’t any universal standard. Can’t you see that there are distinctions in strength between trust, don’t trust and distrust? If you’ve never dealt with someone before, you might not trust them. But you wouldn’t distrust them without specific reason.

[deleted]

Re: My Lack of Attention

#74

Post by tsmigiel »

tsmigiel wrote: post #69

I have some skin in this game. :) OP's app is Gloomhaven Secretary. The other app is X-Haven Assistant. I announced a similar app, Gloomhaven Full Stack, before either of those apps were started and before GH Helper was discontinued. All of our apps can exist only because of the generosity of Gloomhaven's creator, Isaac Childres. He made all the game assets available for use in apps as long as we don't make money. An…

By the way Lurkars, I love your app, and would probably be using it if I hadn't created my own. :)

I appreciate your post here and think a nice rant can be a reasonable way to address ego and jealousy. I have similar feelings as you and have ranted to my friends some of the same things you said.

In the end though, for both of us, I think the jealousy is mostly unfounded. We can rant and then should probably let it go.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#75

Post by bruce511 »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #62
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…

Here’s the deal - if you build (great things) they will come. The problem is people aren’t building great things, period. Really think on it for more than a second - all the products that are “huge” are scaled through this “sales and marketing are more important.” If your initial MVP doesn’t stop people in their tracks, turn around and say “I will cry if I can’t buy this.” Then go home, dust off and try again. Otherw…

>> The problem is people aren’t building great things, period.

Oh, I think they are. You just haven't seen them (yet?) and you probably never will, because their creators are slaving over perfection, somehow expecting the randomverse to spot it.

The winners are the ones who accepted imperfection, who were brave enough to show the incomplete, who were prepared to make the effort to do more than just write code.

VHS over betamax, Windows 95 over OS/2, Apple 2/mac over amiga. Our history is littered with marketing over product.

For every success there are 10 guys with a story about how their effort was better, how the winner was rubbish. But the winner always won the marketing game.

Too many coders are playing the perfect game of checkers, in a world where everyone else is playing an average game of chess.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#76

Post by bruce511 »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #30
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…

"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all." It's true that effort helps success, and working for visibility is as important as working on making something great. But sometimes life is just arbitrary. Anyone who has w…

>> Unfair

Of course its unfair. Life is unfair. There is quite literally nothing in life that is "fair".

Fairness is the worst hope you can have. If you are waiting for life to treat you fair, then you will die disappointed. And if you are reading this, then likely you are so far ahead of fair that fairness can only be a step back.

If you have success, then the best thing you can do is spread some unfairness around. Help others up, you can't help everyone, so it's not fair, but it's the best you can do.

Give someone an unfair leg up, give someone an unfair opportunity. Pass on some of the unfairness you already have.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#77

Post by bruce511 »

coldtea wrote: post #25
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…

> It implies that people aren't actively looking for better solutions to their problems, which is just blatantly false. No, they don't. The majority go with the defaults, and most of the rest stick to the first thing that "works for them". If they try something else it's usually because of either mass promotion (like with Java in the late 90s) or hype by a smaller team of early adopters (like with Node and such), not…

Indeed, marketing beats quality everytime. Vhs/beta, windows/Linux/OS2 and so on infinitum.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#78

Post by Lurkars »

tsmigiel wrote: post #69

I have some skin in this game. :) OP's app is Gloomhaven Secretary. The other app is X-Haven Assistant. I announced a similar app, Gloomhaven Full Stack, before either of those apps were started and before GH Helper was discontinued. All of our apps can exist only because of the generosity of Gloomhaven's creator, Isaac Childres. He made all the game assets available for use in apps as long as we don't make money. An…

Haha, I never thought ANYONE would read my post nor did I thought that one of GH app creators would. That's why I was explicit with my projects what I am talking about. So maybe I give my 2 cents to your comment.

