The reason I don't use or consider using SourceHut is… well, look at it.
https://git.sr.ht/~bacardi55/houston
To me a site like GitHub/SourceHut/Codeberg has two functions, one is to actually host the VCS, but the other is to be a useful, inviting public presence for your project. People with little-to-no knowledge of source code should be able to get useful information out of your project landing page.
But every Sourcehut page is bewildering to me at first glance, and I've contributed code to DVCSes!
"Normal" VCS hosts (BitBucket, Codeberg, the increasingly "ask"-filled GitHub) are not as good about this as they could be. The README being scrolled offscreen by a file listing is unfriendly¹. I've seen so many cases of non-coders landing on a Github page and not understanding they need to be clicking on the "Releases" box on the right.
But SourceHut feels like, at a design level, it's intentionally hostile to non-coders.
¹ Bitbucket lets you set the wiki as the landing page. I miss that.
@mcc@mastodon.social I use fossil, which has flexible inbuilt web hosting, because I'm so far up the "why do it like everyone else does it when you can do something totally different" road I also self-host it on NetBSD. On a server I built myself. Including welding up the case from steel stock and painting it myself. Don't be me.
The SourceHut design gives a strong sense that it's the byproduct of a set of intentional choices. But I don't agree with those choices. Simplicity and unpretentiousness in design are good, but simplicity isn't an end in itself. Even in minimal designs you want to guide the eye & cleanly separate functional areas. SourceHut is a big expanse of blank white with certain elements shaded gray but others arbitrarily not. The eye gets lost. If you stop and read the labels, the names are idiosyncratic.
@mcc@mastodon.social
My annoyance with them is more based in the fact that, while their minimalist layout looks like it will be good for older/simpler web browsers, they now use Anubis to block anything that can't run JavaScript, so I can't look up cool projects from Links, Lynx or Dillo anymore!
@mcc@mastodon.social
My annoyance with them is more based in the fact that, while their minimalist layout looks like it will be good for older/simpler web browsers, they now use Anubis to block anything that can't run JavaScript, so I can't look up cool projects from Links, Lynx or Dillo anymore!
mcc
