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My Software North Star

kristoff.it

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Re: My Software North Star

#51

Post by flohofwoe »

flooow wrote: post #27
KronisLV wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the near term, Bun choosing to switch from Zig to Rust specifically to fix all the memory errors seems to have done the Zig community some psychological damage. Meanwhile, some projects are doing the opposite, like going from Rust to Zig, here's an example from a podcast I recently listened to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSXGf3oN2yU Here's the project in question: https://github.com/roc-lang/roc I think Bun…

I wish Roclang well but (as a regular listener to Feldman's podcast) I don't think we can draw many conclusions from this switch other than "Feldman has lots of opinions on lots of things".

You can replace the product and author name with Bun and the Bun author and the sentence also works, in the end all technical decisions are based on "opinions".

Re: My Software North Star

#52

Post by OtomotO »

alkonaut wrote: post #34

> It doesn’t matter that the language you use is memory-safe, if you didn’t design for correctness or have no process that will eventually lead you to fixing all bugs. After many years in the business I have come to a more pragmatic view. There is no meaningful way of distinguishing features from bugs. It doesn't matter that work tracking software usually does. Once you realize that the lack of a feature is the same…

The lack of a feature is not the same as a bug.

A bug means that there is a feature, but it's not behaving as was specified. (Or expected, or as it used to ... but clearly a difference to something, not to nothing)

It doesn't matter whether to the end user that's indistinguishable. It is for us, the professionals.

It's the same as with any other profession and domain-knowledge. If my heater doesn't work but it used to work, that's a bug, a regression. If it doesn't integrate with my smart home, that's not a bug. It was never a feature to begin with.

> If you have a bug to fix to weigh against a feature to add, which do you pick? The only correct answer is "The one that provides most value".

I agree.

> And again we see that it's very possible - even likely - that fixing the last bug will _never_ be as important as adding more features.

Depends entirely on the project and the revenue stream. I've open sourced code which I consider done. It does what it should do and I won't any more features to it.

I will however fix bugs within the existing functionalities.

Re: My Software North Star

#53

Post by dapperdrake »

epolanski wrote: post #24
flooow wrote: post #7

I imagine it's a difficult time to be a Zig developer. In the near term, Bun choosing to switch from Zig to Rust specifically to fix all the memory errors seems to have done the Zig community some psychological damage. But more significantly, in the medium term it looks likely that AI coding is going to overtake the industry before Zig gets properly established. And it is going to be very hard to justify choosing Zig…

1. Fixing memory errors wasn't the reason the project migrated to Zig, but a beef between the Bun maintainer not getting his own changes in the upstream compiler and the Bun's new employer focus on Rust. 2. You can write memory safe code in C (Redis, SQLite, OpenBSD, Git, etc), let alone in Zig which provides more tools to write memory safe code. 3. AI can write very good Zig already. This isn't 2024 anymore where "t…

Writing memory safe code in C with (most) compilers slapping UB in your face without so much as a warning is about the same as vibecoding.

Re: My Software North Star

#54

Post by throwaway613746 »

Zakis1 wrote: post #25
flooow wrote: post #7

I imagine it's a difficult time to be a Zig developer. In the near term, Bun choosing to switch from Zig to Rust specifically to fix all the memory errors seems to have done the Zig community some psychological damage. But more significantly, in the medium term it looks likely that AI coding is going to overtake the industry before Zig gets properly established. And it is going to be very hard to justify choosing Zig…

Agreed unfortunately, if Zigs whole selling point is meant to be a "nicer C" (and a much nicer DX than Rust because no fighting the borrow checker etc) - does that really matter in a world where an LLM is writing the code? I am not going to be fighting the borrow checker, the LLM is. And as always, the response you'll hear is: but AI sucks/hallucinates/could never replace me etc... Just look at the progress LLM'S hav…

[dead]

Re: My Software North Star

#55

Post by throwaway613746 »

KronisLV wrote: post #15
flooow wrote: post #7

I imagine it's a difficult time to be a Zig developer. In the near term, Bun choosing to switch from Zig to Rust specifically to fix all the memory errors seems to have done the Zig community some psychological damage. But more significantly, in the medium term it looks likely that AI coding is going to overtake the industry before Zig gets properly established. And it is going to be very hard to justify choosing Zig…

> In the near term, Bun choosing to switch from Zig to Rust specifically to fix all the memory errors seems to have done the Zig community some psychological damage. Meanwhile, some projects are doing the opposite, like going from Rust to Zig, here's an example from a podcast I recently listened to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSXGf3oN2yU Here's the project in question: https://github.com/roc-lang/roc I think Bun…

[dead]

Re: My Software North Star

#56

Post by KronisLV »

flohofwoe wrote: post #51
flooow wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish Roclang well but (as a regular listener to Feldman's podcast) I don't think we can draw many conclusions from this switch other than "Feldman has lots of opinions on lots of things".

You can replace the product and author name with Bun and the Bun author and the sentence also works, in the end all technical decisions are based on "opinions".

I mean, personally I just hope that at the end of the day everyone is as happy as the technologies in question will permit them to be. Either way I wouldn't say that Zig is done even after such prominent/loud news as the Bun rewrite.

Re: My Software North Star

#58

Post by dopple »

tikhonj wrote: post #45
alkonaut wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some times there is, and in many cases there is not. Distinguishing a feature from a bug requires having some kind of spec. In some cases you can have obvious sign the behaviour is unintended/not desired, but in other cases it's not so easy. For example a customer reports a bug, your program can't print. Oh, you say, we never even had that feature! Please post again, as a feature request. Customer mumbles and request…

There is a pretty clear and important difference between a program that does something wrong , and a program that just doesn't do something somebody wants. "You don't support printing", "pressing the print button doesn't print", "pressing the print button crashes the computer" and "pressing the print button lets an attacker get root access to the system" are all different and it makes sense to distinguish them. (The…

> There is a pretty clear and important difference between a program that does something wrong, and a program that just doesn't do something somebody wants.

Your argument hinges on all parties agreeing on what "wrong" means. Take a step back and consider that parties do not agree on a common definition of "wrong." Does "wrong" mean a gap between the spec and the implementation or a gap between a reasonable user's expectation and the implementation? If one party assert that it is clearly the former and the other party asserts it is clearly the latter, does that make the situation more clear or less clear?

Re: My Software North Star

#59

Post by vladde »

recently i've ran into products that feel like they were not meant to be used, but instead just follow some specification list.

for me, the end user's experience goes above all.

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