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

drmaciver.com

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

#211

Post by dragandj »

sgillen wrote: post #178
cellularmitosis wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never understand this point of view. The author has already given you possibly hundreds of hours of free labor simply by publishing the project. But now, because they won’t give you a few more, they’re a douchebag? Even if they close all issues with no comment, they have given you a such _massive_ head start vs having to write the entire project yourself from scratch. How can you be anything but grateful?

It's just that if you put lot of effort into isolating a bug for someone for free, it can feels bad to have it rejected without explanation. Also if it's a real issue that you won't fix you should at least leave the issue open so other people know. IMO you can definitely be extremely grateful for someone's contribution and also think they are sort of rude, not incompatible views/feeling.

> ...isolating a bug for someone...

I think you mistakenly switched the roles there. You are not isolating a bug for the author. The author is using their software and is happy with its current state. It is you that is being hit by a supposed bug, and you are isolating it for yourself. Then you are expecting the author to do the additional work for you and handle your supposed fixes. Don’t get me wrong, you’re probably both helping each other in the best spirit of open source, but it’s not you who’s the ideal of generosity there.

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

#212

Post by pydry »

leibnitz27 wrote: post #190

I have an OSS 'fun project' - I'm still amazed by the number of issues/emails I get raised which say: "You should rewrite in" / "Why does't it do" / "Make it do". It's nice that people are using it. I generally (try to) assume this is a language/cultural thing, and people don't realise that they're coming across as a bit rude in English . But, it would be nicer if people approached commenting on OSS by first thinking…

I see similar types of reactions to intra-team pull request comments. I think it's a facet of the facelessness of online comments.

I think there's a lot of scope for changing the way that comments on issue trackers and pull requests are taken in order to make the interactions more human and friendly.

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

#213

Post by acka »

DangitBobby wrote: post #104
sgillen wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like that a lot! could work for personal python packages too.

You can install directly from GitHub, bitbucket, etc. with pip, BTW. My point was that if I want to have packages for private use installable over the internet with package management tools for various languages, I have to put them on the public internet, or jump through some hoops.

Using pip, and possibly other tools, you can try using a .netrc[0] file to manage login credentials for private repositories. Although it is a cleartext file (so you may need to manage access to it, for instance when using it in CI), at least your credentials will not show up in log files.

[0] https://www.gnu.org/software/inetutils/manual/html_node/The-...

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

#214

Post by noelsusman »

ljm wrote: post #180
mattlondon wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often act very entitled about open source I've found. You'll often get angry irate emails/issues raised demanding you help them or add a new feature or whatever. Some people are just clueless and need help, others are just dicks. It is often not worth the hassle in my opinion, but then everyone's circumstances and motivations are different and I am glad that a lot of people do think it is worth it.

If anyone is in any doubt about this, I would like to point them towards this github issue: https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/165

I don't even know where to begin with this, it's so insane. It's extra funny because John Carmack was the one who did a lot of the refactoring of this code. It's also not remotely true that billions of lives have been disrupted on the basis of this code being correct.

This is exactly why scientists don't release their code.

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

#215

Post by ohgodplsno »

guygurari wrote: post #184
ljm wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone is in any doubt about this, I would like to point them towards this github issue: https://github.com/mrc-ide/covid-sim/issues/165

I don’t doubt it, but covid-sim is not the best example of this effect. In this case, people are worried that poorly written simulation code is informing policy decisions that affect billions of people. They are not demanding that it should be fixed, they are demanding that it should not be relied on in its current state.

Dunning-Kruger powered software developers with beliefs that they are in any way qualified to say that mathematical simulations checked by dozens of actual scientists with PhDs are not valid ask that results are ignored because there's no unit tests.

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

#216

Post by gus_massa »

ExtremisAndy wrote: post #205

I have never contributed to open source because I have always been so impressed with the source code I’ve seen in these projects. It intimidates me! I’m a self-taught programmer, and while I’ve certainly written thousands of lines of useful code (useful to me, in any case), I know it isn’t “correct” (as in, idiomatic or ideally what you should write). If I could ever get to the place where I trusted my own work, I’d…

Start fixing typos in the docs and error messages in projects you use.

Try to send bug reports and look at how they fix it. Sometimes it is even difficult to find the file that must be fixed. Perhaps next time you spot a bug, it is in the same file and you can fix it.

Start with small changes, I recommend not investing more than one of two afternoons because the maintainer may not merge it. Perhaps because the code is bad, perhaps because it doesn't follow the (implicit hidden) spirit of the project, perhaps because the maintainer is a moron.

Try to follow the nearby code style. Each project/maintainer has preferences. If you break them, the maintainer may ask nicely to fix them before merging.

(If they are not nice, just forget about the project. You have lost only two afternoons.)

(Whitespace changes is a hot topic, try to avoid whitespace changes unless you know the local policy.)

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

#217

Post by gboss »

CalRobert wrote: post #210
Justsignedup wrote: post #89

I once wrote a library in backbone.js to have a data-synchronized list. It allowed me to provide an array, and it'll keep that array sync'd up to what I saw. I had a kid and a fulltime job and going through a divorce. I happened to use it at my job, but everyone kept asking for me to integrate it into new up and coming repos which I didn't have time for. Honestly I felt bad about not caring, but the reality is that I…

Unfortunately, DINKs are hard to compete with professionally. Old boss used to loudly thank my colleague for doing tickets on the weekends, and too often people seem to assume I want to spend my weekend "brushing up" on some implementation detail for a project I don't care about. Even "why doesn't he come to after work drinks?" Is hard to answer with "because my spouse is _also_ an exhausted wreck at the end of the d…

That's terrible. I am a manager and actively discourage people from working late / weekends. I find it's not sustainable. People who do that, regardless of children status are much less predictable in their output. They go through peaks of productivity and then they crash. It also ends up happening that they work on the wrong thing because no one is around at night or weekends to answer basic questions that may unfortunately not be in the ticket. Some of our employees with highest productivity have kids. I think your story means you should look for a new job when it is possible for you.

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

#218

Post by jlengrand »

Justsignedup wrote: post #89

I once wrote a library in backbone.js to have a data-synchronized list. It allowed me to provide an array, and it'll keep that array sync'd up to what I saw. I had a kid and a fulltime job and going through a divorce. I happened to use it at my job, but everyone kept asking for me to integrate it into new up and coming repos which I didn't have time for. Honestly I felt bad about not caring, but the reality is that I…

A bit tangential but it's been very relatable to me lately : 80% of my coworkers : OMG working from home gets you so much done! I've passed this and this certif and also did that side-project. Amazing. And you ? Well, I've tried to manage being a good parent while working with kids at home and god knows that was hard enough.

And that's taking into account we're the lucky ones that can work from home and keep getting a salary

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

#219

Post by asadjb »

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…

I disagree.

If I've built a small library that does something useful for my set of needs, it's not crap software. It works perfectly well for my needs.

If someone then goes ahead and uses my library, without understanding what needs it satisfies and what it does not, how is that on me?

I release it to the world with the understanding that someone else might have the same requirements that I had when I built it. Why shouldn't I have released it?

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