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What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

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Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#111

Post by quasque »

yen223 wrote: post #97
mintplant wrote: post #43

> Steve Klabnik ‏@steveklabnik > @harthvader @zeeg nothing's _wrong_ with it, but I don't want to build my app on top of others' code who are at this level of understanding This message [1] in particular is absolutely disgusting. Someone hacked together a script that met their needs, and threw it up onto GitHub in case anyone else found it useful? Yes, let's take the opportunity to condescendingly insult their mental…

Here's the thing, when someone like Linus Torvald says things like that, we applaud him for it.

I think it's inaccurate to suggest Linus is universally applauded for his rude behaviour. The last public outburst that caught wider attention than the LKML seemed to quite divide programmers in terms of its appropriateness. Personally, I found his attitude repellent and his tone unjustified.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#112

Post by protomyth »

jmillikin wrote: post #87
protomyth wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh come on now. Potential employers are not going to > be crawling through your github on the off chance they > can find a hastily-written script to laugh at No, they won't, but they do sometimes hire something new and worse than Checklist HR folks, Social Media for HR Researchers. At some point someone is going to hit an automated connection between "Heroes" and negative comments on other's work. It actually sound…

The funny thing about companies with arbitrary automated no-hire filters in their hiring pipeline is that they tend to be places such a programmer wouldn't want to work at anyway. Say there's some HR department out there silently dropping any candidate that doesn't have a LiveJournal account. Would you worry? Would you even care?

Don't really know. I did get turned down for an internship because my high school was in the same area code as the college I went to (whole state is one area code). I really did want to work there.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#113

Post by jrockway »

d4vlx wrote: post #102
jrockway wrote: post #20

I don't really see the problem. I never remember sed syntax and instead just use perl -e. It follows that someone may want to use JavaScript instead though I would personally avoid JavaScript at nearly any cost. As for haters on the Internet, yeah, welcome to the Internet. If you do something, chances are someone hates you. Why? They are jealous that you are getting attention instead of them. They could write a bette…

I mostly agree with you but it seems to me elitist behaviour like this has a lot of tacit acceptance among developers. I have seen it many times in my career, and have also noticed that workplaces where is is not acceptable tend to make everyone more productive.

It's a people problem, not a developer problem. Watch the gossip magazines trash actors' clothes and haircuts.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#114

Post by brown9-2 »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #70

For years I have been terrified about putting my code on Github for fear of rage and retribution from the programmer community. This is a real problem for us amateur coders who enjoy hacking but don't necessarily have the chops to go head-to-head with the serious guys.

It's also worth asking yourself, if some stranger on the Internet offered unsolicited criticism, then so what? Why even listen to something hateful and unhelpful?

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#115

Post by artursapek »

mintplant wrote: post #43

> Steve Klabnik ‏@steveklabnik > @harthvader @zeeg nothing's _wrong_ with it, but I don't want to build my app on top of others' code who are at this level of understanding This message [1] in particular is absolutely disgusting. Someone hacked together a script that met their needs, and threw it up onto GitHub in case anyone else found it useful? Yes, let's take the opportunity to condescendingly insult their mental…

Not to contribute to the mindless hate, but look at the dude's Twitter photo. He's clearly an eccentric fellow. And also, apparently, an asshole.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#116

Post by [deleted] »

maxdeliso wrote: post #104

This is kind of saddening to see, but it is a crime that virtually every programmer has committed at one point or another in their careers. Let's be honest - in some cases it can be quite fun to do. The underlying problem is the ego, and the corresponding lack of objectivity that results. From reading someone else's code - even glancing at it in some cases - one can infer a great many things. For example, if the inde…

[deleted]

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#117

Post by byroot »

yen223 wrote: post #97
mintplant wrote: post #43

> Steve Klabnik ‏@steveklabnik > @harthvader @zeeg nothing's _wrong_ with it, but I don't want to build my app on top of others' code who are at this level of understanding This message [1] in particular is absolutely disgusting. Someone hacked together a script that met their needs, and threw it up onto GitHub in case anyone else found it useful? Yes, let's take the opportunity to condescendingly insult their mental…

Here's the thing, when someone like Linus Torvald says things like that, we applaud him for it.

Linus is often rude, but AFAIK not gratuitously, but I may have missed some of his public messages.

But even if it's the case, he is rude with the guys who work with him, his "captains" that he knows since a long time.

He do not bash a random project on Github totally unrelated to him just like that.

You can't compare.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#119

Post by ddunkin »

It looks fine to me, I would actually use something like this internally for employees who can't regex. Except the node.js part, but that doesn't make it any less useful, I respect that other people use other tools.

The part that I see some may disagree with, is when these apps are posted in public repository indexes (npm). I feel a usefulness filter should be applied. That may be at the heart of the comments. Not that it was posted publicly, but that it was included with a generic name in a public repository (https://npmjs.org/package/replace), now it has the potential to be annoying to some users. The way these guys disagreed was just, ugh.

I write all sorts of cool little networking utilities for my company, but they were not ever intended for an end user, but could be used or adapted by someone else very quickly. My code doesn't leave my company (probably shouldn't, I'd get torn up just like this, I know it). If it did, I would just not want it in a repository.

Re: What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project

#120

Post by jeffdavis »

I agree with the other comments here. It reminded me, unfortunately, that I did something like that once:

http://thoughts.davisjeff.com/2007/11/17/700-queries-for-one...

I can rationalize it in a few different ways, I'm sure. But the bottom line is that, if it's open source software, the correct approach is to either offer constructive criticism directly to the developers, or just not say anything without being directly prompted (e.g. "should we use this software").

I can see exceptions for major projects with a large developer base. You still need to keep it constructive, but I don't necessarily think you have a responsibility to join the mailing list for everything you want to complain about.

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