Becoming *that* vendor
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@Ben L. said:
@morbiuswilters said:
And if [zooming in] breaks a site, it's because that site was coded by a moron.
<...snip...>I'm not sure what that's supposed to convince me of, that I'm right?
BTW, the Go docs page I just checked works up to 200%, but after that links simply disappear off the screen and can't be reached anymore. And stallman.org actually works pretty well, except for his little "shared sacrifice" comic. And it's clear that somebody at Google Search actually made an effort to guarantee their site worked for the hard-of-vision.
Anyway, are you ready to concede that resizing text is a pretty basic feature that been around forever and that Valve is dumb not implement it?
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@ender said:
Hint: you can also click the Edit Profile link, go to Site Options tab, and change the font size there.
Good to know it's an option, but any site should be able to handle the browser resizing the text.
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@ender said:
@morbiuswilters said:
And if it breaks a site, it's because that site was coded by a moron. I know this is hard to understand if you work mostly with FOSS, but resizable text--like GUIs--are not some far-flung sci-fi concept. People use it. Today. In fact, people have been using it for some time. Only poorly-coded applications by incompetent cousin-humpers like those employed by Valve just throw up their hands and say "Resizable text!? Maybe you want me to make you a teleporter, too!"
You know, one thing that GTK+ does properly is adjusting itself to different font sizes - it's layout engine works with relative positions, and has no problems when text is enlarged. Compare this with non-WPF Windows programs where running in anything but the default 96 DPI mode will almost certainly result in some text being clipped or controls overlapping (and this despite Windows supporting different DPI settings as far back as Windows 3.1, over 20 years ago).I was going to say something good about GTK+, but then I decided to actually test this out.
It's hit-or-miss. It performs well in most places, but other applications will do things poorly (this may be because they aren't GTK or they are just doing things wrong.) For example, LibreOffice manages to have some text enlarged, but other text stays normal size. I don't know how that's even possible. It's supposed to pick up GTK settings, I thought, but shrug..
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@ender said:
You know, one thing that GTK+ does properly is adjusting itself to different font sizes - it's layout engine works with relative positions, and has no problems when text is enlarged. Compare this with non-WPF Windows programs where running in anything but the default 96 DPI mode will almost certainly result in some text being clipped or controls overlapping (and this despite Windows supporting different DPI settings as far back as Windows 3.1, over 20 years ago).
There are other toolkits that do the layout stuff right as well; it's not rocket science. (Instead, it's algebraic constraint solving, but that's by-the-by.) The problem is that too many GUI programmers (either doing desktop apps or on the web) can't cope with the idea that there might be more than one way to lay out some text. Some of the GUI design tools are particularly pernicious offenders here.Alas, there's also a problem with too many sites and apps not having scalable graphics. But that's a separate problem…
@morbiuswilters said:And if it breaks a site, it's because that site was coded by a moron.
This. But there are many morons out there.
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@morbiuswilters said:
It's hit-or-miss. It performs well in most places, but other applications will do things poorly (this may be because they aren't GTK or they are just doing things wrong.) For example, LibreOffice manages to have some text enlarged, but other text stays normal size. I don't know how that's even possible. It's supposed to pick up GTK settings, I thought, but shrug..
It depends on whether they're using scaled font requests or pixel-size font requests. The latter won't be scaled. Now, just occasionally it is necessary to have that level of control, but it's actually quite rare and they're certainly over-used. (I suspect the reason for the over-use is in part because some developers just have their font configuration set wrong. Which brings us back to "morons".)
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@morbiuswilters said:
@blakeyrat said:
How did you miss the brouhaha over Valve's employee handbook leaking online a couple months ago?
I am pretty much completely disconnected from mainstream culture.There's nothing about "Valve employee handbook" that fits the description "mainstream culture."
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@boomzilla said:
There's nothing about "Valve employee handbook" that fits the description "mainstream culture."
No, but "leaking" does.
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@morbiuswilters said:
but they still act like it's all some big shock..
