7 ms·

All software sucks (2011)

42 points by tango24 8y ago

nerdponx 8y ago
Anyone who has worked with CSV knows that it is anything but "less harmful" Edit: I'd seen this page before, but never really appreciated the sheer arrogance of it until now. It's troll bait.
- MrEfficiency 8y ago
  Why is CSV bad? I'm a huge fan of SQL, but curious what pitfalls CSV has.
  - tyingq 8y ago
    A pretty good summary of the sort of "deceptive simplicity" around csv: http://thomasburette.com/blog/2014/05/25/so-you-want-to-write-your-own-CSV-code/ http://thomasburette.com/blog/2014/05/25/so-you-want-to-writ... And the related HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7796268 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7796268
  - thomasfedb 8y ago
    Not standardised. Fields that contain commas, newlines, or non-ASCII chars kill puppies.
    - ainar-g 8y ago
      >Not standardised. Technically there is RFC4180[1], but yeah, CSV has a lot of flavours. I remember a story about how Excel couldn't correctly open a CSV file because it had a header that had "ID" as the first field name, and Excel's file format sniffing algorithm though that it's a different format. [1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180
      - ChrisSD 8y ago
        Technically RFC4180 isn't actually a standard but perhaps the world would be better if people could agree to treat it as such. However those living in countries that use the comma as a decimal separator may disagree. > This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.
        _dps 8y ago
        As someone from one of those countries I've never understood this criticism of CSV. JSON doesn't let you choose your own separator either but no one levels this complaint at it. Defensively quoting values that may contain commas is easy, and nearly always a negligible cost. This really seems like a total non-issue to me and I've never understood how it has gained so much mindshare among CSV critics.
        CodesInChaos 8y ago
        The problem is Excel's horrible CSV implementation, and opening the file in Excel is one of the main applications of CSV. The German version of Excel expects semicolon separated CSV, where comma serves are decimal point and the date format must also be German. I found no way to create a CSV file that opens in Excel, regardless of locale. (And there are a million other problems in Excel's CSV implementation)
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - ChrisSD 8y ago
    Perhaps because there are a multitude of, sometimes ill defined or ad hoc, specifications that overlap one another in both subtle and not so subtle ways. So you can't assume CSV files produced by one program can always be read by another.
- hrktb 8y ago
  Isn’t CSV one of the most used format while having no agreed/official specification whatsoever ? I was amazed when we tried to find something to base a spec on, to help clients to read our CSV files.
xroche 8y ago
"Less harmful alternatives" seems in many cases to be "Exotic technologies hardly used by anyone, simply unusable in any serious environment". In some cases, comically wrong: C as a better alternative to C++ ? Did I totally miss the obvious satirical nature of the page ?
- xamuel 8y ago
  C is a better alternative to C++ for many applications. If it weren't, it wouldn't still be so widely used.
  - xroche 8y ago
    It's still used today because (1) of historical code and (2) the fact many people are fluent with it (including me). But this is a terrible languages in most cases.
    - xamuel 8y ago
      C is relatively simple, C++ is so complex practically no-one understands all of it. Many C++ features are "OOP kool-aid" and do more harm than good (if people would just realize you can pass around pointers to C struct's, which is all the "object orientation" necessary for 99% of the software in the world)
      - self_awareness 8y ago
        You can do in C++ everything you can do in C. You don't need to use C++-specific stuff. Also, using your logic, C constructs are nothing more than just assembly with more overhead. Why not just use assembly instead? Answering this question will probably answer your question about OOP stuff.
        xamuel 8y ago
        >You can do in C++ everything you can do in C. By that logic, we should all use "omniglot", one language in which all the top 100 languages are first-class supported. What could possibly go wrong :D
thomasfedb 8y ago
The quotes are fun, but the actual list of "harmful" software is an exercise in self-inflated oft-nostalgic opinion.
jdormit 8y ago
So this is a list of "harmful things" and "less harmful alternatives", with no explanation given as to how each tech has been classified. To take a random example, why is man less harmful than info?
matthewmacleod 8y ago
I’m sure we’ve all seen the various famous examples of this kind of opinion and attitude floating around the Internet over time, but I’m not sure what value they really have. They’re mostly unhelpful aphorisms that don’t really offer any context or argument.
