Give Django your time and money, not your tokens • Hacker News Board

Re: Give Django your time and money, not your tokens

#41

Post by sharkjacobs » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC

weli wrote: post #34

Beggars can't be choosers. I decide how and what I want to donate. If I see a cool project and I want to change something (in what I think) is an improvement, I'll clone it, have CC investigate the codebase and do the change I want, test it and if it works nicely I'll open a PR explaining why I think this is a good change. If the maintainers don't want to merge it for whatever reasons that's fine and nature of open s…

You're subtly shifting the framing to defend doing something different than the post describes.

It makes it kind of unclear if you don't understand the difference between using CC to "investigate the codebase" so you can make a change which you (implicitly) do understand versus using an LLM to make a plausible looking PR although in actuality "you do not understand the ticket ... you do not understand the solution ... you do not understand the feedback on your PR"

Re: Give Django your time and money, not your tokens

#42

Post by santiagobasulto » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

I feel like open source is taking the wrong stance here. There’s a lot of gatekeeping, first. And second, this approach is like trying to stop a tsunami with an umbrella. AI is here to stay. We can’t stop it, for much we try.

I feel the successful OS projects will be the ones embracing the change, not stopping it. For example, automating code reviews with AI.

Re: Give Django your time and money, not your tokens

#43

Post by woodruffw » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

santiagobasulto wrote: post #42

I feel like open source is taking the wrong stance here. There’s a lot of gatekeeping, first. And second, this approach is like trying to stop a tsunami with an umbrella. AI is here to stay. We can’t stop it, for much we try. I feel the successful OS projects will be the ones embracing the change, not stopping it. For example, automating code reviews with AI.

I can't find a single place in TFA (which doesn't represent or claim to represent open source writ large) that's encouraging people to not use AI.

Re: Give Django your time and money, not your tokens

#44

Post by ben-schaaf » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

butILoveLife wrote: post #32

[flagged]

> scale, security, whatever

Yea, who needs performance or security in a web framework!?

Re: Give Django your time and money, not your tokens

#45

Post by lionkor » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 4:23 PM UTC

santiagobasulto wrote: post #42

I feel like open source is taking the wrong stance here. There’s a lot of gatekeeping, first. And second, this approach is like trying to stop a tsunami with an umbrella. AI is here to stay. We can’t stop it, for much we try. I feel the successful OS projects will be the ones embracing the change, not stopping it. For example, automating code reviews with AI.

If you can TELL someone used AI, its always, without fail, a bad use of AI.

Re: Give Django your time and money, not your tokens

#46

Post by sequoia » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 4:23 PM UTC

santiagobasulto wrote: post #42

I feel like open source is taking the wrong stance here. There’s a lot of gatekeeping, first. And second, this approach is like trying to stop a tsunami with an umbrella. AI is here to stay. We can’t stop it, for much we try. I feel the successful OS projects will be the ones embracing the change, not stopping it. For example, automating code reviews with AI.

> I feel the successful OS projects will be the ones embracing the change, not stopping it.

Yes, you feel. And the author feels differently. We don't have evidence of what the impact of LLMs will be on a project over the long term. Many people are speculating it will be pure upside, this author is observing some issues with this model and speculating that there will be a detriment long-term.

The operative word here is "speculating." Until we have better evidence, we'll need to go with our hunches & best bets. It is a good thing that different people take different approaches rather than "everyone in on AI 100%." If the author is wrong time will tell.

Re: Give Django your time and money, not your tokens

#47

Post by marknutter » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #43

santiagobasulto wrote: post #42

I feel like open source is taking the wrong stance here. There’s a lot of gatekeeping, first. And second, this approach is like trying to stop a tsunami with an umbrella. AI is here to stay. We can’t stop it, for much we try. I feel the successful OS projects will be the ones embracing the change, not stopping it. For example, automating code reviews with AI.

I can't find a single place in TFA (which doesn't represent or claim to represent open source writ large) that's encouraging people to not use AI.

Literally the first line of the article:

"Spending your tokens to support Django by having an LLM work on tickets is not helpful. You and the community are better off donating that money to the Django Software Foundation instead."

Re: Give Django your time and money, not your tokens

#48

Post by Yusu » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

boxed wrote: post #22

yuppiepuppie wrote: post #3

I love Django. Ive been using it professionally and on side projects extensively for the past 10 years. Plus I maintain(ed) a couple highly used packages for Django (django-import-export and django-dramatiq). Last year, I had some free time to try to contribute back to the framework. It was incredibly difficult. Difficult to find a ticket to work on, difficult to navigate the codebase, difficult to get feedback on a…

I picked up a change that had broad consensus and quite a bit of excitement over even by some core devs. That ticket now just sits there. The implementation is done, the review is done, there are no objections. But it's not merged. I think something is deeply wrong and I have no idea what it is.

Looking at your PR, the ticket is still marked as Needs documentation: yes Patch needs improvement: yes

If this is done, you should update it so it appears in the review queue.

Re: Give Django your time and money, not your tokens

#49

Post by codechicago277 » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

santiagobasulto wrote: post #42

I feel like open source is taking the wrong stance here. There’s a lot of gatekeeping, first. And second, this approach is like trying to stop a tsunami with an umbrella. AI is here to stay. We can’t stop it, for much we try. I feel the successful OS projects will be the ones embracing the change, not stopping it. For example, automating code reviews with AI.

I disagree, this looks like the first signs that mass producing AI code without understanding hits a bottleneck at human systems. These open source responses have been necessary because of the volume of low quality contributions. It’ll be interesting to watch the ideas develop, because I agree that AI is here to stay.

Re: Give Django your time and money, not your tokens

#50

Post by baq » Tue, Mar 17, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #43

santiagobasulto wrote: post #42

I feel like open source is taking the wrong stance here. There’s a lot of gatekeeping, first. And second, this approach is like trying to stop a tsunami with an umbrella. AI is here to stay. We can’t stop it, for much we try. I feel the successful OS projects will be the ones embracing the change, not stopping it. For example, automating code reviews with AI.

I can't find a single place in TFA (which doesn't represent or claim to represent open source writ large) that's encouraging people to not use AI.

> So how should you use an LLM to contribute?

> Use an LLM to develop your comprehension. Then communicate the best you can in your own words, then use an LLM to tweak that language. If you’re struggling to convey your ideas with someone, use an LLM more aggressively and mention that you used it. This makes it easier for others to see where your understanding is and where there are disconnects.

> There needs to be understanding when contributing to Django. There’s no way around it. Django has been around for 20 years and expects to be around for another 20. Any code being added to a project with that outlook on longevity must be well understood.

> There is no shortcut to understanding. If you want to contribute to Django, you will have to spend time reading, experimenting, and learning. Contributing to Django will help you grow as a developer.

> While it is nice to be listed as a contributor to Django, the growth you earn from it is incredibly more valuable.

> So please, stop using an LLM to the extent it hides you and your understanding. We want to know you, and we want to collaborate with you.

This advice is 95% not actionable and 100% not verifiable. It's full of hand-wavy good intentions. I understand completely where it's coming from, but 'trying to stop a tsunami with an umbrella' is a very good analogy - on one side, you have the above magical thinking, on the other, petaflops of compute which improve their reasoning capabilities exponentially.