Usually I tend to be conservative on actively marketing my own products, but I have also seen people who seem to be totally unaware of marketing, which is a pity in my eyes. A very typical example is a GitHub repo that has no description, website URL, or topics, which looks like this:
I sigh a sigh every time I see it. I don’t know what the repo owner is thinking. If one just prefers hiding oneself in public, the lack of more information makes sense, otherwise I think a description and a README are the most basic elements you should provide in a GitHub repo. You probably don’t expect everyone to read your source code to know what this repo actually does.
Better, you should provide a URL to a website associated with this repo. It could be a documentation website, or other types of websites. Even if the repo is the special and conventional *.github.io (meaning GitHub Pages), you should provide a link explicitly so that visitors can simply click it. I have tried to copy the text *.github.io and paste it in my browser’s address bar many times to open such websites when a repo does not provide an explicit and clickable link (yes, I’m this curious to read other people’s websites). Sometimes I even have to open the CNAME file in the repo to figure out the website URL. I don’t think many people are as curious as me in these cases, so unless you want to hide yourself intentionally, please consider providing a description and a website in your GitHub repo (click the Edit button and fill out the two text fields).
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As a freelancer (currently working as a contractor) and a dad of three kids, I truly appreciate your donation to support my writing and open-source software development! Your contribution helps me cope with financial uncertainty better, so I can spend more time on producing high-quality content and software. You can make a donation through methods below.
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Please feel free to email me if you prefer a different way to give. Thank you very much!
I’ll give back a significant portion of the donations to the open-source community and charities. For the record, I received about $30,000 in total (before tax) in 2024-25, and gave back about $15,000 (after tax).