2 ms·

How else will the project know that the major changes will be maintained? Having code in a project without an owner will just lead to bugs and bit rot.

• loup-vaillant 8y ago
  So now not only projects have to be maintained, we also have to maintain changes? I'm seriously getting sick at the notion that nothing can ever be finished. Bugs? That will be those introduced by the change, nothing more. If there is any bug left, that's only because nobody discovered them yet. Having a maintainer won't change that, only usage reveals bugs. (Unless of course the "maintainer" is instead tasked with finding bugs in the first place). Bit rot? That's only an issue when the environment around the code changes. Clang is a compiler, there's not much it cares about its environment. And if you're talking about changes within Clang that could have an effect, and those are well within the maintainer's control. We shouldn't need a maintainer for every patch. This change in particular doesn't seem to introduce any new feature. I'm guessing it only allows Clang to run faster. The new code path replaces the old, so it shouldn't require much more maintenance. --- More generally, we should do away with the notion that everything should be maintained, forever. We should be able to code correct programs. We should have environments stable enough to preserve that correctness. And we should stop believing we need so much code in the first place. Let's not kid ourselves, programs "require maintenance" (euphemism for "aren't finished"), mainly because they're so damn big. We can do better, really. http://vpri.org/work/ifnct.htm http://vpri.org/work/ifnct.htm http://www.projectoberon.com/ http://www.projectoberon.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZRE7HIO3vk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZRE7HIO3vk