31–40 of 69 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it really sane to have a world of software that can’t survive new compiler or loader warnings? That just seems crazy to me
There is one school of software engineering which upgrades all warnings to be errors and thus fatal because "warning culture" leads complacency. Thus emitting a new warning as part of default behavior will break builds.
This part is especially relevant to some of the discussion in this thread:
> I understand that confronting this issue is more difficult than talking about whether or not ASDF should be issuing a warning. But that's not the question that is at hand.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is one school of software engineering which upgrades all warnings to be errors and thus fatal because "warning culture" leads complacency. Thus emitting a new warning as part of default behavior will break builds.
Running a red light is dangerous, therefore let's remove red lights..
Anything being used by other people will of course have changes. Software is never static unless you keep it to yourself in a locked basement.
This whole ordeal is sort of like having arguments with the wife and proving your point all the way to the divorce court, instead of just nodding, shrugging the shoulders, and getting on with life.
For (way) more context see https://gist.github.com/phoe/7d24bdb1f2be76a02fecba8cfecbef3...
Is it really sane to have a world of software that can’t survive new compiler or loader warnings? That just seems crazy to me
its crazy, and supper harmful
sadly it's not that rare in e.g. C/C++ as far as I know
Two obvious constraints in sharing software: * If software producers are pushing out obviously incompatible changes (excluding Hyrum's law and https://xkcd.com/1172 ) to consumers, the eco-system is broken. This includes SemVer-aware package managers which transparently bump up past major-version boundaries by default. (That doesn't seem to be what's happening here.) * If software consumers can't handle new warnings,…
I didn't get that. Won't this only happen to those using `-Werror` or something similar? If so, aren't they responsible for their breakage, and not the ecosystem?
If someone gives you a PR that is a small, minimal change, and is backwards compatible, but fixing a load of issues because someone wants to improve their system and is often being used in tandem with yours... then you're kinda just being a troll. Anything being used by other people will of course have changes. Software is never static unless you keep it to yourself in a locked basement. This whole ordeal is sort of…
I learn a lot about diplomatic language from posts like that. I wonder how much time it usually takes people to write those. For me, it takes a lot of time and revisions.
Likely as a result of his frustration, he is casting part of the blame for his troubles on a entire community of programmers who had absolutely nothing to do with his personal quarrel, because said programmers didn't come out of the woodwork to assist him in his goals. (The only way they could assist anyway is by pitchforks or dog-piles, which are hardly appropriate anyway.)
I felt that the maintainer of a fundamental piece of Lisp infrastructure judging and chastising an entire community of uninvolved people was completely inappropriate, and it was airing out dirty laundry to the wrong audience.
If he instead said something like:
> I have been working hard to push this critical piece of infrastructure forward, but it has been especially difficult with certain downstream maintainers of popular projects who refuse to upgrade, like So-And-So. As a community, this piece of software infrastructure is only valuable if we all upgrade. I don't have the energy or desire to repeatedly argue my case with all downstream users, and as such, I feel it might be time for me to step down from this project as maintainer.
then it would be completely appropriate and well-received. But instead he wrote something divisive and almost paternalistic.
Two obvious constraints in sharing software: * If software producers are pushing out obviously incompatible changes (excluding Hyrum's law and https://xkcd.com/1172 ) to consumers, the eco-system is broken. This includes SemVer-aware package managers which transparently bump up past major-version boundaries by default. (That doesn't seem to be what's happening here.) * If software consumers can't handle new warnings,…
> If software consumers can't handle new warnings, the eco-system is broken. This includes C (...) I didn't get that. Won't this only happen to those using `-Werror` or something similar? If so, aren't they responsible for their breakage, and not the ecosystem?