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

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

#251

Post by maest » Sun, May 17, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

dirtydroog wrote: post #233

maest wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the commenters in that issue have a very regressive and myopic stance. Raising such a public ruckus will heavily disincentivise scientists from publishing their code in the future. Decisions will still be made, but in the dark. There's a certain amount of self-stroking going on there with people feeling better by putting down code produced by non-professional programmers. A much better response would be: 1. S…

Well, there was this situation a few years ago https://www.theverge.com/2013/4/17/4234136/excel-calculation... While the tone of the covid model scrutiny leaves a lot to be desired it is understandable seeing as how the results are affecting the entire world. The situation is unprecedented.

I don't think anyone is saying the code can't be better or even that the results might be wrong (I don't know as I haven't spent much time going through the codebase).

My meta point is that people are:

1. pressuring and blaming the wrong party. 2. doings something which will have an unintended strongly negative consequence (make scientists averse to publishing their code).

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

#252

Post by franciscop » Sun, May 17, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

cellularmitosis wrote: post #175

stickfigure wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. On the other hand, sometimes people put a lot of time and effort into isolating an issue and writing up the best description they can manage. Closing the issue is a one-click FU to the people who are doing their best to help. Some users are overly entitled, but some maintainers are self-absorbed douchebags. I've seen both sides.

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?

I've given thousands of hours on my open source, but just because it's the way I code. Any personal project where I create a small self-contained abstract unit, I'll put that as open source. Most of this code (by, say lines) is provided "as-is" with no much expectations. Those where I think they solve a real gap in the ecosystem I'll put more effort into writing good documentation.

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

#253

Post by z3t4 » Sun, May 17, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #196

vxNsr wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

off-topic: I still don't understand the use case that left-pad solved. I'm not into js at all but why do you need a dependency to add space to text? I'm asking honestly, I just don't get what the use for this was.

The module system in Node.js (not ES6 modules) makes it super easy to use modules because a module is bound to a variable and you can require the module from anywhere and it will be scoped to the function. It's like if all code in the global JavaScript collective is available in global scope.

Its easier to use a community module in Node.js then it is to use a standard library feature in most programming languages.

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

#254

Post by umvi » Sun, May 17, 2020, 3:13 PM UTC

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

The scientism is very strong in that thread.

Isn't "faith in science" an oxymoron? If anything, people should default to skepticism for hastily thrown together scientific models.

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

#255

Post by ssanders82 » Sun, May 17, 2020, 3:14 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #249

CalRobert wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Unfortunately, DINKs are hard to compete with professionally Sure, but people with kids win at life. Let the DINK make some extra money. You still have it better.

> people with kids win at life

That's a pretty insulting statement for those of us who can't have / don't want children.

It's not a competition. We've chosen different paths than you. Not worse, just different.

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

#256

Post by cxr » Sun, May 17, 2020, 3:14 PM UTC

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.

It's simple. On the whole, GitHub just kind of sucks.

It's about time that programmers recognize that a "Delete GitHub" movement is as valid and as needed as "Delete Facebook" or "Delete Twitter".

GitHub is not really about software development. GitHub is yet another social networking site, only it's for busywork masquerading as Real Important Programmer Stuff.

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

#257

Post by CuriousCosmic » Sun, May 17, 2020, 3:18 PM UTC

Dayshine wrote: post #132

CuriousCosmic wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But this is clearly the default situation for any project not hosted under an organisation.

You'd assume so but as others have recently started posting in the comments on this thread, maintainers for small projects regularly get barraged with demands and spam/other forms of aggression in retaliation for not meeting said demands.

I'm not sure why but some people like to assume that just because you posted something online that you must fix any problem people have while using it and add any feature that it doesn't have. I suspect that this is the main reason those "This is a hobby. Please don't get mad at me if there's a problem" README tags started showing up.

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

#258

Post by franciscop » Sun, May 17, 2020, 3:20 PM UTC

dragandj wrote: post #211

sgillen wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 probab…

This a thousand times. If you hit a bug on my code and put together a PR to fix it, the reasons I would merge it are in order of importance:

1. For you, since you are nice and helpful debugging it and fixing it for you and others so I want to make it easy for you to use the working code.

2. For other users that might hit the bug, for every PR bugfix there are likely N people hitting the bug.

3. For me in case I hit it in the future.

4. For correctness sake.

But not all bugs are straightforward, many have side-effects or disadvantages that I might not be comfortable merging straight away. So I have to evaluate how long it'll take me to review the PR and whether it's even worth-it (the vast majority of times PRs are worth-it, but issues are a hit and miss).

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

#259

Post by fovc » Sun, May 17, 2020, 3:24 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #227

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…

I think it's fine to not have time to maintain code you open source. However, if your library ends up gaining a significant user base and you don't have time to maintain it, then I think you have a duty to either: 1. Allow others to step in as maintainers and review/approve new features and bug fixes in your stead. or (if you want to maintain control of your library) 2. Be clear that your library is in maintenance mo…

Wholeheartedly disagree. Vetting a possible maintener or fork is >0 work, and you don't owe us anything.

If you had to go to the trouble of creating your library in the first place, it means either

A) "the community" had not met your specific need, so why would they start now? Or

B) you did this for fun/learning/visibility/coping with a mania, in which case you still don't owe us any favors.

That said, doing either of the above would be nice and appreciated, but you don't have to donate anything above and beyond what you are have.

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

#260

Post by franciscop » Sun, May 17, 2020, 3:26 PM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #51

franciscop wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 entitlem…

Did you tell them why you were closing the issues as #WONTFIX? I maintain a few projects in the "hundreds of stars" range, and I also send PRs to numerous projects with regularity (I make a point to fix typos and such in documentation when I find them). Of course some people are low effort issuers, but some people put time and effort into opening an issue on a project. When the maintainer closes it without even takin…

> I make a point to fix typos and such in documentation when I find them

This is amazing, thank you so much. Typos are very troublesome and they slip through the cracks too easily. A typo PR or issue will get merged 100% of the times in my case.

I meant that I closed the issue section, not individual issues. For individual issues I don't recall closing a single non-rude one without at least a short explanation.