There is a difference in software being of use to a small number of people because only a small number of people want something that does what the software does, and software that is only of use to a small number of people because only those people have the privilege (skill, ability, time, resources, etc) to make it work for them. I believe the latter is what MJG is talking about here.
I am currently writing a script that will do something only a handful of people have any use for a script to do: creating a geomantic chart. Not many people use geomancy, even fewer would ever want to use a computer to generate a chart. However, the audience for this particular thing I'm working on is further limited by the fact that very few people who would want to use a computer to generate a geomantic chart actually have any idea of how to run a Ruby script. If they ever saw it, they'd go "Hey, cool! I could use something like that! Oh, wait, I have no idea how to run that. It's useless to me." And there's the difference, in a nutshell, if I have understood the post properly.
Power management, mobile and firmware developer on Linux. Security developer at nvidia. Ex-biologist. Content here should not be interpreted as the opinion of my employer. Also on Mastodon and Bluesky.
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Re: "The entire population"?
Date: 2014-10-03 05:30 am (UTC)I am currently writing a script that will do something only a handful of people have any use for a script to do: creating a geomantic chart. Not many people use geomancy, even fewer would ever want to use a computer to generate a chart. However, the audience for this particular thing I'm working on is further limited by the fact that very few people who would want to use a computer to generate a geomantic chart actually have any idea of how to run a Ruby script. If they ever saw it, they'd go "Hey, cool! I could use something like that! Oh, wait, I have no idea how to run that. It's useless to me." And there's the difference, in a nutshell, if I have understood the post properly.