Sometimes the big shock is that they're not as untouchable as they originally perceived - that they thought they could get away with it because of who they are/their relationship with a key decision-maker/the domain-specific knowledge they hoard between their ears. Firing these delusional fucktards brings them back down to shock cold reality with a bump and hopefully means they'll not make the same mistake again in a future position.
@morbiuswilters said:
"Jeeves, throw 12-year scotch in this man's face."
"Certainly, Sir. And for added entertainment value, I have refrained from decanting it first - and the video has been automatically uploaded to your blog, ready to go viral within minutes. A valuable lesson delivered unto said cad, m'lud!"
@morbiuswilters said:
And massages? WTF? I don't want you spending my money on massage therapists I will never use.
Speak for yourself. I always find myself more relaxed and productive after a masseuse has completed her Slippery Oil Hand Administered Therapeutic Procedure.
@morbiuswilters said:
They promote this "developers are wizard geniuses" mindset which I find so irritating. This just makes these people even bigger narcissistic prima donnas.
That. I've read a few blogs where "I worked at Google" on a CV is parsed as "yes, I really am this much of a self-absorbed wanker".
@morbiuswilters said:
I'd probably do something like be a mechanic
Hmmm....
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@Ben L. said:
@morbiuswilters said:
And if [zooming in] breaks a site, it's because that site was coded by a moron.
<sigh>First, when someone refers to "software coded by a moron", do not try to use Community Server as a counterexample.
Second, in Firefox, I can zoom CS to max and still have it work. None of the text overlaps. None of the columns break. The difference seems to be that you're using Chrome. Which, as we've established in our discussion of Google engineers, is coded by morons.
Third, I browser zoom on almost every single website BECAUSE they're coded by morons. My main monitor is a HD thing that's many pixels wide and many pixels per inch. There's numbers involved. I don't know what they are. But any webste I go to has a Texas-sized rift of empty whitespace running down the left side. And an Outback size rift of empty whitespace running down the right. And in the middle is a teeny-tiny Corvo-sized island of text in the middle, with teeny-tiny 10px font. I'm sure it looked fine on the dev's 800x600 IE6 monitor.
So rather than leaning in and face-snuggling my monitor just so I can read, I zoom zoom zoom. I would tell you what zoom level I go to, but I just remembered: Firefox is coded by morons. They removed the zoom indicator. I'll guess 150%? Fuck you again, Mozilla.
There are plenty of other use-cases for zooming. Here's one: I cook. I even sometimes use The Intrenet to look up recipes. (Shocking). There isn't always room on the counter for my computer... or I don't want the computer on the counter. So it sits across the room. With the zoom turned up to max so I can read the recipe from across the room. If it breaks the rest of the site, who cares? As long as I can read the text.
More video games need text zooming. I love Dead Space, but goddman did it need text zooming. Every textlog you pick up in the game reads out on your onscreen AR HUD. But it's written in a font with very little contrast against the background-- in a tiny print that is literally illegible on anything less than a large, HD display-- in that faux-interlaced style sci-fi shows love. The only way I can read it is with the aforementioned face-snuggling dance with my TV, or I maneuver the character so the AR HUD hits a wall and the in-game camera zooms in.
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@Ben L. said:
Woah, what piece of shit browser are you using?
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/0WuE7eC.png[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/qCuqqsH.png[/IMG]
Tested on IE, Firefox and Opera.
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Seems to me like she had her mind made up before the meeting. Probably due to political reasons. If I might make a suggestion, When I want something from a vendor, I usually try to clue them in on what/who the hurdles will be and give them a bit of the political landscape in regards to the teams that would be affected. I'll also work on the dl, to find other champions, within the organization, for the vendor before having the sales guy come in and sell it to a larger groups.
It might be worth while to do this digging before going in. Perhaps also ask a customer of yours in a similar size organization if they would be a case study for you.
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@Ben L. said:
You're posting this on a forum IN A FONT SIZE SMALLER THAN THE ONE YOU'RE COMPLAINING ABOUT.
