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Essentially we're trying to figure out when it's appropriate for "my" code to become "everyones" code, and if there are steps in between. ("Standard library", f

• eslaught 11y ago
  > One thing that would be useful to this debate an analysis of a language ecosystem where there are only "macropackages" and see if the same function shows up over and over again across packages. Look no further than C++, where nearly every major software suite has its own strings, vectors, etc. implemented, frequently duplicating functionality already implemented in (1) STL, and (2) Boost. I seem to recall that the original Android Browser, for example, had no fewer than 5 kinds of strings on the C++ side of the code base, because it interfaced with several different systems and each had its own notion of what a string should be. The advantage (or disadvantage) of including common functionality in macro packages is that you can optimize for your particular use case. In theory, this may result in more well-tailored abstractions and performance speedups, but it also results in code duplication, bugs, and potentially even poor abstraction and missed optimization opportunities (just because you think you are generalizing/optimizing your code doesn't mean you actually are). Clearly, we need some sort of balance, and having official or de facto standard libraries is probably a win. Half the reason we're even in this situation is because both JS and C++ lack certain features in their standard libraries which implicitly encourage people to roll their own.
  • the_mitsuhiko 11y ago
    > Look no further than C++, where nearly every major software suite has its own strings, vectors, etc. implemented, frequently duplicating functionality already implemented in (1) STL, and (2) Boost. In many ways problem exists because there used to be different ideas in how strings should be set up. Today we mostly decide on UTF-8 and only convert now to legacy APIs if needed. This is a bad comparison because it's literally caused by legacy code. C++ projects cannot avoid different string classes because of that.
• __jal 11y ago
  For workaday engineers (e.g., not people attempting to build distributed libraries), the appropriate question about dependency management is, "under what conditions is it appropriate for a person or group outside of your org to publish code into your project?" Note that this isn't a cost-benefit approach. It simply asks what needs to be the case for you to accept third-party code. Every project is going to answer this slightly differently. I would hope that running a private repo, pinning versions, learning a bit about the author and some sort of code review would be the case for at least most, but apparently many folks feel OK about the unrestricted right of net.authors, once accepted into your project, to publish code at seemingly random times which they happily ingest on updates. A lot of coders seem to see only the "neat, I don't have to write a state machine to talk to [thing]," or "thank god someone learned how to [X] so I don't have to." But that, combined with folks who don't manage their own repos or even pin things, leads to folks who's names the coders probably don't even know essentially having commit privileges on their code.
  • jrochkind1 11y ago
    > the appropriate question about dependency management is, "under what conditions is it appropriate for a person or group outside of your org to publish code into your project?" >Note that this isn't a cost-benefit approach. Eh, it is a cost-benefit approach if the appropriate circumstances are "where the benefit outweighs the cost/risk." And I don't know any good way to answer it without doing that. What are your own examples of specification of such circumstances that don't involve cost-benefit? Unless you just decide, when asking the question like that, "Geez, there's no circumstances where it's appropriate" and go to total NIH, no external dependencies at all (no Node, no Rails, no nothing).
    • __jal 11y ago
      Well, in that everything is eventually a cost-benefit decision, sure. What I was getting at is that "under what conditions" is a baseline gating requirement that needs to reflect the nature of what you're building. If I'm building something that is intended to replace OpenSSL, my gating conditions for including third party code is going to be a lot different than if I'm building what I hope is the next flappy birds' high-score implementation. People have all sorts of gating functions. I don't write code on Windows, because I never have and see no reason to start. Baseline competency of developers is another one. You can view baseline requirements as part of the cost-benefit if you like, but generally, if the requirements need to change to make a proposed course of action "worth it", you probably need to redo the entire proposal because the first one just failed. (If your requirements are mutable enough that ditching some to make the numbers work seems acceptable, I have grave doubts about the process and/or the decision making.) I basically included my own examples already: a private repo to freeze versions in use and host our own forks when appropriate, code review by at least one experienced developer of any included modules, and a look at the developer[1]. [1] This is pretty fuzzy (the process, not necessarily the developer). I generally google-stalk them to see what else they've worked on, if there have been public spats that lead me to believe the future upgrade path might be trouble for us, whether they have publicly visible expertise in what they're coding, etc. Basic reputation stuff, plus evidence of domain expertise, if appropriate.
• EGreg 11y ago
  As the author of Groups on iOS and the Qbix Platform (http://qbix.com/platform http://qbix.com/platform) I think I have a pretty deep perspective on this issue of when "my thing" becomes "everyone's thing". When a company goes public, there are lots of regulations. A lot of people rely on you. You can't just close up shop tomorrow. When your software package is released as open source, it becomes an issue of governance. If you can't stick around to maintain it, the community has a right to appoint some other people. There can be professional maintainers taking over basic responsibilities for various projects. Please read this article I wrote a couple years ago called the Politics of Groups: http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=135 http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=135 This is a general problem. Here is an excerpt: If the individual - the risk is that the individual may have too much power over others who come to rely on the stream. They may suddenly stop publishing it, or cut off access to everyone, which would hurt many people. (I define hurt in terms of needs or strong expectations of people that form over time.)