programming and human factors
by Jeff Atwood
Why is it that fully half of my interactions with GotDotNet are extremely unpleasant? I was telling someone about the Microsoft sponsored IronPython project today and I foolishly attempted to click through to the GotDotNet workspace for same:
That's, like, totally awesome. Maybe I should visit the Workspaces Announcements pagee. The typo certainly inspires confidence!
With my apologies to the very nice Betsy Aoki who personally answers emails sent to the pictured email alias, GotDotNet is an embarrassing trainwreck of epic proportions. I've rarely had a positive experience using GotDotNet. I've rarely read anything positive about anyone else's experiences with GotDotNet.
How does GotDotNet suck? Let me count the ways:
When you can't muster a user experience comparable to the thoroughly mediocre SourceForge, it's time to seriously reconsider your reason for existing at all.
I'm begging you, Microsoft: either have the guts to kill GotDotNet outright, or put your alpha development triage team on it ASAP. It'd be one thing if GotDotNet was a standalone site, but because of its marquee association with Microsoft and .NET, GotDotNet drags down the entire .NET ecosystem. And that's a damn shame.
I don't know if I'm lucky, stupid, or both, but a revamped ASP.NET 2.0 version of GotDotNet was unveiled today. It addresses my two primary concerns: it's noticeably faster, and the visual design is much improved. Kudos to the GotDotNet team. I'm still not sure exactly what purpose the site serves in the big scheme of things, but at least using it is no longer like randomly jabbing myself in the face with punji sticks.
In addition to the points you mentioned: have you ever tried *search* on Gotdotnet? It finds absolutely NOTHING ever!
(Even though in the early days, GotDotNet was nice because they hosted the ASP.NET Quickstart samples which really did get you started rather quickly...)
Dick Appel on November 1, 2005 5:16 AMI agree with you, it sucks very hard. And I agree with Dick, the search is the worst part of the suckiness. Using Google instead with site:gotdotnet.com works much better (but the content you do find is rarely helpful, using Google without site:gotdotnet.com usually gets me the answer I need on someone's blog :)
Another suckiness: what about that domain name? Gow about got.net instead? I always forget whether it is a .net or a .com. I guess this suckiness derives from the essentially suckiness of the .net name, more than from this site.
net net I don't get it
Ole
Ole Eichhorn on November 1, 2005 5:38 AMVery true - Not a fan.. had nothing but trouble with it. Poorly implimented search, lousy project control.
Perhaps there is an opportunity here....
Not to be a pain in the butt, but I announced across Gotdotnet message boards last week that our work updating the site would resume Nov 1. That's today people. The site's going to go absolutely down for a period of 20 minutes later today so we can make the change to things we have not rolled out yet.
Consdering most of the complaints on this blog have to do with stuff we are fixing, I'd say, give us 24 hours and then find NEW stuff to complain about. :)
You gotta keep up with us.
Cheers,
Betsy Aoki
Gotdotnet PM
Well, in the words of the the Smash TV announcer:
Good luck! You're gonna need it!
I completely agree about GotDotNet, it's a travesty. What is it with Microsoft and websites, anyway? The MS website is redesigned every two weeks, and you need Google to find anything. The new MSDN forums are the slowest and least usable forums on the Internet (MS homebrew of course -- couldn't just use something like phBB that works, oh no!), and you need Google to find anything. For some reason virtually everyone else, from freeware authors to meagcorps, makes better websites than Microsoft.
Chris Nahr on November 2, 2005 3:16 AMWell, my timing was, uh, precipitous. See the brand new ASP.NET 2.0 version of gotdotnet, released today:
1) The design is much better. The old design was so, so painfully bad. Still not great, but way better than the generic clipart multicultural hands crap.
2) It is clearly and noticeably faster!
I'm thinking this sucks at least 50% less than the old version. Congrats GDN team.
Jeff Atwood on November 2, 2005 3:21 AMI still think the colors are bad and it's still hard to navigate. :(
ji on November 2, 2005 4:38 AMHmm... it's less ugly and somewhat faster but the search function is still worthless.
Concrete example: I typed in "fxcop" and didn't get the FxCop home page within the first three pages of results (I didn't look any further).
In fact, the first hit that even involves the FxCop page is in 3rd position, and that's the release notes for 1.312. Huh?
Also, the menu bar on the left does not expand to show the (initially hidden) FxCop link when one of the FxCop pages is shown.
Chris Nahr on November 2, 2005 7:29 AMWhilst I welcome the change and it sure is faster, that is still one ugly site. Dare I say it, it even looks amateurish. Ever think about employing a UI designer rather than doing it yourselves, GDN people?
Andy on November 2, 2005 8:10 AMI just tried the "new and improved" GDN site for a few minutes and got error pages three times - twice searching, and once clicking on a link from the search results. Maybe they should rename it to "Got beta code" until they shake the bugs out.
Like a lot of you, I think I'll be deleting it from my Favorites...
David Avraamides on November 2, 2005 9:37 AMYes, now it's a pretty piece of junk. I get to the error messages 50% faster. ;)
Scott on November 2, 2005 9:59 AMFinally proof I am not the only one getting errors on this stupid site. I have actually emailed them about this before and got a nasty email saying I was an idiot and the site worked fine.
Rob on November 2, 2005 10:34 AMI am done with GDN for good. I won't go back. The new look hurts my eyes (what's with the high contrast colors?!?!) and I am tired of the constant "operational troubleshooting in progress" messages. As I stated in a post on the site, if my web sites were as poor in quality and reliability as GDN is I'd lose my job! It is a real shame that Microsoft can't seem to do any better than that. It hurts the reputations of both ASP.NET and Microsoft.
Goodbye GDN!
BlazingFox on November 2, 2005 11:06 AMSo I take Betsy's unspoken advice and go to check out GotDotNet.com. It looks better and it was a little faster (caveat, I'm using Safari 2.0.2 to browse the site). I went to browse the User Samples. Changed the filter to "ASP.NET" clicked "Go" and got the standard ASP.NET "You need to configure your custom errors" error page.
I kid you not.
GotDotNet is done. Stick a fork in it. You hit it right on the head Jeff when you said "When you can't muster a user experience comparable to the thoroughly mediocre SourceForge, it's time to seriously reconsider your reason for existing at all."
It's not like Sourceforge sets the bar very high
Scott on November 2, 2005 12:56 PMAny other good options to GDN, other than SourceForge? Preferably free, or at least cheap...
WillH on November 3, 2005 3:57 AMOuch. That's harsh, man.
Jeff Atwood on November 4, 2005 3:43 AMI just went to the new and improved GDN and got an "operational troubleshooting in progress" on the user samples home page. What a piece of junk! If I were Ward Cunningham, I'd quit too!
od on November 4, 2005 12:59 PMI think the Oracle Metalink forum beats Gotdotnet hands down in the baddest webdesign category.
RIP GotDotNet. You will not be missed. :)
http://www.tkachenko.com/blog/archives/000676.html
CodePlex is the "new" GDN, and I'm happy to report that it's MUCH better!
Jeff Atwood on February 22, 2007 9:59 AMThe comments to this entry are closed.
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