Wha? Steam chat is 10px. This forum is 10pt = 13px at 96dpi. (yeah that's windows)
Browsing at a zoom level other than 100% is TRWTF.
You trollin'.
Don't do this, man. You like HL2. Don't make me hate you.
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@morbiuswilters said:
Anyway, are you ready to concede that resizing text is a pretty basic feature that been around forever and that Valve is dumb not implement it?
I'll just leave this here.
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@dhromed said:
@Ben L. said:
You're posting this on a forum IN A FONT SIZE SMALLER THAN THE ONE YOU'RE COMPLAINING ABOUT.
Wha? Steam chat is 10px. This forum is 10pt = 13px at 96dpi. (yeah that's windows)
Chrome and Steam are both at 100% zoom with default settings.
You were saying?
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@Ben L. said:
You were saying?
I concede that in your broken-ass shitty OS, Steam's chat window uses a larger size than on my Windows machine. (Although that may just be an accident that your OS uses 72 DPI and Windows uses 96 DPI, not an actual change in font size.)
Lacking the ability to *change* size, however, is still unacceptable and has been unacceptable for a decade now. Steam is written by shitty programmers who produced shitty software. Steam (the desktop app you use to buy Valve games) has WORSE accessibility than VALVE GAMES. Figure that the fuck out.
Stop defending awful software. Call these fuckers out, let's get this shit fixed.
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@Cassidy said:
That's pretty much what I do on a regular basis: "your current practise is shit, you know it's shit, you're telling me how shit it is... but you're not interested in any of my suggestions... can I ask why the fuck you brought me in? Why not just stay with your shitty processes and whinge like a bitch? Because that's what you're heading towards."
Naturally, I don't put it in those words. But as soon as you get them to stop and reflect upon what's wrong and understand that they need to make changes otherwise they'll carry on as before, we start to advance. Everything up to that point is simply baggage-offloading.
Well I hope you don't say THAT... ;)
I've said this a number of times when complaining about underperforming co-workers. If you tolerate mediocrity, more will appear. I'm self motivating, but I recognize that not everyone is, and occasionally, some need a swift kick in the ass to remind them why they're drawing a paycheck.
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@Ben L. said:
You were saying?
I am currently saying that the opposite of what I expected happened.
I expected your Linux to run at 72dpi, making the forums as big as steam.
But the opposite happened.
Linux steam uses a larger font size for the chat than on Windows.
This is a curious development.
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@boomzilla said:
There's nothing about "Valve employee handbook" that fits the description "mainstream culture."
I knew somebody was going to nit-pick this, but I still consider it valid. Maybe I should have said "mainstream subculture", I dunno.
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@Lorne Kates said:
There are plenty of other use-cases for zooming. Here's one: I cook. I even sometimes use The Intrenet to look up recipes. (Shocking). There isn't always room on the counter for my computer... or I don't want the computer on the counter. So it sits across the room. With the zoom turned up to max so I can read the recipe from across the room.
Stop this. This is not a Ben-L-approved use of your software. Fonts should come in one size.
And what's this different font face crap I keep hearing about? Serifs? Huh? Look, if a single, non-resizable monospace font is good enough for Linux, then it's good enough for the rest of you.
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@blakeyrat said:
Stop defending awful software.
But that would require him to invest his ego into something else, and I doubt that will happen.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@Lorne Kates said:
There are plenty of other use-cases for zooming. Here's one: I cook. I even sometimes use The Intrenet to look up recipes. (Shocking). There isn't always room on the counter for my computer... or I don't want the computer on the counter. So it sits across the room. With the zoom turned up to max so I can read the recipe from across the room.
Stop this. This is not a Ben-L-approved use of your software. Fonts should come in one size.
And what's this different font face crap I keep hearing about? Serifs? Huh? Look, if a single, non-resizable monospace font is good enough for Linux, then it's good enough for the rest of you.
