5 ms·

I would disagree with that sentiment for every single item on that list. All those tools are amazing and have improved steadily over decades and I would absolut

I would disagree with that sentiment for every single item on that list. All those tools are amazing and have improved steadily over decades and I would absolutely put them in the “great engineering” category.

throw10920 4y ago
GNU utils are incredibly primitive and their text-driven APIs are fragile and cause tons of issues in shell scripting. I love Emacs, but it's a slow, crufty mess. Vim is a huge pile of code with a lot of complexity in its codebase and hilariously bad design decisions like VimScript. Apache is a mess from a security perspective (1.7k listed CVEs[1]), and still slower than Nginx. Want to guess at the amount of lost productivity due to Apache vulnerabilities? [1] https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-45/Apache.html https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-45/A...
- froh 4y ago
  What would be counterexamples to that, i.e. great engineering? FOSS possibly?
  - nextos 4y ago
    seL4. Simple and formally verified. I think it's time to pour VC money on a fully verified stack. Perhaps not everything needs to be proven, integrity for some components can be ensured more informally with e.g. refinement types. Lots of governments and organizations need more robust software.
    - turminal 4y ago
      seL4 is great in theory, and formal verification is awesome, but I read some of their code recently the implementation leaves something to be desired.
    - sbierwagen 4y ago
      >I think it's time to pour VC money on a fully verified stack. While it's true that VCs spend lots of money, you do actually need some plausible-ish excuse for how you could make money on it at some point in the future. It's not like VCs are out here funding public parks or charity hospitals. They fund for-profit businesses. People did sell operating systems in the 1990s, but I'm not sure if that's a strong market in the 2020s. How are you going to 10x a VC investment in basic software tools?
      - nextos 4y ago
        I guess selling secure and verified devices. AdaCore is doing it. My point is that it can be a very profitable niche, not that VCs fund it pro bono.
  - turminal 4y ago
    Postgres is some awesome engineering imo
  - froh 4y ago
    Fossy and SQLite are engineering marvels.
  - throw10920 4y ago
    Oh, there are lots of great FOSS counterexamples - the Linux kernel, Postgres, and SQLite are three easy ones. I'm not claiming that good engineering doesn't exist or that there aren't amazing FOSS tools, I just take issue with that ideas that either (a) all FOSS tools are great or (b) the FOSS model is somehow able to produce quality tools in a way that the proprietary model is not (or substitute "bazaar" and "cathedral" models if you wish). The vast majority of software sucks, and I'm not sure that FOSS software even sucks less on average.

throw10920 4y ago

GNU utils are incredibly primitive and their text-driven APIs are fragile and cause tons of issues in shell scripting. I love Emacs, but it's a slow, crufty mess. Vim is a huge pile of code with a lot of complexity in its codebase and hilariously bad design decisions like VimScript. Apache is a mess from a security perspective (1.7k listed CVEs[1]), and still slower than Nginx. Want to guess at the amount of lost productivity due to Apache vulnerabilities? [1] https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-45/Apache.html https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-45/A...

froh 4y ago
What would be counterexamples to that, i.e. great engineering? FOSS possibly?
- nextos 4y ago
  seL4. Simple and formally verified. I think it's time to pour VC money on a fully verified stack. Perhaps not everything needs to be proven, integrity for some components can be ensured more informally with e.g. refinement types. Lots of governments and organizations need more robust software.
  - turminal 4y ago
    seL4 is great in theory, and formal verification is awesome, but I read some of their code recently the implementation leaves something to be desired.
  - sbierwagen 4y ago
    >I think it's time to pour VC money on a fully verified stack. While it's true that VCs spend lots of money, you do actually need some plausible-ish excuse for how you could make money on it at some point in the future. It's not like VCs are out here funding public parks or charity hospitals. They fund for-profit businesses. People did sell operating systems in the 1990s, but I'm not sure if that's a strong market in the 2020s. How are you going to 10x a VC investment in basic software tools?
    - nextos 4y ago
      I guess selling secure and verified devices. AdaCore is doing it. My point is that it can be a very profitable niche, not that VCs fund it pro bono.
- turminal 4y ago
  Postgres is some awesome engineering imo
- froh 4y ago
  Fossy and SQLite are engineering marvels.
- throw10920 4y ago
  Oh, there are lots of great FOSS counterexamples - the Linux kernel, Postgres, and SQLite are three easy ones. I'm not claiming that good engineering doesn't exist or that there aren't amazing FOSS tools, I just take issue with that ideas that either (a) all FOSS tools are great or (b) the FOSS model is somehow able to produce quality tools in a way that the proprietary model is not (or substitute "bazaar" and "cathedral" models if you wish). The vast majority of software sucks, and I'm not sure that FOSS software even sucks less on average.