General design/code issues of the Steam client

[eliasp]

I've just posted some general issues (only some of them I've found) of the Steam client on Linux on reddit and was told to repost this here.

So feel free to give this reddit post a read and let me know whether extending this list would be welcomed…

[Weegee]

Let's do this the FOSS way: Write a patch for the launcher scripts and hope that the devs will apply it :D

[eliasp]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Weegee:

Let's do this the FOSS way: Write a patch for the launcher scripts and hope that the devs will apply it :D

Well, for a FOSS project I'd do this instantly, but for a non-FOSS project, I'd wait for some message from the devs like "We're happy to apply any such patches and help would be welcome."

Furthermore, some of the issues are just fundamental and don't only apply to the editable launcher script, but also to other parts of the application which are only available as binary (such as putting content to /usr/bin…).

[hi mum]

Good post :)

[Minced]

I don't care if the code is hung together with used duct tape, spit, and bubble gum. I can talk to my friends and play games on Steam!

[eliasp]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Minced:

I don't care if the code is hung together with used duct tape, spit, and bubble gum. I can talk to my friends and play games on Steam!

If everyone cared as much about software quality as you do, we'd still live in the technical stone-age… :)

[Furcht]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Minced:

I don't care if the code is hung together with used duct tape, spit, and bubble gum. I can talk to my friends and play games on Steam!

Then you don't understand the real point of this beta, even if its a "closed" beta they want people to help them not be like "DERP, PLAY GAMES, DO NOTHING USEFUL, DERP"

[Minced]

After reading the reddit post I got the impression he was nit-picking and made a post.

I find playing games through their client and finding bugs is more useful than nit-picking the way something is coded. And I would rather the developers focus on the stuff that is actually broken than the stuff that isn't pretty.

My understanding is that I am not on the coding team for Steam. I'll let them decide the style they want to write their code in. I'll just find bugs and post about them while playing awesome games and using an awesome steam client. :-p

[RobotMenace]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Minced:

After reading the reddit post I got the impression he was nit-picking and made a post.

Maybe with the "not so elegant" bit, but even with that it's still all valid criticisms. If you supply something as a .deb those files distributed as the .deb should be handled by the package manager. I don't agree that nothing should go in /bin that isn't handled by dpkg but if you use it to put it there it should handle updating those parts. Even if they don't want to add this to the repos or a ppa they could just download the deb and launch the package manager to install it.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Minced:

My understanding is that I am not on the coding team for Steam. I'll let them decide the style they want to write their code in. I'll just find bugs and post about them while playing awesome games and using an awesome steam client. :-p

And my understanding is that testers who can pinpoint problems are golden. Much better than the "this breaks sometimes, don't know what I do what makes it happens or what else on my system my be interfering or missing."

[dunc]

I suggest you post a patch/diff in here.

[mruuh]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Minced:

My understanding is that I am not on the coding team for Steam. I'll let them decide the style they want to write their code in. I'll just find bugs and post about them while playing awesome games and using an awesome steam client. :-p

Coding style is entirely their thing to decide on, certainly. As long as the code does what it has to do on end-user systems, and does it correctly - which is definitely not the case here, and OP has some very valid points (overwriting a file behind the back of the package manager being the one that irks me the most).

Furthermore, OP's feedback is constructive where it can be - this is exactly the kind of beta-tester Valve (or any other company, really) can never get enough of.

[bl33ding_silence]

I would suggest getting in touch with Valve directly. It might be that there is a legitimate reason for doing things the way they are doing it, or it might be just laziness on the part of the developers (this is a beta, after all, and linux is not their primary platform - regardless of what Gabe Newell's opinion on Windows 8 is :D).

Having said that, here are my comments/opinions on the points in the post:

1) Files in /usr/bin : This is a beta. I believe that the final Steam for Linux would be available via ubuntu's package manager, and would handle things differently than it is now. As of now, I think their focus isn't about how to do things the linux way, but to get things working on linux.

2) The use of gksudo : Again, this is an early beta. They chose Ubuntu for a reason. It makes things easier for them if they don't have to concentrate on secondary stuff like supporting various Desktop Environments (such as KDE). They might handle this later.

3) Elegance of bash code : Elegance is often a matter of opinion, though your points seem to be about performance and error-prone shell scripting, in which case, it's just lazy code. I think Valve would welcome your suggestions if you contact them directly.

[Meyithi]

Sidestepping package managers if a big nope and a slippery slope with a big pile of crap at the bottom.

I really do hope it's just a beta thing.

[Nyamiou]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Minced:

I don't care if the code is hung together with used duct tape, spit, and bubble gum. I can talk to my friends and play games on Steam!

You won't say that when they discover in several month a major bug that just can't be solved easily because the code is too crappy and you'll have to wait for a month or two not playing.

In an application that will evolve a lot like Steam code quality is very important because if the code is a mess just to make the thing run when you have to change something everything break apart and you have to recode everything.

Also you don't want an update of your system breaking Steam, so Steam as to follow important rules that all Linux applications have to follow like not using anything deprecated and not making assumptions on some system configurations if they can change.