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

Post by guggle » Sun, May 17, 2020, 8:34 AM UTC

CuriousCosmic wrote: post #28

blihp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I see nothing wrong with a disclaimer along the lines of "This is a hobby project. As the author I care about this project and want it to be as good as possible but don't expect the kind of polish you'd see in projects with corporate backings." It doesn't discredit the project in any capacity, it just tempers users expectations.

Post by lionyo » Sun, May 17, 2020, 8:46 AM UTC

DangitBobby wrote: post #101

mroche wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pip does not need a package to be public in order to install it at all, I’ve installed plenty of packages from tarballs and directories just fine. From the docs[0] Install packages from: - PyPI (and other indexes) using requirement specifiers. - VCS project urls. - Local project directories. - Local or remote source archives. Although I’m not quite sure how you’re using “for public use” in that sentence. [0] https://…

I meant to say private use, not public use. But if I want to install from pip over the internet, which is my most common use case it needs to be publicly accessible, right? Which for me means GitHub, bitbucket, pypi, or some other bespoke solution just to avoid "publishing" something for my own private use. Or do I misunderstand?

Post by Vinnl » Sun, May 17, 2020, 8:57 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #113

saurik wrote: post #8

I agree: it is OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty. However, it also can simultaneously be not OK for you to publish it in a package directory with a generic name and a description talking about how awesome it is as a trap for other people to run into, and that is really the core problem: it isn't that you didn't spend an unreasonable amount of time and money to make a good product that no one paid for…

> it also can simultaneously be not OK for you to publish it in a package directory with a generic name and a description Package repositories can be open to all developers or curated by software distribution maintainers. Being able to publish an open source project without dealing with Linux distribution maintainers is a major selling point of programming language package managers. Why even let people publish packag…

Post by fendy3002 » Sun, May 17, 2020, 8:59 AM UTC

saurik wrote: post #8

I agree: it is OK for your open source library to be a bit shitty. However, it also can simultaneously be not OK for you to publish it in a package directory with a generic name and a description talking about how awesome it is as a trap for other people to run into, and that is really the core problem: it isn't that you didn't spend an unreasonable amount of time and money to make a good product that no one paid for…

Post by speedgoose » Sun, May 17, 2020, 9:10 AM UTC

galonk wrote: post #87

I wrote a Python library that was pretty popular at one time. I gave a talk on it at PyCon, at one point it was in the top 200 most downloaded packages on PyPI. Since my employer told me I was no longer allowed to work on it at work, I have felt quite a lot of guilt about all but abandoning fixing bugs and reading the mailing list. I've been working on a "next generation" version, almost a rewrite, but I don't see a…