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Comment by smlacy | Hacker News Reader

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smlacy·

Fails my "WTF is it" test right out of the box.

The first paragraph of any software README should answer:

What is it? What does it do? Why would I use it?

ORCA is a ... that ... and can help you ...

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I don’t think that’s a fruitful mindset for a thing like this. If you look at some of the tools (and games) by the same developer, they are all unapologetic, highly aesthetic experiences that often hover between profound genius and half finished art experiment.

This isn't really that kind of piece of software. It's a work of art, but more relevantly it's meant to be a conspicuous component of other people's art. That means an air of mystique is a selling point.

It's weird, it's confusing, and it doesn't care about you — but open it up and play around and you might find something worthy of delight.

I mostly agree; ideally there would be a prominent link to a 30 second video that does a very quick demonstration of how/why this works. This is an example where video is just way better than text for introducing a concept.

I get that not every repo is going to have a nice readme, but it definitely would be nice here.

A link to an introductory video is the third sentence in the readme :)

"Each letter of the alphabet is an operation, lowercase letters operate on bang(*), uppercase letters operate each frame. Have a look at some project created with #ORCΛ, or some example files. Here's an introduction video. "

I agree. I have never used an audio programmer and don't really know what it's for. Even after reading the README and looking at a video on Twitter, I still don't know what this program does.

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