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Why is activity the measure of product quality? If I write something that works great and needs few updates is it inferior to something that’s broken and gets c

by api 5y ago

Why is activity the measure of product quality? If I write something that works great and needs few updates is it inferior to something that’s broken and gets commits every day? This is just a terrible metric of software quality that became standard without anyone discussing why.

adwn 5y ago
Because programming languages are different from regular software: for a programming language to be useful, it needs an ecosystem of libraries, package management, and IDE support. It's not the 80s anymore, when everyone wrote their own libraries anyway, maybe shared them with friends or colleagues, and didn't expect anything beyond a small standard library. Today, a new language has a small window of a few years, after which it either achieves escape velocity, or re-enters the atmosphere and burns up. A new language which hasn't received major updates for two years, is effectively dead. It's a social phenomenon, not a technical one.
karmakaze 5y ago
I can make a guess why this might matter. For something that's not already widely used, we start with the premise that it is not finished in that it hasn't been exercised enough to know it is. With that a lack of activity indicates that edges are not being found and fixed. There could be an argument made that the way the software is developed and tested finds and fixes inconsistencies but that would have to be illustrated and not accepted as a given by statement alone.
zdragnar 5y ago
> without anyone discussing why Why does it need to be discussed? Not actively maintained says it is either "done" or abandoned. It is also a (weak) proxy for popularity, meaning if I do run into an issue an active repo means I am more likely to get help. A quick glance at the git repo shows that it has builds set up on travis that are failing, and an unanswered question in the issue tracker. Neither of these inspire confidence that it will "work great"
aaron_m04 5y ago
I think the assumption is that all software developers produce output of equal quality.

by api 5y ago

adwn 5y ago

Because programming languages are different from regular software: for a programming language to be useful, it needs an ecosystem of libraries, package management, and IDE support. It's not the 80s anymore, when everyone wrote their own libraries anyway, maybe shared them with friends or colleagues, and didn't expect anything beyond a small standard library. Today, a new language has a small window of a few years, after which it either achieves escape velocity, or re-enters the atmosphere and burns up. A new language which hasn't received major updates for two years, is effectively dead. It's a social phenomenon, not a technical one.

karmakaze 5y ago

I can make a guess why this might matter. For something that's not already widely used, we start with the premise that it is not finished in that it hasn't been exercised enough to know it is. With that a lack of activity indicates that edges are not being found and fixed. There could be an argument made that the way the software is developed and tested finds and fixes inconsistencies but that would have to be illustrated and not accepted as a given by statement alone.

zdragnar 5y ago

> without anyone discussing why Why does it need to be discussed? Not actively maintained says it is either "done" or abandoned. It is also a (weak) proxy for popularity, meaning if I do run into an issue an active repo means I am more likely to get help. A quick glance at the git repo shows that it has builds set up on travis that are failing, and an unanswered question in the issue tracker. Neither of these inspire confidence that it will "work great"

aaron_m04 5y ago

I think the assumption is that all software developers produce output of equal quality.