merricksb 8y ago
Last discussed in 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7613239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7613239
AndrewSChapman 8y ago
Listing FreeBSD, D, Java, C++, and SQL databases as "harmful stuff", and suggesting "hierarchical file systems" and "textual interfaces" as not harmful. What the actual hell?
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  D of all things...
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
  I tend to agree with most of their characterizations, so if you more detail on why I agree with some examples I can share.
_sdegutis 8y ago
Fun little story, I used to be sympathetic to the all software sucks movement and attitude. Then I tried to port `st` (simple terminal) to Mac OS X by separating its core from its X11-dependent code and pulling the globals into a single struct, so that I could wrap it with NSView. When I tried to ask the `st` community if they wanted my changes[1], they replied that these changes were unnecessary, that coupling the core with X11 was perfectly fine, and especially that there's no reason to port it to such an awful non-free OS as Apple's. I now prefer to take a constructive and positive approach to software development, instead of just having a negative or cynical attitude. [1] https://lists.suckless.org/dev/1408/23366.html https://lists.suckless.org/dev/1408/23366.html
- raffomania 8y ago
  I can't believe how rude the comments in this thread were. I generally agree that we have too much complexity in software, but I also feel that often people take the "minimal" software notion to an extreme level of elitism, excluding and attacking people for reasons not related to the original goal to make better software.
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
    You weren't exaggerating! I was curious and had to stop after a little while. They don't sound like happy people.
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
  suckless and cat-v have some intersection, but are distinct groups. A lot of suckless software frankly sucksmore.
- trampi 8y ago
  Wow, the replys are really a disappointing read. I would not have stay that calm.
- Raphael_Amiard 8y ago
  Wow, just read the thread, looks like the stereotype of a toxic community...
draw_down 8y ago
Good grief, everything about this page is just cringeworthy
lmilcin 8y ago
Not sure who prepared this list but obviously this is extremely subjective. C is less harmful alternative to Java? Are you kiddin' me? Have you ever tried creating any non-trivial web service with ANSI C? For almost every example on the list I could bring examples showing situation where exactly opposite is true. The old rule of thumb is, any definitive and unsubstantiated statements about superiority of any technology over any other technology should not be trusted.
- krapp 8y ago
  >Are you kiddin' me? Have you ever tried creating any non-trivial web service with ANSI C? The sort of person who agrees with this list likely also believes the web should do nothing but serve static HTML.
nonsince 8y ago
The “less harmful alternatives” are simpler only in a surface-level way. Go is “simpler” than Python in that the language has less features, but that leads to more complex code since there is less possibility to abstract things away. It is also a very hard language to write reliable code in, and reliability seems to be the stated goal of this whole thing. Python is hard to write reliable code in too, but Go is not a good alternative in this aspect. Also, many of these alternatives make no compromise for practicality. GCC sucks, we can all agree, but without it our code would be slow and buggy (TCC doesn’t support ASan or other such debugging tools AFAIK).
beat 8y ago
Bah. This is just smug, elitist taste-grumbling. There's no coherent argument. I've written "Why software sucks" too, but I like to think I actually had a point.
simias 8y ago
I think everybody who's spent any time in the industry will agree with the feeling to some level. That being said the "harfmul stuff" table is a prime example in flamewar-bait, I seriously hope nobody will take it at face value. CVS better than SVN? Anything from plan9 instead of stuff people actually use? Good luck getting 9p to work reliably faster than NFS... Oh and you should use ed instead of vim, tcc instead of gcc and awk intead of ruby. If this table is not meant as pure bait then I think it's actually harmful on its own, an experienced dev will be able to pick the right tool for the right job on their own. On the other hand a beginner will be tempted to cargo cult it to seem hardcore without understanding the tradeoffs. Sometimes it's simpler to reuse a complex solution than write your own simple code from scratch. It's easier and simpler to use C++'s std::map than implement a red-black tree from scratch in C.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  > That being said the "harfmul stuff" table is a prime example in flamewar-bait Agreed. Especially with the GPL and LGPL, etc being "harmful". That seems like they're trying to evoke an emotional response. Sure, if there's different software I should use instead of $popular_X , I'm all ears. But be aware, there's context switching costs from going to one to another. And some software, even being worse, has better support by the community. Im going to flag this article, for your complaints. It's not constructive, and spawns flame-y yelling.
