6 ms·

Reusable code, frameworks or plugins are fine, the problem is their cambrian explosion since now anyone can jump in and publish some JavaScript or Go code, espe

by marklgr 10y ago

Reusable code, frameworks or plugins are fine, the problem is their cambrian explosion since now anyone can jump in and publish some JavaScript or Go code, especially with the micro-stuff trend. So we end up with zillions of projects competing for traction, and we move from one new cool and shiny thing to the next, for all (micro-)components of the stack. This is the often-forgotten cost of competition (for all its merits) as opposed to cooperation: it wastes time and energy.

pjmlp 10y ago
Hence why we old timers just wait for dust to settle, and then we move on.
sangnoir 10y ago
> , the problem is their cambrian explosion since now anyone can jump in and publish some JavaScript or Go code, especially with the micro-stuff trend I do not buy that this is a problem. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but anyone can publish a 'book' on Amazon as easily as publishing an NPM module (and they do), however, no one is complaining that there are "too many low quality books". Why is it easy to ignore books but harder to ignore shitty projects? Similarly there are countless instances of bad poetry online, and very bad fan-fiction, but the sky isn't falling in the literary world. Can someone educate me: why do other people's shitty software projects elicit such strong reactions?
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  Because books and poetry aren't supported by package managers. They're self-contained, so you can ignore them and no one cares. They also don't purport to solve a specific problem. (Like left-pad.) And they're not boosted by a FOSS ideology which their existence a political choice and not just a practical issue. So basically interdependence. You need at least some external code to finish most projects, and the chances are good it will be somewhere between overcomplicated, unreliable, poorly documented, poorly maintained, and unnecessary. Maybe package managers need active best-of-breed curation and industry-wide coding and documentation standards. But professional standards are anathema to the move-fast-and-break-things crowd, so I doubt that will ever happen.
- uola 10y ago
  I'm not sure how useful analogies are in this case, even so I get pretty upset over a lot of popular poor quality business books (and similar) that have real impact on things. If you want to make a comparison you can equate things to hardware where things like quality control and yield is instrumental. If you buy a plastic case that after a year self-disintegrates because while it looked the same it wasn't manufactured to spec. When this could potentially happen to every part of your device this quickly becomes annoying. Yet, this is how software is all the time and is further worsened by a lack of due diligence and quality control. How many developers can get the time to properly verify a technology or library. Not to speak of if it's even fair to expect developers to be able to reach those conclusions.
CuriouslyC 10y ago
Sexual reproduction also wastes energy relative to asexual reproduction, yet sexual reproduction is by far the more successful strategy.
- blacksmith_tb 10y ago
  9.2×10^29 bacteria beg to differ... [1] 1: http://www.nature.com/news/there-are-fewer-microbes-out-there-than-you-think-1.11275 http://www.nature.com/news/there-are-fewer-microbes-out-ther...

by marklgr 10y ago

pjmlp 10y ago

Hence why we old timers just wait for dust to settle, and then we move on.

sangnoir 10y ago

> , the problem is their cambrian explosion since now anyone can jump in and publish some JavaScript or Go code, especially with the micro-stuff trend I do not buy that this is a problem. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but anyone can publish a 'book' on Amazon as easily as publishing an NPM module (and they do), however, no one is complaining that there are "too many low quality books". Why is it easy to ignore books but harder to ignore shitty projects? Similarly there are countless instances of bad poetry online, and very bad fan-fiction, but the sky isn't falling in the literary world. Can someone educate me: why do other people's shitty software projects elicit such strong reactions?

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
Because books and poetry aren't supported by package managers. They're self-contained, so you can ignore them and no one cares. They also don't purport to solve a specific problem. (Like left-pad.) And they're not boosted by a FOSS ideology which their existence a political choice and not just a practical issue. So basically interdependence. You need at least some external code to finish most projects, and the chances are good it will be somewhere between overcomplicated, unreliable, poorly documented, poorly maintained, and unnecessary. Maybe package managers need active best-of-breed curation and industry-wide coding and documentation standards. But professional standards are anathema to the move-fast-and-break-things crowd, so I doubt that will ever happen.
uola 10y ago
I'm not sure how useful analogies are in this case, even so I get pretty upset over a lot of popular poor quality business books (and similar) that have real impact on things. If you want to make a comparison you can equate things to hardware where things like quality control and yield is instrumental. If you buy a plastic case that after a year self-disintegrates because while it looked the same it wasn't manufactured to spec. When this could potentially happen to every part of your device this quickly becomes annoying. Yet, this is how software is all the time and is further worsened by a lack of due diligence and quality control. How many developers can get the time to properly verify a technology or library. Not to speak of if it's even fair to expect developers to be able to reach those conclusions.

CuriouslyC 10y ago

Sexual reproduction also wastes energy relative to asexual reproduction, yet sexual reproduction is by far the more successful strategy.

blacksmith_tb 10y ago
9.2×10^29 bacteria beg to differ... [1] 1: http://www.nature.com/news/there-are-fewer-microbes-out-there-than-you-think-1.11275 http://www.nature.com/news/there-are-fewer-microbes-out-ther...