I'd never do something like tha-- oh, shit! It's spreading! RUN! SAVE YOURSELF! Run in staggered, uneven steps. IT CONFUSES THEM! AAAAAAA!
Edit: I don't think my font joke is working. Dammnit, CS. Why must you selectively apply sanitization? =(
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@dhromed said:
I expected your Linux to run at 72dpi, making the forums as big as steam.
Mine runs at 96dpi, which I think is pretty standard now.
@dhromed said:
Linux steam uses a larger font size for the chat than on Windows.
Is it Linux Steam or Steam-on-Wine? Because Wine lets you futz with the DPI it uses for applications, so you can force text in a Wine application to look bigger that way.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@boomzilla said:
There's nothing about "Valve employee handbook" that fits the description "mainstream culture."
I knew somebody was going to nit-pick this, but I still consider it valid. Maybe I should have said "mainstream subculture", I dunno.
With the fragmentation we have today, I'm not really sure there's much of a mainstream culture any more. There's just way too much stuff happening to keep up with very much of it. And it's very easy to not even realize how much stuff you're ignorant of.
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@Lorne Kates said:
There are plenty of other use-cases for zooming. Here's one: I cook. I even sometimes use The Intrenet to look up recipes. (Shocking). There isn't always room on the counter for my computer... or I don't want the computer on the counter. So it sits across the room. With the zoom turned up to max so I can read the recipe from across the room. If it breaks the rest of the site, who cares? As long as I can read the text.
@Ben L. said:Browsing at a zoom level other than 100% is TRWTF.
Unless you're interacting with your web browser from across the room, your use case is not a WTF.
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@boomzilla said:
@morbiuswilters said:
@boomzilla said:
There's nothing about "Valve employee handbook" that fits the description "mainstream culture."
I knew somebody was going to nit-pick this, but I still consider it valid. Maybe I should have said "mainstream subculture", I dunno.
With the fragmentation we have today, I'm not really sure there's much of a mainstream culture any more. There's just way too much stuff happening to keep up with very much of it. And it's very easy to not even realize how much stuff you're ignorant of.I agree, which is why I felt it was okay to lump video game stuff in with "mainstream culture". To me, it's very fragmented, but it still is the rough grouping of things that normal people follow. (For example, I probably never would have known that Islamist terrorists had attacked Boston if somebody hadn't told me.) I stopped paying attention to that stuff several years ago, but I was still exposed to it, from other people. But where I live now, nobody else follows that stuff, either, so I pretty much get no exposure at all.
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@dhromed said:
Linux steam uses a larger font size for the chat than on Windows.
In conclusion:Linux is better than Windows at N ≥ 1 things.
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@Ben L. said:
Unless you're interacting with your web browser from across the room, your use case is not a WTF.
Ah, the walk-back. "Well, if you parse my words at a level of fineness that I would normally find obnoxiously pedantic, you'll see that I said it was only wrong if you actually clicked links."
Here's a question: what's the difference? Since the problem isn't with links or browsing, but with poorly-coded sites not handling resizing well, what does it matter if you are browsing or not? Please explain why it's not a WTF to enlarge text size, but it becomes a WTF if you click a link.
What if I were to resize my text back to normal before I clicked every link, then enlarged the text back? Is that a WTF? By the not-at-all-arbitrary rules you've laid down so far, it seems A-OK.
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@Ben L. said:
@dhromed said:
Linux steam uses a larger font size for the chat than on Windows.
In conclusion:Linux is better than Windows at N ≥ 1 things.
Is 1 of those things rendering fonts at a different size than the designer/developer intended them to be rendered?
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@Ben L. said:
@dhromed said:
Linux steam uses a larger font size for the chat than on Windows.
In conclusion:Linux is better than Windows at N ≥ 1 things.
That's an interesting conclusion, since apparently Linux is actually failing to render the font correctly (although I still have no idea if you adjusted your DPI settings in Wine). It's the "Hey, the brakes stopped working in my car and I hit a pedestrian, but it's okay because he was Hitler" line of argument.