- ainar-g 8y ago
  >Good luck getting 9p to work reliably faster than NFS... Could you elaborate on that? From what I've heard (in my echo chamber), NFS is "complex, slow, and unreliable" while 9P2000 is "simple, fast, and reliable".
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
  >Good luck getting 9p to work reliably faster than NFS Fast != good. A slower system which works more reliably and elegantly is often (usually) a better choice. >awk intead of ruby I agree with this, though it's expressed poorly. For use-cases within the intersection of awk and ruby, use awk. For use-cases without, you probably shouldn't use ruby anyway. >It's easier and simpler to use C++'s std::map than implement a red-black tree from scratch in C. Easier, yes, simpler, no. When you use C++ you get all of the baggage that comes with it, increasing your complexity hugely.
inetknght 8y ago
I'm known to my coworkers to complain about things I dislike and that I dislike almost everything. This page lists things even I like. It doesn't even go on to explain why the things are better or worse. Well, it sort've does, if you look for the bad things on the left side. But then he goes into FUD from decades ago that's particularly not relevant to today (in C++ specifically, probably also true for other bad things). I'm all for ranting about terrible software but at least make sure it's accurate and versioned/dated.
ainar-g 8y ago
Uriel, the creator of this page, has committed suicide in 2012[1]. As far as I know, the website hasn't seen that much support since then. We could only guess, what he would've added to the list today. My favourite page is the one with programming quotes[2]. I don't know, who that Al Viro is, but he is quite a savage. [1] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.plan9/xEb4wYzfaBc https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.plan9/xEb4wY... [2] http://quotes.cat-v.org/programming/ http://quotes.cat-v.org/programming/
- emaste 8y ago
  Al Viro's a long time Linux kernel developer with an interest in at least filesystem and related code.
vinceguidry 8y ago
The only rationale given here is this: > At the moment a detailed rationale is not provided for most of this, so figuring out why some things are considered more or less harmful than others is left as an exercise for the reader. Here is a hint: complexity is the bane of all software, simplicity is the most important quality. See also: Worse is Better by Richard Gabriel. This is, well, just another way for people to turn their opinions into objective fact. The lumping of C++, D, Python and Ruby all together betrays either a lack of sincerity, or over-opinionation to the point of myopia. The page links to Zed's rant about how Rails is a ghetto, while he makes some great points about the economics of that ecosystem, I'm left with no salient reasons why I shouldn't choose Rails for a project. Sure, if I want to do what he tried to do in that space, I have no reason to not expect I'll have the same kind of experience he did. The Rails community might be a ghetto, but my project doesn't have to be. Read between the lines and you see Zed does have respect for Ruby and the Zen of the language. To see it linked on cat-v, to my mind looking for real reasons why people should and shouldn't do things, well, the essay clashes pretty hard with the seeming ideology that "complexity is the bane of all software." Zed was perfectly fine with Rails and all its complexity, he just hated the community and ecosystem. Cat-V is linking to his essay not because they actually agree with him, but because they are enamored with his style. The whole site reads like a bunch of neckbeards blowing off steam.
commanderjroc 8y ago
I think everyone can agree that software sucks cause of X, Y, and Z. But, when I see a list like this. Its quite obvious that this is coming from a mindset of the average user should not be using software at all. Imagine if you will, your grandma always calling you up because she got lost in the textual interface. Yeah that would get old fast. Also how would one look at cat pictures through a textual interface?
commandlinefan 8y ago
Years ago, I was complaining to a co-worker about a terrible codebase. He looked at me and said, "ok, when was the last time you looked at a program and thought, 'wow, this is really good code'?" That simple statement changed the way I view software quality forever.

