3 ms·

Somehow we managed to create very high quality software before all this telemetry being larded all over every single thing. Languages like Go have enormous tes

by api 4y ago

Somehow we managed to create very high quality software before all this telemetry being larded all over every single thing. Languages like Go have enormous test code bases with unit tests to ensure that every corner of the language is compiled and executes correctly. We don't need gobs of telemetry to phone home about how people are using a compiler.

lamontcg 4y ago
There's no guarantee that for some tests that anyone is actually using the edge case, and there's never 100% coverage. The tests are the map, the actual use of the language is the terrain. The map is assembled largely by blindly guessing what the terrain is likely to look like. That isn't very scientific. The result is a situation where users will scream at the language authors if they break something, but they'll refuse to share any information about what they're actually doing with the language, which is perverse.
- api 4y ago
  Absolute nonsense. Go is an unbelievably simple straightforward language, and any mature language always has exhaustive test suites to exercise implementations of it. There are numerous compilers for C++, one of the hariest languages around, that were developed with no telemetry and work just fine and cover the entire language spec. Some of these compilers like G++ and Clang++ manage to target many different architectures with very few issues. The obsession with telemetry is a mix of laziness and I strongly suspect user-hostile surveillance motives. We're just going to have to lock down OSes. Giving any application carte blanche network access is like when apps had open access to all of system RAM and the whole filesystem back in the MS-DOS / Windows 3.x days. Maybe unauthorized (by the user) telemetry should be like invalid memory access and trigger something akin to SIGSEGV. That'll send a message.

3 ms·

Somehow we managed to create very high quality software before all this telemetry being larded all over every single thing. Languages like Go have enormous tes

by api 4y ago

lamontcg 4y ago
There's no guarantee that for some tests that anyone is actually using the edge case, and there's never 100% coverage. The tests are the map, the actual use of the language is the terrain. The map is assembled largely by blindly guessing what the terrain is likely to look like. That isn't very scientific. The result is a situation where users will scream at the language authors if they break something, but they'll refuse to share any information about what they're actually doing with the language, which is perverse.
- api 4y ago
  Absolute nonsense. Go is an unbelievably simple straightforward language, and any mature language always has exhaustive test suites to exercise implementations of it. There are numerous compilers for C++, one of the hariest languages around, that were developed with no telemetry and work just fine and cover the entire language spec. Some of these compilers like G++ and Clang++ manage to target many different architectures with very few issues. The obsession with telemetry is a mix of laziness and I strongly suspect user-hostile surveillance motives. We're just going to have to lock down OSes. Giving any application carte blanche network access is like when apps had open access to all of system RAM and the whole filesystem back in the MS-DOS / Windows 3.x days. Maybe unauthorized (by the user) telemetry should be like invalid memory access and trigger something akin to SIGSEGV. That'll send a message.