MrNuclearMonster

Jack

@MrNuclearMonster

Writer, twitch streamer, extremely good product photos enthusiast & operator of at least these, probably more:

@ExtremelyGoodProductPhotos
@ioquake3

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Mr. Nuclear Monster Twitch
www.twitch.tv/mrnuclearmonster
Patreon
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MrNuclearMonster
@MrNuclearMonster
giwake
@giwake
Keeble
@Keeble

github might be one of the least intutitive sites to download anything from to a non-tech expert and what's particularly frustrating is the tech expert types seemingly having no clue that github is INCREDIBLY hard to parse

Keeble
@Keeble

seriously, look at this screenshot (for example) and tell me where im supposed to click to download what i need

Webster
@Webster

maybe it would serve tech experts well to remember that when they were first introduced to version control the learning curve was nonzero

SomeEgrets
@SomeEgrets

also:

git is (arguably) an appropriate tool for developers or hobbyists, in the case where you're just sharing something you made with no promise of actual releases or support

it is not an appropriate tool for making end users interact with

don't expose your end users to your version control

don't

spiralingvoid
@spiralingvoid
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MrNuclearMonster
@MrNuclearMonster

There are so many reasons to not make your project’s home be GitHub or any other company that someone else controls!

One of which, as shown here, is that GitHub’s website isn’t a good experience for people to download your work!

But even if GitHub fixes this, makes a nice front end for every project that functions better than this. There are still plenty of other reasons not to do it.

If you’re old enough you’ll remember sourceforge, the last big source code website that was the GitHub of its time until they started injecting ads into installers for projects and it too was bad for people to use when they wanted to download your work. Eventually every desperate company will do bad things like this as they work towards profit or at least towards value for their investors. GitHub Copilot is GitHub’s moment for some people where we realized that GitHub was scraping all the projects to feed to their “AI” bullshit and then regurgitate it minus the license and credit to anyone who cared.

For me personally it’s GitHub working with the US’s ICE to destroy the lives of regular people.

That’s a few of the reasons why for the projects I work on, I try to have a different “home” than GitHub or any other big company. For ioquake3 it’s ioquake3.org

However, I will say it is harder than ever to host your own website without relying on some other middleman services that can have the same turns, but that’s a different story. At least then if you’ve got a domain name you control that and can hopefully get out of it.

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in reply to @Keeble's post:

BappyDeerHooves
@BappyDeerHooves

github primarily hosts code, but it also provides a bunch of other services, like checking that the code is valid, and even turning it into executables (or otherwise "finished products") automatically every time you edit. that's done though "Actions", which you can see info about under the tab near the top with that label. it has probably the most confusing UI of any part of the site, and only allows you to download anything useful when signed-in

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niss
@niss

like, on the one hand, i agree with what you're saying, don't get me wrong. i am a Tech Person and i often get lost in github's labyrinthine website

but on the other hand, this is kind of a trick question because the answer has been cropped out of this screenshot

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plumpan
@plumpan

Came here to say this

But yes that's a stupid place for them to live, there should just be a releases tab at the top and even THAT'S not really going to make sense to people not familiar with github.

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Keeble
@Keeble

i figured this out eventualy, but "releases" does not parse as "downloads" to me at all. also that screenshot was all that fit on my screen, the tab is legit below the fold (so to speak) on my screen

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plumpan
@plumpan

Correct, a person going to a website to download a program should not be expected to gravitate towards "releases" by default. And yes, you still have to start scrolling to see it.

I believe github has a way to build a simple webpage for this exact reason, I do not know if you need to pay them for this feature or what other reasons more devs don't opt for it. It's more often that they have a downloads link in the README.md preview, which is alllll the way down past the whole file list.

This is all to say, you are correct, github is a terrible place for people to find their download.

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lapisnev
@lapisnev

IIRC you make another repository called username.github.io and push HTML/CSS for a static website.

And the problem is that Github does not have just one kind of download. Developers are there to download the source code, end users are there to download a binary release.

The actual failure in this process was a few steps ago where the project should have explained how to install from winget/chocolatey/brew/apt/yum or else have a download link on a dedicated project website that is not just the readme.md on Github.

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gabu
@gabu

to create a page for a project (as opposed to a user) its as simple as enabling pages in the repo settings and pushing your HTML/CSS to a branch called gh-pages and you're done. it'd be hosted on username.github.io/reponame/. pretty much the same

really just no excuse to NOT make a dedicated page for your project

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Zuthal
@Zuthal

Imo that is why if you link to something hosted on github, instead of linking to the repository main page, you should just link to github.com/foo/bar/releases/latest, which will point them to where they can download the thing right away.

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Keeble
@Keeble

i didn't crop it out as much as my screen did. i had to scroll down to see this on my standard hd computer screen. nevertheless i had no clue to look for a releases button or tab so i didn't figure this in the post

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niss
@niss

gah sorry i meant to say i agree that it should be much more prominent, but i forgot to add that part. yeah

(i also think that software that is actually ready for other people to use should have a real website, with a download button, and not just a gitbub, but....)

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aune
@aune

I... Kinda hate to be that person, but, I mean, that... Is kind of what github implies. The source control site. The place that has the code. Of the thing.

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fickleheart
@fickleheart

The problem is github is made for hosting code, not software, and people keep using it like a home page for their projects. A slightly better solution would be for the people doing that to link directly to the releases page since it's at least kind of navigable from there, but users should not be directed to github unless they're trying to look at code.

Hell, slap something together on github pages and link to that instead if one must. Then you can have an actual home page without any other service getting involved.

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elena
@elena

i don't think you can blame devs for using github like its sourceforge considering the fact that it's essentially sourceforge wearing a jaunty hat and always was. sourceforge had this ui problem solved over 20 years ago and it's on github for unsolving it, imo.

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elena
@elena

i do agree with you here, especially since they started packing in shitware without the devs consent but the big point i was making is 'github is only for code not using the code' is kind of a pathetic mewling response when it was actually done properly decades prior by something that is essentially the same, to the extent that github pages are basically just a remake of sourceforge project homepages (as opposed to the sourceforge-generated project pages)

it's like saying a doom clone fundamentally isn't designed to let you swap guns, only using the last gun you got until you run out of ammo and get swapped back to a previous gun

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beige-alert
@beige-alert

I used to build Linux kernels because you had to back then and that was before we even had "distributions" and also everything you compiled had been written on a Sun back then so you had to mess around with the #includes and stuff to build on pre-version-1 linux and so even though I know darn well you can download stuff from Github every single fucking time I'm like...what the fuck do I click on????

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