42 points by tango24 8y ago

Anyone who has worked with CSV knows that it is anything but "less harmful" Edit: I'd seen this page before, but never really appreciated the sheer arrogance of it until now. It's troll bait.

MrEfficiency 8y ago
Why is CSV bad? I'm a huge fan of SQL, but curious what pitfalls CSV has.
- tyingq 8y ago
  A pretty good summary of the sort of "deceptive simplicity" around csv: http://thomasburette.com/blog/2014/05/25/so-you-want-to-write-your-own-CSV-code/ http://thomasburette.com/blog/2014/05/25/so-you-want-to-writ... And the related HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7796268 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7796268
- thomasfedb 8y ago
  Not standardised. Fields that contain commas, newlines, or non-ASCII chars kill puppies.
  - ainar-g 8y ago
    >Not standardised. Technically there is RFC4180[1], but yeah, CSV has a lot of flavours. I remember a story about how Excel couldn't correctly open a CSV file because it had a header that had "ID" as the first field name, and Excel's file format sniffing algorithm though that it's a different format. [1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180
    - ChrisSD 8y ago
      Technically RFC4180 isn't actually a standard but perhaps the world would be better if people could agree to treat it as such. However those living in countries that use the comma as a decimal separator may disagree. > This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.
      - _dps 8y ago
        As someone from one of those countries I've never understood this criticism of CSV. JSON doesn't let you choose your own separator either but no one levels this complaint at it. Defensively quoting values that may contain commas is easy, and nearly always a negligible cost. This really seems like a total non-issue to me and I've never understood how it has gained so much mindshare among CSV critics.
        CodesInChaos 8y ago
        The problem is Excel's horrible CSV implementation, and opening the file in Excel is one of the main applications of CSV. The German version of Excel expects semicolon separated CSV, where comma serves are decimal point and the date format must also be German. I found no way to create a CSV file that opens in Excel, regardless of locale. (And there are a million other problems in Excel's CSV implementation)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- ChrisSD 8y ago
  Perhaps because there are a multitude of, sometimes ill defined or ad hoc, specifications that overlap one another in both subtle and not so subtle ways. So you can't assume CSV files produced by one program can always be read by another.
hrktb 8y ago
Isn’t CSV one of the most used format while having no agreed/official specification whatsoever ? I was amazed when we tried to find something to base a spec on, to help clients to read our CSV files.

xroche 8y ago

"Less harmful alternatives" seems in many cases to be "Exotic technologies hardly used by anyone, simply unusable in any serious environment". In some cases, comically wrong: C as a better alternative to C++ ? Did I totally miss the obvious satirical nature of the page ?

xamuel 8y ago
C is a better alternative to C++ for many applications. If it weren't, it wouldn't still be so widely used.
- xroche 8y ago
  It's still used today because (1) of historical code and (2) the fact many people are fluent with it (including me). But this is a terrible languages in most cases.
  - xamuel 8y ago
    C is relatively simple, C++ is so complex practically no-one understands all of it. Many C++ features are "OOP kool-aid" and do more harm than good (if people would just realize you can pass around pointers to C struct's, which is all the "object orientation" necessary for 99% of the software in the world)
    - self_awareness 8y ago
      You can do in C++ everything you can do in C. You don't need to use C++-specific stuff. Also, using your logic, C constructs are nothing more than just assembly with more overhead. Why not just use assembly instead? Answering this question will probably answer your question about OOP stuff.
      - xamuel 8y ago
        >You can do in C++ everything you can do in C. By that logic, we should all use "omniglot", one language in which all the top 100 languages are first-class supported. What could possibly go wrong :D

thomasfedb 8y ago

The quotes are fun, but the actual list of "harmful" software is an exercise in self-inflated oft-nostalgic opinion.

jdormit 8y ago

So this is a list of "harmful things" and "less harmful alternatives", with no explanation given as to how each tech has been classified. To take a random example, why is man less harmful than info?

matthewmacleod 8y ago

I’m sure we’ve all seen the various famous examples of this kind of opinion and attitude floating around the Internet over time, but I’m not sure what value they really have. They’re mostly unhelpful aphorisms that don’t really offer any context or argument.

merricksb 8y ago

Last discussed in 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7613239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7613239

AndrewSChapman 8y ago

Listing FreeBSD, D, Java, C++, and SQL databases as "harmful stuff", and suggesting "hierarchical file systems" and "textual interfaces" as not harmful. What the actual hell?

giancarlostoro 8y ago
D of all things...
Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
I tend to agree with most of their characterizations, so if you more detail on why I agree with some examples I can share.

