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I used to open GitHub issues to Gatsby to report bugs. Almost nothing was ever fixed and every few weeks I had to manually clickety-click to keep the issues ali

I used to open GitHub issues to Gatsby to report bugs. Almost nothing was ever fixed and every few weeks I had to manually clickety-click to keep the issues alive because of the stale bot. Guess what I do now? I don't report bugs to Gatsby, and I recommend against using Gatsby in newer projects.

tvanantwerp 6y ago
Sadly, I've had this same experience with Gatsby.
z77dj3kl 6y ago
Yes, I've had a similar experience. Gatsby is a dumpster fire once you venture off the beaten path.
- madeofpalk 6y ago
  Or, stay on the beaten path for too long and get "too big" and it turns into a dumpster fire.
- sneak 6y ago
  It's also spyware, transmitting your usage without consent: https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/telemetry/ https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/telemetry/
  - rgovostes 6y ago
    "Spyware" has a specific meaning and shouldn't be applied to any instance of data collection you disagree with. That you can point to their documentation about their data collection practices, which are explained in concise English with opt-out instructions, and that this is apparently detailed to the user on install, strongly suggests Gatsby is not spyware. Telemetry can be very valuable to open source projects which have extremely limited resources. The Adium project used telemetry to decide when they could drop support for PowerPC processors and old versions of macOS[0]. Homebrew uses it to track which of its thousands of packages are the most problematic to install[1]. 0: https://sparkle.adium.im/?year=2020&week=*&graph=bar https://sparkle.adium.im/?year=2020&week=*&graph=bar 1: https://formulae.brew.sh/analytics/ https://formulae.brew.sh/analytics/
    - mrob 6y ago
      Opt-out telemetry is spyware, regardless of how convenient you might find it to spy on your users without their consent. The only ethical telemetry is opt-in, such as the system Debian uses, where users are given the option to install the "popularity-contest" telemetry package during install, with the default being not installing.
    - rightbyte 6y ago
      > We track general usage details, including command invocation, build process status updates, performance measurements, and errors. Sounds like spyware to me to do that without opt-in. Projects that do that wont take your privacy seriously.
    - sneak 6y ago
      Homebrew is also spyware. They transmit your unique identifier to Google every time you run brew, which effectively provides Google with your coarse location tracklog via client IP geolocation. Data collection like this that is done without the consent of the user is extremely unethical, rude, and in some jurisdictions actually illegal. The fact that the data they steal is useful to them is not relevant and your bringing it up is telling. It actually has nothing to do with whether or not I agree with it, and everything to do with whether or not they obtain consent to exfiltrate this information. Neither Homebrew nor Gatsby obtain the consent of the user to transmit their spying data.
cheph 6y ago
Gatsby is probbably the worst static site generator that exists and I am not really sure what it brings to the table other than incredibly slow build times, pointless use of graphql (which falls apart quite quickly) and an over complicated framework which is difficult to customize and costly to maintain.
- ghego1 6y ago
  If you are looking for an efficient static site builder try YASSB! [1] YASSB processes HTML, (S)CSS, JavaScript/TypeScript, JSX/TSX, JSON, MarkDown and many other files and combines them into beautiful static websites. I am the creator of YASSB, I'd love to hear what you think about it! [1] [https://yassb-foss.github.io/](https://yassb-foss.github.io/) https://yassb-foss.github.io/](https://yassb-foss.github.io/...
  - ghego1 6y ago
    Link: https://yassb-foss.github.io/ https://yassb-foss.github.io/
- jrv 6y ago
  I like that I can write pretty much normal React in it, and that it has a lot of features and plugins. But I'm still a pretty casual user probably.
- madeofpalk 6y ago
  Yes, I've seen the same problems from Gatsby and it wouldnt be my first choice, but I do really like it's use of GraphQL - i think it's a smart way to solve a problem that does exist for some use cases. I like Gatsby's createPage API that lets you programatically create pages from source data at any url, rather than the "traditional" approach of binding views to URL patterns. It's useful for some kinds of static sites that might have a radically different template or data source/model for multiple pages that fit the same URL pattern. Gatsby's use of GraphQL, which can be a pain especially as you scale larger, is nice how it lets you query just the fields you need, so your dehydrated data remains pretty minimal. It's something that I've struggle with when building a site with NextJS - I would have to set up and create my own GraphQL server. Gatsby is a weird one because it has these "advanced" features that really benefit larger sites (or sites with larger ambitions), but Gatsby really can't handle large sites or data.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
My experience is different, back when I used it (about a year and a half ago last? Ish?), they seemed to have dedicated community management staff doing the rounds and making sure all issues were acknowledged, tagged, and addressed. Has that changed since then? At the time I found it a really welcoming and active community. I even got a T-shirt for contributing.
- baobabKoodaa 6y ago
  I also found the community active and welcoming. I also got a t-shirt. All of my issues were tagged. Unfortunately they weren't fixed, and the stale bot kept marking them as stale. It seemed to me like Gatsby developers were focusing the majority of their time on writing "fun" new features rather than fixing all the sharp edges and broken pipes of the complicated pile of old features.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    That fits if we think about it in POSIWID terms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha... If the true goal of the devs is to do the fun first 25% of the work, then the signs that a particular job hasn't been finished are unwelcome. A stale-bot sweeps most problems under the rug and, as we see in the discussion here, discourages reporting in the first place. The numbers look better, the devs get to feel like things are under control, and they get to rush on to the next shiny thing. And perhaps it works one layer deeper, too. Their website's all about "fast, fast, fast"! They advertise the ability to "create a complete website in the time it usually takes to build a prototype". I would read a claim like that suspiciously: when I build prototypes, I leave out things that are important for sustainability. But the things I think are "finishing the job right" seem to others as tedious and uninteresting things to be skipped if possible. So perhaps the devs have found themselves an audience like themselves that are fine with a high level of brokenness as long as they get the feeling of moving forward quickly?

