Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If You Call Out Bad Code, Make Sure It's Bad First

naildrivin5.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 134 posts

Re: If You Call Out Bad Code, Make Sure It's Bad First

#51

Post by BCM43 »

up_and_up wrote: post #4

> Now, I’m all for bad projects and bad code being called out. Bullshit, sorry. Questions to ask yourself before "calling out bad code". 1. Does this code belong to someone on your team? 2. Does your code rely on this code? 3. Does the code represent a risk to you or your business in some way? 4. Do you have the direct contact info for the developer so you can appropriately, discretely and professionally inform them…

I think adding "Does this code represent a risk to others in some way" to that is also valid. Especially in the security realm, but even in day to day stuff. If code is going to cause other people headaches, help them avoid that.

Re: If You Call Out Bad Code, Make Sure It's Bad First

#52

Post by BCM43 »

sillysaurus wrote: post #37
graue wrote: post #23

I see a lot of people saying you're going to keep personal projects to yourself (instead of putting them on GitHub or similar) because of this fracas. Please don't. The Twitter snark isn't normal, it's an exceptional case. It wouldn't be on the front page of HN if that kind of behavior were the norm. And it's the jerks on Twitter who came out looking bad here, not the author of the code. I really like how GitHub has…

The Twitter snark isn't normal, it's an exceptional case. No, this isn't true. It's completely normal. It's been normal since long before Twitter. In exactly the same way high school bullying is normal, this is most definitely (a) prevalent, and (b) a problem. But it won't change, because people tolerate it. You want me to open up my personal projects? It's not going to happen. It won't happen because we live in an e…

Can you link to other examples of this happening?

Re: If You Call Out Bad Code, Make Sure It's Bad First

#53

Post by gjulianm »

pjungwir wrote: post #40

I'd still like to know how these jerks even came across Heather's code in the first place. I suppose I should be grateful for obscurity. I even have a command-line utility written in C to count from 1 to 10. (Well it does a little more than that, but that's the general idea.) I'd hate to hear what they think of it. I'm not really a C coder so I'm sure it's fairly ugly, and I suppose they'd say it "shouldn't exist at…

Well, now I'm curious for that CLI. Why do you need an utility to count from 1 to 10?

Re: If You Call Out Bad Code, Make Sure It's Bad First

#54

Post by reinhardt »

MartinCron wrote: post #9
up_and_up wrote: post #4

> Now, I’m all for bad projects and bad code being called out. Bullshit, sorry. Questions to ask yourself before "calling out bad code". 1. Does this code belong to someone on your team? 2. Does your code rely on this code? 3. Does the code represent a risk to you or your business in some way? 4. Do you have the direct contact info for the developer so you can appropriately, discretely and professionally inform them…

How can we as a development community rationally expect to grow the open source ecosystem and encourage people with this type of snobbery? There's one lesson that I'm personally taking from this, after unsolicited ridicule, one sincere apology, one bullshit non-apology, and one arrogant I have nothing to apologize for! If I build a small thing to scratch my own itch (which I often do) I'm going to think twice about s…

Missing option: grow a thicker skin and don't take everything personally.

Re: If You Call Out Bad Code, Make Sure It's Bad First

#55

Post by at-fates-hands »

I experienced when I first started out as a developer, my co-workers were just like this. They'd rip apart sites left and right, people's apps and anything else they could set their sites on. I was hazed on a regular basis for the code I was writing, simply because I was considered a "junior" developer.

It wasn't until after I left there I realized how incredibly myopic and arrogant these people really were. This was one of many lessons I had to learn. There is no one way to do anything in development. Sure there are certain things you should and shouldn't do - but one way to do everything? Hardly.

After I left said company I really gained more respect for how people write and maintain code. As such, I now just keep my eyes and ears open for best practices. Unless it's going to be constructive, I never hack on anybody else's code. I know the feeling of thinking you've done something wrong. When in fact, it might just be a different approach to reach the same conclusion.