_sdegutis 8y ago

Fun little story, I used to be sympathetic to the all software sucks movement and attitude. Then I tried to port `st` (simple terminal) to Mac OS X by separating its core from its X11-dependent code and pulling the globals into a single struct, so that I could wrap it with NSView. When I tried to ask the `st` community if they wanted my changes[1], they replied that these changes were unnecessary, that coupling the core with X11 was perfectly fine, and especially that there's no reason to port it to such an awful non-free OS as Apple's. I now prefer to take a constructive and positive approach to software development, instead of just having a negative or cynical attitude. [1] https://lists.suckless.org/dev/1408/23366.html https://lists.suckless.org/dev/1408/23366.html

raffomania 8y ago
I can't believe how rude the comments in this thread were. I generally agree that we have too much complexity in software, but I also feel that often people take the "minimal" software notion to an extreme level of elitism, excluding and attacking people for reasons not related to the original goal to make better software.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  You weren't exaggerating! I was curious and had to stop after a little while. They don't sound like happy people.
Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
suckless and cat-v have some intersection, but are distinct groups. A lot of suckless software frankly sucksmore.
trampi 8y ago
Wow, the replys are really a disappointing read. I would not have stay that calm.
Raphael_Amiard 8y ago
Wow, just read the thread, looks like the stereotype of a toxic community...

draw_down 8y ago

Good grief, everything about this page is just cringeworthy

lmilcin 8y ago

Not sure who prepared this list but obviously this is extremely subjective. C is less harmful alternative to Java? Are you kiddin' me? Have you ever tried creating any non-trivial web service with ANSI C? For almost every example on the list I could bring examples showing situation where exactly opposite is true. The old rule of thumb is, any definitive and unsubstantiated statements about superiority of any technology over any other technology should not be trusted.

krapp 8y ago
>Are you kiddin' me? Have you ever tried creating any non-trivial web service with ANSI C? The sort of person who agrees with this list likely also believes the web should do nothing but serve static HTML.

nonsince 8y ago

The “less harmful alternatives” are simpler only in a surface-level way. Go is “simpler” than Python in that the language has less features, but that leads to more complex code since there is less possibility to abstract things away. It is also a very hard language to write reliable code in, and reliability seems to be the stated goal of this whole thing. Python is hard to write reliable code in too, but Go is not a good alternative in this aspect. Also, many of these alternatives make no compromise for practicality. GCC sucks, we can all agree, but without it our code would be slow and buggy (TCC doesn’t support ASan or other such debugging tools AFAIK).

beat 8y ago

Bah. This is just smug, elitist taste-grumbling. There's no coherent argument. I've written "Why software sucks" too, but I like to think I actually had a point.