tvanantwerp 6y ago

Sadly, I've had this same experience with Gatsby.

z77dj3kl 6y ago

Yes, I've had a similar experience. Gatsby is a dumpster fire once you venture off the beaten path.

madeofpalk 6y ago
Or, stay on the beaten path for too long and get "too big" and it turns into a dumpster fire.
sneak 6y ago
It's also spyware, transmitting your usage without consent: https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/telemetry/ https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/telemetry/
- rgovostes 6y ago
  "Spyware" has a specific meaning and shouldn't be applied to any instance of data collection you disagree with. That you can point to their documentation about their data collection practices, which are explained in concise English with opt-out instructions, and that this is apparently detailed to the user on install, strongly suggests Gatsby is not spyware. Telemetry can be very valuable to open source projects which have extremely limited resources. The Adium project used telemetry to decide when they could drop support for PowerPC processors and old versions of macOS[0]. Homebrew uses it to track which of its thousands of packages are the most problematic to install[1]. 0: https://sparkle.adium.im/?year=2020&week=*&graph=bar https://sparkle.adium.im/?year=2020&week=*&graph=bar 1: https://formulae.brew.sh/analytics/ https://formulae.brew.sh/analytics/
  - mrob 6y ago
    Opt-out telemetry is spyware, regardless of how convenient you might find it to spy on your users without their consent. The only ethical telemetry is opt-in, such as the system Debian uses, where users are given the option to install the "popularity-contest" telemetry package during install, with the default being not installing.
  - rightbyte 6y ago
    > We track general usage details, including command invocation, build process status updates, performance measurements, and errors. Sounds like spyware to me to do that without opt-in. Projects that do that wont take your privacy seriously.
  - sneak 6y ago
    Homebrew is also spyware. They transmit your unique identifier to Google every time you run brew, which effectively provides Google with your coarse location tracklog via client IP geolocation. Data collection like this that is done without the consent of the user is extremely unethical, rude, and in some jurisdictions actually illegal. The fact that the data they steal is useful to them is not relevant and your bringing it up is telling. It actually has nothing to do with whether or not I agree with it, and everything to do with whether or not they obtain consent to exfiltrate this information. Neither Homebrew nor Gatsby obtain the consent of the user to transmit their spying data.

cheph 6y ago

Gatsby is probbably the worst static site generator that exists and I am not really sure what it brings to the table other than incredibly slow build times, pointless use of graphql (which falls apart quite quickly) and an over complicated framework which is difficult to customize and costly to maintain.

ghego1 6y ago
If you are looking for an efficient static site builder try YASSB! [1] YASSB processes HTML, (S)CSS, JavaScript/TypeScript, JSX/TSX, JSON, MarkDown and many other files and combines them into beautiful static websites. I am the creator of YASSB, I'd love to hear what you think about it! [1] [https://yassb-foss.github.io/](https://yassb-foss.github.io/) https://yassb-foss.github.io/](https://yassb-foss.github.io/...
- ghego1 6y ago
  Link: https://yassb-foss.github.io/ https://yassb-foss.github.io/
jrv 6y ago
I like that I can write pretty much normal React in it, and that it has a lot of features and plugins. But I'm still a pretty casual user probably.
madeofpalk 6y ago
Yes, I've seen the same problems from Gatsby and it wouldnt be my first choice, but I do really like it's use of GraphQL - i think it's a smart way to solve a problem that does exist for some use cases. I like Gatsby's createPage API that lets you programatically create pages from source data at any url, rather than the "traditional" approach of binding views to URL patterns. It's useful for some kinds of static sites that might have a radically different template or data source/model for multiple pages that fit the same URL pattern. Gatsby's use of GraphQL, which can be a pain especially as you scale larger, is nice how it lets you query just the fields you need, so your dehydrated data remains pretty minimal. It's something that I've struggle with when building a site with NextJS - I would have to set up and create my own GraphQL server. Gatsby is a weird one because it has these "advanced" features that really benefit larger sites (or sites with larger ambitions), but Gatsby really can't handle large sites or data.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

My experience is different, back when I used it (about a year and a half ago last? Ish?), they seemed to have dedicated community management staff doing the rounds and making sure all issues were acknowledged, tagged, and addressed. Has that changed since then? At the time I found it a really welcoming and active community. I even got a T-shirt for contributing.

baobabKoodaa 6y ago
I also found the community active and welcoming. I also got a t-shirt. All of my issues were tagged. Unfortunately they weren't fixed, and the stale bot kept marking them as stale. It seemed to me like Gatsby developers were focusing the majority of their time on writing "fun" new features rather than fixing all the sharp edges and broken pipes of the complicated pile of old features.
- wpietri 6y ago
  That fits if we think about it in POSIWID terms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha... If the true goal of the devs is to do the fun first 25% of the work, then the signs that a particular job hasn't been finished are unwelcome. A stale-bot sweeps most problems under the rug and, as we see in the discussion here, discourages reporting in the first place. The numbers look better, the devs get to feel like things are under control, and they get to rush on to the next shiny thing. And perhaps it works one layer deeper, too. Their website's all about "fast, fast, fast"! They advertise the ability to "create a complete website in the time it usually takes to build a prototype". I would read a claim like that suspiciously: when I build prototypes, I leave out things that are important for sustainability. But the things I think are "finishing the job right" seem to others as tedious and uninteresting things to be skipped if possible. So perhaps the devs have found themselves an audience like themselves that are fine with a high level of brokenness as long as they get the feeling of moving forward quickly?