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PhantomJS: Archiving the project, suspending development

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Re: PhantomJS: Archiving the project, suspending development

#111

Post by enitihas »

For those who haven't looked at some of the commits by @pixiuPL, the list is here : https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commits?author=pixiuPL.

To summarize: It does not look like the guy has done a single commit with any meaning. His commits are basically the following:

1. Adding his own name in package.json 2. Adding and deleting whitespace. 3. Deleting the entire project and commiting. 4. Adding the entire project back again and commiting.

Just out of curiosity: How likely is that someone may be able to use a large number of such non functional commits(adding and removing whitespace) to a popular open source repository to boost their career ambitions.(e,g. Claiming that they made 50 commits to a popular project might sound impressive in an interview.)

Re: PhantomJS: Archiving the project, suspending development

#112

Post by enitihas »

rilut wrote: post #97
bcherny wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about them?

He committed: - Removing one whitespace and adding an unnecessary file https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/98272b9752b2d505f7... - Conflicted files https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/63a69d9e2e9c31baab... - Personal build env https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/d57ff74f36c5b79d82... - Deleted the whole project while changing cloud provider https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/a242fb8d605d9aa4a…

Now, he shows up at number 4 in the Github contributor list (https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/graphs/contributors) with 179,603 lines added, not a single one of which seems to be a meaningful contribution by him.

Are such incidences common in other open source software too, or does this one seem a rare case?

Re: PhantomJS: Archiving the project, suspending development

#113

Post by ris »

ricardobeat wrote: post #107
emilsedgh wrote: post #5

Chrome and Firefox gaining headless modes is the ultimate goal Phantom could've achieved. So I consider it a complete success. Kudos to all contributors.

The main advantage of PhantomJS at this point is the way it's built and distributed as a single binary, unlike Chrome. Much easier to maintain.

Correction: much easier to maintain irresponsibly. That binary you just downloaded and stuck somewhere some time ago - when was the last time it was updated? What about all of its underlying bundled static libraries? How certain were you ever of their up-to-dateness? Did you ever check what version of zlib it was using?

Distributions attempting to package phantomjs properly had one hell of a time trying to reproduce its builds reliably. Most gave up.

Distribution from author as binaries is a whole bundle of fail from the get-go.

Re: PhantomJS: Archiving the project, suspending development

#114

Post by enitihas »

rutierut wrote: post #53

One of the guys working on P-JS just linked from a GH issue to his open letter... He isn't very happy with the owner blah blah blah and is going to fork the master branch to make phantom great again, I'll just put this here: "Will do as advised, as I really think PhantomJS is good project, it just needs good, devoted leader."

It does not look like the guy has done a single commit with any meaning. His commits are basically the following: 1. Adding his own name in package.json 2. Adding and deleting whitespace. 3. Deleting the entire project and commiting. 4. Adding the entire project back again and commiting.

Re: PhantomJS: Archiving the project, suspending development

#115

Post by watwut »

micimize wrote: post #92

Timeline of what lead to this, from what I could gather: • phantomjs is 7 years old, @pixiuPL has been contributing for about 2 months • @ariya didn't respond to his requests for owner level permissions • @pixiuPL published an open letter to the main page of phantomjs.org https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/issues/15345 • the stress leads @ariya to close the repo. • @pixiuPL intends to continue development on a fork T…

Who is lacking non-technical skills in that scenario? I just don't see it.

Re: PhantomJS: Archiving the project, suspending development

#116

Post by overdrivetg »

tyingq wrote: post #16
emilsedgh wrote: post #5

Chrome and Firefox gaining headless modes is the ultimate goal Phantom could've achieved. So I consider it a complete success. Kudos to all contributors.

I feel the same. No failure here. It served its purpose very well, while it was needed. It’s retiring while it’s still better than it’s replacement in a few areas...like proxy support.

This is the main blocker for me right now for sure.

Re: PhantomJS: Archiving the project, suspending development

#117

Post by nolok »

enitihas wrote: post #111

For those who haven't looked at some of the commits by @pixiuPL, the list is here : https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commits?author=pixiuPL . To summarize: It does not look like the guy has done a single commit with any meaning. His commits are basically the following: 1. Adding his own name in package.json 2. Adding and deleting whitespace. 3. Deleting the entire project and commiting. 4. Adding the entire project…

Given that he hides those behind fake commit message (unless one counts removing a comment or a whitespace "code refactoring), I would say rather likely.

Re: PhantomJS: Archiving the project, suspending development

#118

Post by hartator »

transreal wrote: post #91
hartator wrote: post #6

I still think it's premature. There is still couple of fields PhantomJS is better than Headless Chrome. Notably proxy support, and API aviability.

That's not really true. You can use proxies with Headless Chrome using the --proxy-server command line parameter. And the API is richer that PhantomJS. See the underlying API documentation here: https://chromedevtools.github.io/debugger-protocol-viewer/to... .

It's only for proxy without auth. So mainly local ones. There is no way to use username and a password right now for proxy with headless chrome.

Re: PhantomJS: Archiving the project, suspending development

#119

Post by enitihas »

watwut wrote: post #115
micimize wrote: post #92

Timeline of what lead to this, from what I could gather: • phantomjs is 7 years old, @pixiuPL has been contributing for about 2 months • @ariya didn't respond to his requests for owner level permissions • @pixiuPL published an open letter to the main page of phantomjs.org https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/issues/15345 • the stress leads @ariya to close the repo. • @pixiuPL intends to continue development on a fork T…

Who is lacking non-technical skills in that scenario? I just don't see it.

I think looking at @pixiuPL's commits (https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commits?author=pixiuPL) and his tall, non sensical claims makes it clear who lacks the basic human communication skills. Just have a look for yourself.

Looking at some issues filed by him (https://github.com/composer/composer/issues/7016) makes the entire thing more clear.

Re: PhantomJS: Archiving the project, suspending development

#120

Post by vorg »

chucksmash wrote: post #34
nkozyra wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say Puppeteer is on-par with Phantom for ease of basic use. It has a richer, deeper API, of course, but at its core it's modern Javascript.

+1 on Puppeteer. Using it for something now. For small projects, the ability to have the JS you want to run within the context of the page itself live side by side with your browser instrumentation code feels magical. Head and shoulders nicer experience than in cases where half of your logic is second class code-as-a-string (e.g. trying to work directly with Gremlin Server from a non-JVM language by POSTing Groovy-as…

> half of your logic is second class code-as-a-string (e.g. trying to work directly with Gremlin Server from a non-JVM language by POSTing Groovy-as-a-string

It must be particularly difficult when your Groovy-as-a-string script itself has many strings in its code, which is what a typical Apache Groovy build script for Gradle looks like.

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