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It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

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Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#11

Post by klenwell »

sergiotapia wrote: post #4
nerdbaggy wrote: post #2

I had a GitHub project that got a few hundred stars. The amount of mean, crazy, and entitled people is crazy. I have no idea how the bigger projects can deal with it.

I have a pretty simple project with 2.4k stars, and have met nothing but good people eager to help, and bending over backwards to help me help them. My project's "niche" may have something to do with it.

This is encouraging to hear. My company built a tool to improve website accessibility. It fills a niche. We're almost ready to open source it. Basically just need to make the Github repo public.

The one thing that gives me pause is the prospect of having to manage a bunch of unfriendly feature requests and bug reports. Here's hoping we find ourselves in a virtuous niche.

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#12

Post by gitgud »

nerdbaggy wrote: post #2

I had a GitHub project that got a few hundred stars. The amount of mean, crazy, and entitled people is crazy. I have no idea how the bigger projects can deal with it.

In my experience, it depends what the project is and who is attracted to the github issues.

If it's a user-facing project, then people will approach the project's "github issues" as a company's support line, and feel a bit more entitled.

If it's a library or plugin for developers, people generally have more empathy and appreciation towards the maintainers.

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#14

Post by blihp »

dnautics wrote: post #5

As the author of shitty open source libraries I agree, but a bit of a disclaimer in the readme should be expected.

Unless you have something specific to point out / warn users about, why? It is what it is, and unless users contribute something back to make it better, it's cost them nothing. If they did contribute something back, then hopefully it's a little less shitty. Unless the library in question is objectively bad and/or non-functional, no apologies or disclaimers are necessary.

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#15

Post by smcameron »

nerdbaggy wrote: post #2

I had a GitHub project that got a few hundred stars. The amount of mean, crazy, and entitled people is crazy. I have no idea how the bigger projects can deal with it.

I have a github project with a few hundred stars. Almost all feedback is pretty good. It's not a library though, and I don't distribute binaries, so this instantly weeds out anybody not willing to compile things themselves. That's probably a huge factor. It also only runs on linux. Maybe that's a factor too. Choose your audience.

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#16

Post by andrewstuart »

But when potential employers come looking at your work they'll say "hey this code is shitty! It's not a work of art with 100% code coverage tests and perfect in every way. We can't possibly give you a job. Every line of code in our corporate repo is Mona Lisa quality, we can't let rubbishy developers like you in."

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#17

Post by mceachen »

As both an open source author/producer and consumer, I wish more projects were forthright about:

0) known defects

1) when the author no longer uses the library themselves

2) the repo is abandoned and alternatives are not given

There's a lot of abandoned code out there. It'd be nice if package managers had abandoned-package detection built-in.

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#18

Post by ashtonkem »

andrewstuart wrote: post #16

But when potential employers come looking at your work they'll say "hey this code is shitty! It's not a work of art with 100% code coverage tests and perfect in every way. We can't possibly give you a job. Every line of code in our corporate repo is Mona Lisa quality, we can't let rubbishy developers like you in."

As a hiring manager, I have never done that.

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#19

Post by andrewstuart »

ashtonkem wrote: post #18
andrewstuart wrote: post #16

But when potential employers come looking at your work they'll say "hey this code is shitty! It's not a work of art with 100% code coverage tests and perfect in every way. We can't possibly give you a job. Every line of code in our corporate repo is Mona Lisa quality, we can't let rubbishy developers like you in."

As a hiring manager, I have never done that.

Do you ask to look at their github? If yes, then what's the point if you're not trying to see the quality of the code and the tests?

Re: It’s OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty (2015)

#20

Post by judge2020 »

mceachen wrote: post #17

As both an open source author/producer and consumer, I wish more projects were forthright about: 0) known defects 1) when the author no longer uses the library themselves 2) the repo is abandoned and alternatives are not given There's a lot of abandoned code out there. It'd be nice if package managers had abandoned-package detection built-in.

I find the GitHub "archive repo" functionality a great, easy way to indicate a repo is abandoned; the most you need/have to do is a little readme edit/repo description edit if you want to explain or point to a good alternative.
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