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I think it can work well as a demo, but I wouldn't call that documentation. If you need to find something out, having to wait or randomly click through a video

I think it can work well as a demo, but I wouldn't call that documentation. If you need to find something out, having to wait or randomly click through a video is extremely frustrating.

vidarh 5y ago
If it's a video, it does noe exist for me. I could watch them, but I have better things to watch if I want to watch something. So I move on to something else.
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  Most of us read far faster than someone umming and ahing through a presentation in a monotone can speak. At the very least, give us a frigging transcript.
  - vidarh 5y ago
    A transcript would be great, but it struck me in these days of deep learning it's just a question of time before someone does a "speedup" option for videos that instead of just increasing the speed of the video, combines that with "smart" cuts like removing umming and ahing and unnecessary dead space, and tries to apply other simplifications as well (I'd still prefer text, but I'm sure there'd be an upside for people who like video). And imagine even a more aggressive "video summarizer" generating articles from videos with interspersed screenshots or brief video segments where they matter for the understanding...
omnicognate 5y ago
Ew, people are using it for docs? It always seemed clearly to be for those quick-look demos on projects' home pages, and it's fantastic for that.
- ReleaseCandidat 5y ago
  What exactly is the advantage of asciinema over a video or a GIF if you're just showing something? If I don't need to copy text out of it, it has the same function as a video.
  - 1_player 5y ago
    It's definitely better than a GIF because you can seek forward. You never know when a GIF ends, and if you're distracted, you have to wait for it to loop back again.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      Note that this is a function of the GIF viewer. An image / video viewer that can play GIFs with length, speed, and movement controls would afford this. vlc seems to do this (Android version). I'll grant that the usual methods of interacting with GIFs don't do this, and am not arguing that they do. But if you really want a specific functionality, you can look for a tool which might provide that.
  - qwertox 5y ago
    I'd guess it's the bandwidth and compared to a GIF, you can pause them. While it's not usual to copy text from it, I've done that once this month and thought it was neat to be able to do that. I do believe that they have an advantage over video/GIF.
  - omnicognate 5y ago
    It's rendered by your browser so you get properly subpixel-hinted text instead of the horrible, blurry, compressed screenshot effect a video or gif gives. Also it's more convenient to generate than faffing around with screencasting software. Edit: well, not (lossily) compressed in the case of a gif but not as nice as text properly rendered for your display.
- nyanpasu64 5y ago
  Asciinema is used for docs-ish in git-branchless's readme: https://github.com/arxanas/git-branchless/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/arxanas/git-branchless/blob/master/README... It does have formal docs, but I didn't fully understand the program after reading them. I didn't enjoy sitting through branchless's videos or clicking around for the right point in time.

I think it can work well as a demo, but I wouldn't call that documentation. If you need to find something out, having to wait or randomly click through a video is extremely frustrating.

vidarh 5y ago

If it's a video, it does noe exist for me. I could watch them, but I have better things to watch if I want to watch something. So I move on to something else.

EdwardDiego 5y ago
Most of us read far faster than someone umming and ahing through a presentation in a monotone can speak. At the very least, give us a frigging transcript.
- vidarh 5y ago
  A transcript would be great, but it struck me in these days of deep learning it's just a question of time before someone does a "speedup" option for videos that instead of just increasing the speed of the video, combines that with "smart" cuts like removing umming and ahing and unnecessary dead space, and tries to apply other simplifications as well (I'd still prefer text, but I'm sure there'd be an upside for people who like video). And imagine even a more aggressive "video summarizer" generating articles from videos with interspersed screenshots or brief video segments where they matter for the understanding...

omnicognate 5y ago

Ew, people are using it for docs? It always seemed clearly to be for those quick-look demos on projects' home pages, and it's fantastic for that.

ReleaseCandidat 5y ago
What exactly is the advantage of asciinema over a video or a GIF if you're just showing something? If I don't need to copy text out of it, it has the same function as a video.
- 1_player 5y ago
  It's definitely better than a GIF because you can seek forward. You never know when a GIF ends, and if you're distracted, you have to wait for it to loop back again.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Note that this is a function of the GIF viewer. An image / video viewer that can play GIFs with length, speed, and movement controls would afford this. vlc seems to do this (Android version). I'll grant that the usual methods of interacting with GIFs don't do this, and am not arguing that they do. But if you really want a specific functionality, you can look for a tool which might provide that.
- qwertox 5y ago
  I'd guess it's the bandwidth and compared to a GIF, you can pause them. While it's not usual to copy text from it, I've done that once this month and thought it was neat to be able to do that. I do believe that they have an advantage over video/GIF.
- omnicognate 5y ago
  It's rendered by your browser so you get properly subpixel-hinted text instead of the horrible, blurry, compressed screenshot effect a video or gif gives. Also it's more convenient to generate than faffing around with screencasting software. Edit: well, not (lossily) compressed in the case of a gif but not as nice as text properly rendered for your display.
nyanpasu64 5y ago
Asciinema is used for docs-ish in git-branchless's readme: https://github.com/arxanas/git-branchless/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/arxanas/git-branchless/blob/master/README... It does have formal docs, but I didn't fully understand the program after reading them. I didn't enjoy sitting through branchless's videos or clicking around for the right point in time.