simias 8y ago

I think everybody who's spent any time in the industry will agree with the feeling to some level. That being said the "harfmul stuff" table is a prime example in flamewar-bait, I seriously hope nobody will take it at face value. CVS better than SVN? Anything from plan9 instead of stuff people actually use? Good luck getting 9p to work reliably faster than NFS... Oh and you should use ed instead of vim, tcc instead of gcc and awk intead of ruby. If this table is not meant as pure bait then I think it's actually harmful on its own, an experienced dev will be able to pick the right tool for the right job on their own. On the other hand a beginner will be tempted to cargo cult it to seem hardcore without understanding the tradeoffs. Sometimes it's simpler to reuse a complex solution than write your own simple code from scratch. It's easier and simpler to use C++'s std::map than implement a red-black tree from scratch in C.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago
> That being said the "harfmul stuff" table is a prime example in flamewar-bait Agreed. Especially with the GPL and LGPL, etc being "harmful". That seems like they're trying to evoke an emotional response. Sure, if there's different software I should use instead of $popular_X , I'm all ears. But be aware, there's context switching costs from going to one to another. And some software, even being worse, has better support by the community. Im going to flag this article, for your complaints. It's not constructive, and spawns flame-y yelling.
ainar-g 8y ago
>Good luck getting 9p to work reliably faster than NFS... Could you elaborate on that? From what I've heard (in my echo chamber), NFS is "complex, slow, and unreliable" while 9P2000 is "simple, fast, and reliable".
Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
>Good luck getting 9p to work reliably faster than NFS Fast != good. A slower system which works more reliably and elegantly is often (usually) a better choice. >awk intead of ruby I agree with this, though it's expressed poorly. For use-cases within the intersection of awk and ruby, use awk. For use-cases without, you probably shouldn't use ruby anyway. >It's easier and simpler to use C++'s std::map than implement a red-black tree from scratch in C. Easier, yes, simpler, no. When you use C++ you get all of the baggage that comes with it, increasing your complexity hugely.

inetknght 8y ago

I'm known to my coworkers to complain about things I dislike and that I dislike almost everything. This page lists things even I like. It doesn't even go on to explain why the things are better or worse. Well, it sort've does, if you look for the bad things on the left side. But then he goes into FUD from decades ago that's particularly not relevant to today (in C++ specifically, probably also true for other bad things). I'm all for ranting about terrible software but at least make sure it's accurate and versioned/dated.

ainar-g 8y ago

Uriel, the creator of this page, has committed suicide in 2012[1]. As far as I know, the website hasn't seen that much support since then. We could only guess, what he would've added to the list today. My favourite page is the one with programming quotes[2]. I don't know, who that Al Viro is, but he is quite a savage. [1] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.plan9/xEb4wYzfaBc https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.plan9/xEb4wY... [2] http://quotes.cat-v.org/programming/ http://quotes.cat-v.org/programming/

emaste 8y ago
Al Viro's a long time Linux kernel developer with an interest in at least filesystem and related code.

vinceguidry 8y ago

The only rationale given here is this: > At the moment a detailed rationale is not provided for most of this, so figuring out why some things are considered more or less harmful than others is left as an exercise for the reader. Here is a hint: complexity is the bane of all software, simplicity is the most important quality. See also: Worse is Better by Richard Gabriel. This is, well, just another way for people to turn their opinions into objective fact. The lumping of C++, D, Python and Ruby all together betrays either a lack of sincerity, or over-opinionation to the point of myopia. The page links to Zed's rant about how Rails is a ghetto, while he makes some great points about the economics of that ecosystem, I'm left with no salient reasons why I shouldn't choose Rails for a project. Sure, if I want to do what he tried to do in that space, I have no reason to not expect I'll have the same kind of experience he did. The Rails community might be a ghetto, but my project doesn't have to be. Read between the lines and you see Zed does have respect for Ruby and the Zen of the language. To see it linked on cat-v, to my mind looking for real reasons why people should and shouldn't do things, well, the essay clashes pretty hard with the seeming ideology that "complexity is the bane of all software." Zed was perfectly fine with Rails and all its complexity, he just hated the community and ecosystem. Cat-V is linking to his essay not because they actually agree with him, but because they are enamored with his style. The whole site reads like a bunch of neckbeards blowing off steam.

commanderjroc 8y ago

I think everyone can agree that software sucks cause of X, Y, and Z. But, when I see a list like this. Its quite obvious that this is coming from a mindset of the average user should not be using software at all. Imagine if you will, your grandma always calling you up because she got lost in the textual interface. Yeah that would get old fast. Also how would one look at cat pictures through a textual interface?

commandlinefan 8y ago

Years ago, I was complaining to a co-worker about a terrible codebase. He looked at me and said, "ok, when was the last time you looked at a program and thought, 'wow, this is really good code'?" That simple statement changed the way I view software quality forever.