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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)

#21

Post by hombre_fatal »

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."

The first thing you learn when you're proud of your Github profile is that nobody is actually clicking into your projects and reading code, with few exceptions.

Sure, at small companies where developers interview you, or maybe if you link to a specific relevant project in your cover letter, you might get a pair of eyeballs. But I think people vastly overestimate the readership of their repos when looking for jobs.

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

#22

Post by franciscop »

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 few projects on 1k+ stars; the ones that are more beginner-friendly are normally where I get most unrelated requests. I used to help people where possible, but now I just don't have the time (or TBH, motivation).

So I closed the issues on those two projects that got most low-quality issues. People started to open PR to tell me I was wrong and I should open the issues. This cemented my decision, oh the entitlement of some people.

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

#23

Post by andrewstuart »

judge2020 wrote: post #20
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.

Problem is there's no auto detection that a repo is no longer maintained. Easy to do but github does not do it.

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

#24

Post by [deleted] »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #21
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."

The first thing you learn when you're proud of your Github profile is that nobody is actually clicking into your projects and reading code, with few exceptions. Sure, at small companies where developers interview you, or maybe if you link to a specific relevant project in your cover letter, you might get a pair of eyeballs. But I think people vastly overestimate the readership of their repos when looking for jobs.

[deleted]

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

#25

Post by rhizome »

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.

There's also different "shitty"'s. Some are only aesthetic/architecture features like bad CSS or a kooky object model or API or performance problems or something, but some have security vulnerabilities.

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

#26

Post by [deleted] »

hazz99 wrote: post #9
sergiotapia wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is it / what niche?

[deleted]

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

#27

Post by pabs3 »

andrewstuart wrote: post #23
judge2020 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Problem is there's no auto detection that a repo is no longer maintained. Easy to do but github does not do it.

"No longer maintained" is hard to define, does no commits in the last year mean "this project is mature and needs no changes", "this project is dead and should not be used" or "the author still cares about this project but is busy with other stuff this year" or something else?

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

#28

Post by CuriousCosmic »

blihp wrote: post #14
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.

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.

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

#29

Post by grogenaut »

andrewstuart wrote: post #23
judge2020 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Problem is there's no auto detection that a repo is no longer maintained. Easy to do but github does not do it.

The first thing I do is just check commit history for recent commits. Usually a good indicator a thing is abandoned

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

#30

Post by lumost »

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.

When I find an open lib on github that looks to solve the problem I have, and it has a "warning! don't use" on it - I assume this means the author has no intention of maintaining the library, accepting patches, or preserving backwards compatibility.

Contrast this with the standard assumption - I'm using random code off the internet with a good faith effort by a maintainer not to break my stuff. If I find things broken, I may upstream a patch to said maintainer - or decide it's not for me and move on.

I never go through the latter effort when there is a big warning on the Readme.

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