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@blakeyrat said:
@Lorne Kates said:
Super Flexibility - no need to ask can I use four hours of my Personal Time Off to go renew my license? Just do what you need do, and make sure you get what you need to get done
In theory my job works that way.
In reality, my boss is kind of a dick about it, and he's the one who recommends me for raises.
No offense to Alex, but I've learned to take claims like that with a very very very big grain of salt. I've heard from enough Googlers to know, for example, that "20% time" is a myth for the vast majority of their employees. I've heard from Valve employees that their "no bosses" policy is complete bullcrap. Just because something in the job listing doesn't mean it actually exists in the culture of that workplace.
This is what I thought of.
Also, Ben: Bigger is not always better.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@Ben L. said:
@dhromed said:
Linux steam uses a larger font size for the chat than on Windows.
In conclusion:Linux is better than Windows at N ≥ 1 things.
That's an interesting conclusion, since apparently Linux is actually failing to render the font correctly (although I still have no idea if you adjusted your DPI settings in Wine).
I'm not sure what you define as "not rendering the font correctly" but it appears to be the behavior of EVERY PROGRAM THAT HAS EVER EXISTED.
This should be one inch tall.
Maybe your monitor is a lot smaller than mine. Who knows.
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@Ben L. said:
I'm not sure what you define as "not rendering the font correctly"...
As far as I understand it, the font is supposed to be 10px, but clearly something is rendering incorrectly if it is showing up the same size as the 10pt font used by TDWTF.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@Ben L. said:
I'm not sure what you define as "not rendering the font correctly"...
As far as I understand it, the font is supposed to be 10px, but clearly something is rendering incorrectly if it is showing up the same size as the 10pt font used by TDWTF.
I'm not sure what Steam you're using, but mine has 14px fonts.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@anonymous_guy said:
@Holy Shit! said:
The Scotch Library - over 60 single malts, perfect for the six o'clock Scotch
That list would be awesome if it included the 18-year-old Bowmore, which is way better than the 12-year-old one.
"My country club would be ashamed to serve the free scotch you are giving your employees. Sir, you may keep your insult of a job! Jeeves, throw 12-year scotch in this man's face."
Seriously, the entitlement of people...
Last time I checked, my statement sounded like a suggestion to whoever maintains that whisky collection. Have I ever complained about free scotch in this thread? (Not that I got any…)
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@Ben L. said:
I'm not sure what Steam you're using, but mine has 14px fonts.
I've never even used Steam, but I'm pretty sure it was established in this thread that Steam uses a 10px font in the IM thingy. Can somebody who knows what they're talking about respond and slap Ben down (or substantiate his claim, on the off-chance he's right)?
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@morbiuswilters said:
@Ben L. said:
I'm not sure what Steam you're using, but mine has 14px fonts.
I've never even used Steam, but I'm pretty sure it was established in this thread that Steam uses a 10px font in the IM thingy. Can somebody who knows what they're talking about respond and slap Ben down (or substantiate his claim, on the off-chance he's right)?
It seems like the Windows version uses a 10px font (at least it does when run via Wine), while the Linux version uses a 14px font. I'd love to know the reason for that.
Screenshot of both chat windows side by side: http://imgur.com/uRxPfuA
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@anonymous_guy said:
It seems like the Windows version uses a 10px font (at least it does when run via Wine), while the Linux version uses a 14px font.
So it's a native Linux version and not something running in Wine? Can anybody keep this straight?
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@Ben L. said:
@Ben L. said:
Browsing at a zoom level other than 100% is TRWTF.
Unless you're interacting with your web browser from across the room, your use case is not a WTF.Or visually impaired?
Many use cases for browsing at > 100%. Not all are obvious (although that one should be)
Sometimes I browse zoomed because my SO is reading over my shoulder and it slows me down.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@anonymous_guy said:
It seems like the Windows version uses a 10px font (at least it does when run via Wine), while the Linux version uses a 14px font.
