[Openfontlibrary] LGM?

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Le Sam 24 mai 2008 10:11, Pierre Marchand a écrit :
> Vous (Nicolas Mailhot) avez écrit :
>> > I don’t know for the "etc." but for README & INSTALL files I think
>> > they are not needed. Since you can embed informations about the
>> font
>> > in the font file itself
>>
>> And you are wrong.
>
> C’est dit avec tant de délicatesse !

I reserve the right to be subtle as a brick when needed. And here I
strongly feel brick mode is needed.

> I did not say that you should not take care of packaging. Just that we
> have Information field in "name" table (& I deeply regret that most of
> fonts does not provide info here) where README content would fit well.

And where no one would look it for. Fonts are not the first technical
item where readme-like info could be put in some other "better" place,
and in the end readme are *still* used everywhere because no one but
the proponents of the various "better" places cares about learning
them.

The costs of forcing people involved to learn a font-specific way are
far higher than whatever you win over using plain txt readmes (which
have proved to be good enough for a long time)

> Plus, installing
> fonts is not a per font process, so I continue to think that
> documenting it once on the web site would be enough.

Every time I've had to actually write documentation and support the
people that used it my "enough" definition was redefined. Actual users
do not want to think about tech, they just use it. Documentation must
be written for mindless lemmings that will only do something if it's
in their face (not hidden in magic metadata or in some remote web
site) with no ambiguïty or useless explanations.

And that's not because users are dumb or whatever but users always
have better things to do than think about your problems. You must not
posit they have any brainshare to spare for "enough" setups.

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot