Along with CONTRIBUTING.md, I've been including a WRITING.md in my projects, too. Is it bulletproof? No. But it does help things like READMEs, PR descriptions, and other documentation to be much more readable than your garden variety slop. Enough so that further editing is usually pretty painless.
Would you mind sharing a link? It’s ok if you don’t want to. This is just something I feel like I’ve been really struggling with and would love to see how others are trying to tackle it.
I'm not the original commenter you replied to, but I have thoughts that might be relevant. These things are quite subjective so some people will disagree that this is a good example, or with what I'm about to say so have a punch of salt at the ready…
I think "pretty average" is the thing to strive for in a README. The right balance of detailed but concise, not overly festooned with unnecessary verbiage like a stereotypical recipe page, a simple "what is it", "key features", "how to get/install", "more detail on features / example use" structure.
Of course it gets harder to find that balance as the size and scope of a project expands, you have to become judicious with cutting things out and excising them to extended documentation instead of everything being in the README. For a thing this size everything is close to the right balance if you word+arrange it right, for larger projects the README should be a summary of what, how to get, and where the other documentation is.
If this one is AI written (there are signs, but those are things humans have long done which is why AIs copy them) it has been human edited rather than just thrown up as-is.
> as someone who struggles to write readmes
If you are struggling a lot with that, perhaps you are overthinking it or trying to shoehorn in too much detail?
> If you are struggling a lot with that, perhaps you are overthinking it or trying to shoehorn in too much detail?
The opposite problem to be honest. I maintain pretty complex projects so lean towards leaving most stuff out and linking to documentation outside the readme. But I frequently get accused of underselling the project.
But you’re right that I might be over thinking things.
Well done, any plans to show other space objects too? Like the ISS or Starlink? One thing I ran into when tracking satellites in the browser: CelesTrak's TLE files skip satellites with six-digit catalog numbers, which is most of what's been launched lately, so new Starlinks just weren't there. Their CSV files have them tho.
Not as-is, looking at the options list there seems to be no way to ask it to output one frame then exit. That would presumably be an easy option to add.
After reading the first sentence, I cannot stop imagining some Rust people cannot stop salivating at the prospect to a version saying, "written in Rust", "safe", etc. ~
Not really. One example image has Capella, Rigel, and Sirius clearly marked. But even with that, I can not make out Orion, probably the most recognizable constellation behind the big dipper.
I would absolutely love a terminal Stellarium alternative, but this isn't it.
Nice to combine with the Astrological CPU Scheduler: https://github.com/zampierilucas/scx_horoscope
Very, very distantly related to the topic, but it reminded me of the Cosmo Phase watch from Casio (CGW-50), released in the 80s [0]
Having stars and planets at your fingertips...
[0] https://www.casio.com/us/watches/50th/Heritage/1980s/
I honestly think Casio is one of the most under-leveraged brands. So much good will for them. One of a few companies I'd love a tour of.
Man I just checked ebay, TM-100s going for several thousand dollars.
Regardless of whether it’s useful or not, the level of creative intelligence is impressive
I think these kind of projects are great for stress testing terminal performance as well.
Exactly. Not every project needs to solve a real-world problem
This made me laugh. It’s easy to forget what a real world problem is when you spend too much time on a computer.
It's pretty refreshing to see such a nice and readable README. vibe coders, please take notes.
Saving one memory...
I took note of your suggestion, next time I will write the README in the voice of da-luce/astroterm README.
Along with CONTRIBUTING.md, I've been including a WRITING.md in my projects, too. Is it bulletproof? No. But it does help things like READMEs, PR descriptions, and other documentation to be much more readable than your garden variety slop. Enough so that further editing is usually pretty painless.
Would you mind sharing a link? It’s ok if you don’t want to. This is just something I feel like I’ve been really struggling with and would love to see how others are trying to tackle it.
Seems pretty average to me. What is it you specifically like?
(Curious as someone who struggles to write readmes)
I'm not the original commenter you replied to, but I have thoughts that might be relevant. These things are quite subjective so some people will disagree that this is a good example, or with what I'm about to say so have a punch of salt at the ready…
I think "pretty average" is the thing to strive for in a README. The right balance of detailed but concise, not overly festooned with unnecessary verbiage like a stereotypical recipe page, a simple "what is it", "key features", "how to get/install", "more detail on features / example use" structure.
Of course it gets harder to find that balance as the size and scope of a project expands, you have to become judicious with cutting things out and excising them to extended documentation instead of everything being in the README. For a thing this size everything is close to the right balance if you word+arrange it right, for larger projects the README should be a summary of what, how to get, and where the other documentation is.
If this one is AI written (there are signs, but those are things humans have long done which is why AIs copy them) it has been human edited rather than just thrown up as-is.
> as someone who struggles to write readmes
If you are struggling a lot with that, perhaps you are overthinking it or trying to shoehorn in too much detail?
> If you are struggling a lot with that, perhaps you are overthinking it or trying to shoehorn in too much detail?
The opposite problem to be honest. I maintain pretty complex projects so lean towards leaving most stuff out and linking to documentation outside the readme. But I frequently get accused of underselling the project.
But you’re right that I might be over thinking things.
Reminds me of `phoon` which shows the current phase of the moon in ascii
https://www.acme.com/software/phoon/
`brew install phoon`
Gotta be honest. This application seems like a mismatch for a TUI. I’m a TUI lover in general, but I would have gone a different direction.
This doesn't look like a "why?" project, so much as a "why not?".
This is really cool. I've managed to set this up as my default screensaver in Omarchy. It tracks the sky from my house. Awesome!
That's awesome! How did you do it?
Well done, any plans to show other space objects too? Like the ISS or Starlink? One thing I ran into when tracking satellites in the browser: CelesTrak's TLE files skip satellites with six-digit catalog numbers, which is most of what's been launched lately, so new Starlinks just weren't there. Their CSV files have them tho.
Similar concept but for a social network: gno.world
Some nice arguments:
astroterm -cub --city=Seattle -t 2 -l 2
Could this be set up as dynamic motd in the terminal?
Not as-is, looking at the options list there seems to be no way to ask it to output one frame then exit. That would presumably be an easy option to add.
ASCII-rendered visuals looks pretty decent.
After reading the first sentence, I cannot stop imagining some Rust people cannot stop salivating at the prospect to a version saying, "written in Rust", "safe", etc. ~
Not really. One example image has Capella, Rigel, and Sirius clearly marked. But even with that, I can not make out Orion, probably the most recognizable constellation behind the big dipper.
I would absolutely love a terminal Stellarium alternative, but this isn't it.