So it's a native Linux version and not something running in Wine? Can anybody keep this straight?
Left side of my screenshot: Steam running in Wine.
Right side of my screenshot: Native linux version.
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@anonymous_guy said:
Right side of my screenshot: Native linux version.
Dear God. So this entire conversation has been pointless? When Ben L said "Hey, the forum and Steam use the same font!" he was basically doing the Linux troll routine? Are you effing kidding me?
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@morbiuswilters said:
@anonymous_guy said:
Right side of my screenshot: Native linux version.
So this entire conversation has been pointless?
You seem surprised. I'm confused.
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@morbiuswilters said:
@anonymous_guy said:
Right side of my screenshot: Native linux version.
Dear God. So this entire conversation has been pointless? When Ben L said "Hey, the forum and Steam use the same font!" he was basically doing the Linux troll routine? Are you effing kidding me?
Except that I got the 14px font size thing from the Windows version of Steam.
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@Ben L. said:
@morbiuswilters said:
@anonymous_guy said:
Right side of my screenshot: Native linux version.
Dear God. So this entire conversation has been pointless? When Ben L said "Hey, the forum and Steam use the same font!" he was basically doing the Linux troll routine? Are you effing kidding me?
Except that I got the 14px font size thing from the Windows version of Steam.
Well, anonymous_guy just said it was 10px. One of you is clearly lying! You shall fight to the death, for my amusement.
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This should clear things up.
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God fucking damnit to shit, it doesn't fucking matter whether Steam's default font size is 10pt, 14pt, or mongoose.
The fucking point is you can't change it. Don't let fuckfaces like Ben here distract you from tue real issue with his irrelevant bullshit. I expect this kind of cram from the Boomzillas of the world, but I'm disappointed in you, Morbius.
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@blakeyrat said:
God fucking damnit to shit, it doesn't fucking matter whether Steam's default font size is 10pt, 14pt, or mongoose.
For reference, I don't have Steam installed, and for me it's 11.5px.
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@blakeyrat said:
God fucking damnit to shit, it doesn't fucking matter whether Steam's default font size is 10pt, 14pt, or mongoose.
FTR I completely agree.
I was just curious who was smoking crack regarding the defaults.
Although, really, Valve has a lot more to fix than the chat font. Like, for instance, every part of every randomly different version of their broken-as-fuck, undocumented Source SDKs.
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@blakeyrat said:
I expect this kind of cram from the Boomzillas of the world, but I'm disappointed in you, Morbius.
Wait, what'd I do? I think I've laid out fairly clearly that it's a major usability WTF to not have text that can be resized. If people don't get that by now, me re-iterating it for the 30th time isn't gonna help. Instead I'd rather lambaste Ben for posting Wine trollbait.
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@superjer said:
FTR I completely agree.
Good then we can mov--
@superjer said:
I was just curious who was smoking crack regarding the defaults.
FUCK!!! You can't say "you agree" then bring it up again! I KEEL YOU DEAD!
@superjer said:
Although, really, Valve has a lot more to fix than the chat font. Like, for instance, every part of every randomly different version of their broken-as-fuck, undocumented Source SDKs.
Yeah tons of their shit is broken. I'd rather see them fix Steam first, though, since that would give the most benefit to the most users.
In any case, Valve's crowing about how great their workplace is doesn't convince me much when they obviously don't give a shit about making good products, fixing critical bugs, or handling customer support requests. 95% of Valve's success comes from being a first-mover in app stores and cornering a large fraction of the market before any competitors came on-board. It has nothing to do with "not having managers".
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@blakeyrat said:
In any case, Valve's crowing about how great their workplace is doesn't convince me much when they obviously don't give a shit about making good products, fixing critical bugs, or handling customer support requests.
I think they still consider it a great place to work from the inside. I can almost see Valve's office from my office, so I'm close enough to hear the money printing in there. And sometimes I can see the confetti showering down on the street and the little hearts floating up from out their windows.