First of all, I think you're still a bit out of competition, because FHA and GHS are really clones of the old GHH. So it's like the chess app has gone, we create two chess app clones and you do 3d-chess app. So in that case my comparison about features is really about covering the original app and not about new features I added. So first disclaimer, but you already know that: I really appreciate the work of the other app devs. I wouldn't be able to support all the editions, if I couldn't scrape all the data from FHA. And I am never ever jealous, if people prefer one app over another. In this particular case, it's really about the Reddit visibility (and GH community there): An update from my side gain ~30 upvotes, FHA ~180 in half of the time. Because of that there are also more comments and many comments like: "I still use the old app, would like to switch if you have feature XY (from the old app)" and they seem to just not heard about any other app exists and already support that feature. To go the chess metaphor, I am talking about people used to play the normal chess, they used to it. Your 3d-chess might be a good replacement too, but it's just not the same. And then they asking when the knight will be implemented so they can switch (I totally exaggerate here, don't want to boil down the good and hard work of FHA!), I am just looking and thinking, the knight is working like month ago, my last update was about multiplayer. But again, I am not jealous in that way, that I think they should please use my app, because I am better and so on. But due to Reddits sorting, they just haven't even heard about other app existing. And yeah, I don't want to play those social algorithms. GHS get mentioned enough and already a lot of people like it. But it was now the third time where I posted an update and 1-3 days later, FHA update is killing just everything regarding upvotes and feedback. And then I am jealous. That's all and I ranted a bit about that on the internet. Now it's there, and I felt memories about my other project, where I also tried to get some attention I was more jealous, because then the other projects gaining more attention were really out of scope and I couldn't even appreciate any of this.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#79

Post by bruce511 »

Lurkars wrote: post #41
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…

Yes I think you're totally right. That doesn't change the fact, that I just really don't like marketing and don't want to invest the time. Of course it's naive and not totally right, but to some point I would say, I am immune to advertising. If I need something, I do research if there is something valuable. If someone wants to sell me something, in the end I am even more skeptical about the product. Anyways, I didn't…

>> That doesn't change the fact, that I just really don't like marketing and don't want to invest the time

Exactly. And you don't need to. No one says you _have_ to market. But marketing leads to attention. So I think you know the cause effect here.

>> . I want to get the benefit without investment because I dream of a world not existing where everyone would do research to find the best.

I'm not sure I can say this without being a dick, which is a pity, because I'm not trying to be a dick. I'm saying this out of a place of respect.

There are around 8 billion people on earth. I promise you that if I did all the research I'm pretty sure (statistically) your projects are not the best. There's an even chance they are not even average.

Plus, I'm guessing there are likely 100 projects that do what your do. Should I do a deep dive into each one. Do a comparative analysis? 1 hour on each? Say a month's full time job? Repeat for every bit of software I've ever installed?

Did you install each BSD build and every Linux distribution, and every other OS out there before you selected one for your computer? Did you try Oberon or reactOS? Surely you did your own research for this most critical part of computing?

Of course not. We outsource our research. We Google. We solicit the opinion of others. We use whatever is convenient, available, and in front of us.

Me, I did research. I decided that people who were prepared to put effort into marketing would make a product that better fitted my needs, because they are showing interest in customers.

Again, I say this not to be a dick. You have choices. You understand cause and effect. You are welcome to do the work, or you are welcome to labour in obscurity. It's your choice.

But make no mistake, you are not doing your own research, and you are not making the best product. I'm sure you are making things with value, but if you don't get it out there, we'll, the result is well understood.

Re: My Lack of Attention

#80

Post by Lurkars »

tsmigiel wrote: post #74
tsmigiel wrote: post #69

I have some skin in this game. :) OP's app is Gloomhaven Secretary. The other app is X-Haven Assistant. I announced a similar app, Gloomhaven Full Stack, before either of those apps were started and before GH Helper was discontinued. All of our apps can exist only because of the generosity of Gloomhaven's creator, Isaac Childres. He made all the game assets available for use in apps as long as we don't make money. An…

By the way Lurkars, I love your app, and would probably be using it if I hadn't created my own. :) I appreciate your post here and think a nice rant can be a reasonable way to address ego and jealousy. I have similar feelings as you and have ranted to my friends some of the same things you said. In the end though, for both of us, I think the jealousy is mostly unfounded. We can rant and then should probably let it go…

Feels good to hear, that you feel a bit the same. I just thinks we both don't have this reputation for Reddit algorithm or maybe mods boost some posts of people they already knew. I am not sure how Reddit works in that way and I am always using chronological sorting on explicit subreddits, so I do not miss any posts. But it seems like a lot of people are more like the frontpage users and our posts just don't show up that much.
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