Re: If You Call Out Bad Code, Make Sure It's Bad First

#56

Post by jussij »

CodeMage wrote: post #20
up_and_up wrote: post #4

> Now, I’m all for bad projects and bad code being called out. Bullshit, sorry. Questions to ask yourself before "calling out bad code". 1. Does this code belong to someone on your team? 2. Does your code rely on this code? 3. Does the code represent a risk to you or your business in some way? 4. Do you have the direct contact info for the developer so you can appropriately, discretely and professionally inform them…

Bullshit, sorry. I can't help feeling that this kind of attitude is what caused Heather to feel bad in the first place. I agree with your points, but the way you present them leaves a lot (of politeness) to desire.

Politeness? The reply might have be forceful, might have use the word bullshit, but it what way did he offend anyone?

I thought he hit the nail on the head.

It's no body else’s business but your own what you choose to put in GitHub.

Re: If You Call Out Bad Code, Make Sure It's Bad First

#57

Post by ionforce »

dandelany wrote: post #25
up_and_up wrote: post #4

> Now, I’m all for bad projects and bad code being called out. Bullshit, sorry. Questions to ask yourself before "calling out bad code". 1. Does this code belong to someone on your team? 2. Does your code rely on this code? 3. Does the code represent a risk to you or your business in some way? 4. Do you have the direct contact info for the developer so you can appropriately, discretely and professionally inform them…

This, a million times this. Criticizing other people's code is a good idea if you have been asked for input, or if the developer is encouraging the public at large to use their code. Otherwise, it's just unwarranted negativity which has the net effect of discouraging other members of the community from sharing code which might be useful to someone. I have plenty of code that I'm not proud of but would push to Github…

Do you happen to know if the original developer did in fact ask for feedback?

Re: If You Call Out Bad Code, Make Sure It's Bad First

#58

Post by nirvdrum »

[deleted] wrote: post #43
nirvdrum wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This entire forum exists for the purpose of sharing fact and opinion alike. If you don't want people to share opinions (or is it just the ones that don't align with your world view?), fine, but you don't need to be an ass about it. Although part of me wonders if this is a joke, given the parallels to the situation at hand. Primarily, you clearly don't think all comments should be made public and felt the need to unhe…

[deleted]

Whether that makes the world worse is highly subjective. I don't believe things are objectively any more valuable just because they're public.

I have, however, seen a lot of bad patterns and code snippets copied and work their way into many codebases because one of the easiest ways to learn is to copy another source. I have seen people completely disown or neglect projects because it's "public", so what more do you want? I don't buy that these sorts of repositories are doing the world a favor and they increase the level of noise, helping drown out the good stuff.

But, hey, like I said if you add a pretty reasonable disclaimer to your README so the expectations are at least framed properly, I can get on board with that.

Re: If You Call Out Bad Code, Make Sure It's Bad First

#59

Post by VeejayRampay »

graue wrote: post #23

I see a lot of people saying you're going to keep personal projects to yourself (instead of putting them on GitHub or similar) because of this fracas. Please don't. The Twitter snark isn't normal, it's an exceptional case. It wouldn't be on the front page of HN if that kind of behavior were the norm. And it's the jerks on Twitter who came out looking bad here, not the author of the code. I really like how GitHub has…

Heh, I must not be following the right persons then cause it's pretty common among the people I follow.

Re: If You Call Out Bad Code, Make Sure It's Bad First

#60

Post by carbocation »

reinhardt wrote: post #54
MartinCron wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can we as a development community rationally expect to grow the open source ecosystem and encourage people with this type of snobbery? There's one lesson that I'm personally taking from this, after unsolicited ridicule, one sincere apology, one bullshit non-apology, and one arrogant I have nothing to apologize for! If I build a small thing to scratch my own itch (which I often do) I'm going to think twice about s…

Missing option: grow a thicker skin and don't take everything personally.

I, for one, look forward to the day when someone stumbles across my code and finds it worthy of commentary. Good or bad, just not indifferent, please.
Post reply on HN