No no, surely the solution to this is a mechanical one

Your username is not the best ever. Why are you lying?

This sounds kind of like a data warehouse. Depending on the size of the data and number of connections I’d say script or database or module, this is a much bigger problem. Look into dbt (data build tool) and airflow

I am a little curious about the conditional. I have a suspicion that this is a bit of over engineering.

The problem you seem to be trying to solve is “I need to access the same data in multiple ways, places, or projects.” That’s what a database is really great for. However, if you just need to combine the same csv files you have on disk over and over, why not combine them and dump the output to a csv? Next time you need it, just load the combined csv. FWIW this is loosely what SQLite is doing.

If you are defining a method or function that performs these ETL operations over and over, and the underlying data is not changing, I think updating your local files to be the desired content and format is actually what you want.

If instead you’re trying to explore modules, imports, abstraction, writing DRY code, or other software development fundamentals- great! Play around, it’s a great way to learn how might also recommend picking up some books! Usually your local library has some books on Python development, object oriented programming, and data engineering basics that you might find fascinating (as I have)

Here “database” seems to mean a pandas dataframe. Sounds like you need to create a database using Postgres or sqlite or something similar, and recreate that database from a backup or database dump whenever you need it. You could host that database in the cloud or on your own network as well, if you need access remotely.

For instance see this pandas doc https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/reference/api/pandas.DataFrame.to_sql.html

I don’t think there are online multiplayer games like CoD or CS that don’t require a platform like steam or good old games to buy, download, and run. I’m not actually sure what you’re trying to do, but if avoiding marketing is your goal I recommend you run steam and change the default page it opens to to be the library where your games are and not the store

Yeah I don’t trust the good will of corporations, even the ones I personally like

Yeah GOG is a better ownership model. Steam is not ownership

I mean I hate to say it but if steam closed up shop tomorrow your games are gone too. You buy a license, not a copy, from steam

Ethernet cable is the best cantrip, shillelagh is a close second

Or, and hear me out, approach everything with hostility \s

Yes and there are definitely people who use excel for art. Just like there are people who use GitHub for its releases page. It’s just not the primary use of either program.

A huge chunk of GitHub users? Citation needed. Sounds like what you mean is you and your communities use it that way.

I mean I did try. They didn’t really listen, just repeated the same thing over and over again.

No, what you mean is YOU use it and you’re assuming most people use GitHub the way you do. GitHub is first and foremost a platform for GIT. Git has nothing to do with releases or file downloads per se. Time spent improving the releases UI is time not spent doing other UI improvements. If you need more proof that it’s not worth it to spend time on the release UI, just take note of the fact that GitHub is not spending time on the release UI. If everyone was using it and it was deficient, do you really think that would be the case?

Literally everyone? I’ve been a software engineer for ten years. My company doesn’t use it, and no company I’ve worked for has. I guess they are not part of “literally everyone?”

Explain to me how GitHub working on one product feature (releases) has no impact on how much they can work on others. Apparently in your rich enterprise software career you’ve found that resources and time are limitless? Or maybe you think it’s trivial for a platform like GitHub to change their UI.

This smacks of lots junior software engineers I’ve worked with who think problems are simple and solutions are easy because they’ve never actually DONE anything. I get that you’re very convinced that this is easy and cost less but it’s pretty clear to me you have no idea what you’re talking about.

We’re talking about how to design one of the biggest platforms on the internet. Of course there is a compromise. No one is advocating for removing the button, but arguing that the UI is somehow deficient for people wanting to download binaries is really missing the purpose of GitHub.

Do MOST people who use GitHub download .exes? In my experience the VAST majority of people are using it for source and version control, not external releases. The overwhelming majority. FOSS and OSS is a small portion of the overall GitHub user base compared to, say, enterprise companies.

Excel has a bad UX for people who want to use it to make art

They’re not exclusive but this isn’t a joke and a gripe - it’s just a gripe.