Games. If we could redeem games to our virtual inventory and then trade them, it'd made the "Classifieds" section of the forums a lot safer to traverse. I've never been screwed, but many have.

Indeed, this is a big problem for me as well. I want the installers & I haven't had luck with pause & resuming the direct downloads so I fear any installer over 2GB would become too big to get where as right now I can get any game I can pay for.
the ability to pause & resume is the reason I chose to use the GOG Downloader in the first place

Good to hear. I hope I can extrapolate that to Ruby, Python, and other similar languages too. ;oP

At least Python can have its runtime bundled in the application (on Windows), that's more than Java and .NET can claim.

I've developed in python myself (although on Linux) so I'm quite familiar with it. I'm more interested though in software that is lean and mean and has as little dependencies on language runtimes and other 3rd party stuff as possible, so wherever I can do so I try to choose applications that are native to the platform which tend to usually be written in C or C++ for the most part. The various languages all have their well known pros and cons, but lightweight and lean is never a con. ;)

That's certainly true. I'm probably just happy for Python helping me get just a bit closer to native desktop applications (from a background of Javascript and PHP).

Yeah, python is great for prototyping and RAD, and far nicer than JS or PHP from a technical standpoint. I use it for certain things and in particular prototyping, but I'm also a bit of a greybeard so to speak and favour lower level languages like C for most of my own projects. Old habits die hard. :)

For me, part of what originally set GOG apart from the herd was the lack of external client, achievements, and things like that. No muss, no fuss, just hop onto a page and download an installer. That's exactly the kind of experience I want for old games, really. If they absolutely had to do something, I wish they would've focused on improving the web interface instead.

Please, consider making "registry entires" to a local database file instead (I personally find SQLite works well for that, but an ordinary XML/JSON file works too).

It would be cool if you could keep the app with your game collection on some external hard drive and plug it wherever. I realize some games don't allow for it anyway under Windows, but I think this is what should be strived for.

I come from a C/C++ background myself and I prefer Python because development is way faster and less tricky to get right due to obscure features in the language (avoiding memory leaks with destructors and other issues). Whenever I code in C++, I also often find myself either implementing or getting 3rd party modules for stuff that is included in the box and standardized in Python.

Easier inherent cross-platform support and lack of a compilation step are also a plus for me (deployment across several platforms can be a royal pain in C/C++) although I do miss some of the checks that happen at compile time in C++ when you code it properly to take full advantage of the compiler, but I don't miss makefiles one bit.

It is slower at runtime, but that doesn't really matter most of the time, even moreso if you code speed-dependant bits in C/C++.

Also, I actually enjoy the forced indentation in Python. I really hate working with badly indented code.

Of course, this is coming from someone who jumped in the web development world with both feet. If you code for the desktop commercially, there are also code obfuscation considerations that probably make other languages preferable to Python.

This is folly, in my opinion. You guys stated that with GOG Galaxy, if you don't want to use it, your GOG experience will not change. Getting rid of the downloader inherently means that some people's experience will change. While I'm excited for Galaxy right now, there's a chance that I may not like it for many possible reasons. IF that happens, I would wish to continue to just use the downloader like I always do.

At the very least, just no longer continue development on the downloader, release its source code, and leave it for the community to support. What issues would come of that? Or, if you are not comfortable releasing the full source, then release an API for us to build our own downloaders. OR... just make the last version final, don't offer support, but still have it be an option. That way you at least live up to your promise that no one's GOG experience changes without Galaxy.

For all intents and purposes, Galaxy is the GOG downloader - only now it has a name and a bunch of new features which you don't have to use. It's just the new version of the downloader.

the "Blues" seem to differentiate the Downloader & the client though

& from what I've read the Galaxy Client while supposedly DRM-free functions more like the Steam client than the Gog Downloader

If Galaxy doesn't allow the download of the stand-alone installers, updates and extras while automatically checking their integrity and re-downloading only the problematic chunks in case of download errors then no, it's not really the same thing.

The way it looks, Galaxy will work like Steam and install the games, leaving downloading directly from the website as the only option for those wanting to get the stand-alone installers and updates, which is not as good an option as the current GOG Downloader for the features mentioned above.

It's been asked a few times already if this will be the case, the fact that it's a question that's been either ignored or side-stepped is reason not to be particularly optimist.

To me such a change would make a significant difference, and would likely make me prefer the Humble Store, at very least because they provide MD5 checksums to verify downloads (and Linux binaries, often not just for Debian distros).

And of course, Steam keys for achievements and playing multiplayer games with Steam friends, should I start caring about either feature.

EDIT: Missed HypersomniacLive post as I was busy writing mine, sorry.