4 ms·

I have always been of the same opinion, which I formed years ago helping with Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead development: "development by bounty" leads to inevitabl

by drbig 3y ago

I have always been of the same opinion, which I formed years ago helping with Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead development: "development by bounty" leads to inevitable "(un)designed by a whale", i.e. a few with cash to spend on such things enforcing whatever they _feel they will like_ on everybody else. The notion of a coherent whole, whether it's a game or anything else, doesn't really go well with "voting with wallets". The article points out the more strictly technical aspects with which I agree as well, just that to me they are like worrying about pain when you have a bleeding artery. Perhaps if "design by committee" is one obviously bad end of a spectrum, I propose "designed by bounty program" as another (and I'm not saying that the space here is one-dimensional). Bug bounty programs on the other hand are excellent, so it also isn't that "bounty" is inherently bad. Discovery vs design.

Valodim 3y ago
This seems to assume that people actually put up bounties that get any serious amount of work done. If that is the case, I missed it.
- drbig 3y ago
  Yes. It assumes the asymptotic end condition, because to me that is the only reasonable way to judge such policies. Cases of "nothing was done because bounties weren't interesting", or "we had a feature bounty program and it done awesome!" are, for the purpose of my analysis and thus opinion formation, only more or less happy exceptions (hypothetical or real).
swagmoney1606 3y ago
Your comment posed a very interesting question to me, so I took the time to think of some other points in this multi-dimensional space of terrible software engineering. Here are some other terrible design systems: - Design by lottery (Single winners of a quarterly lottery dictate all decisions for that quarter) - Design by deliriant (same as design by committee, but all members of the committee must take Datura before making decisions (probably deeply unethical and problematic, but we're going for the worst possible here)) - Design by Anarchy (Literally anyone can commit straight to the main branch without any checks) - Design by Ouija Board (Committee members MUST consult a Ouija board before making decisions ) - Design by mob (A real-time public forum, accessible to anyone, can propose/vote up or down potential features or code changes. Highest votes within a 24-hour window are implemented immediately. Allows and even encourages raids from random sites like 4chan or corporate entities) - Design by Dog (Various options are written down on pieces of paper, scattered on the floor, and the pet's choice is determined by whichever piece it first sits or stands on. (In this alternate reality, our dog STILL hasn't decided to patch log4j. God help us.)) - Design by randomly-elected outsourced labor (Decisions are outsourced to the lowest bidder on freelance job platforms, regardless of their experience or skill level.) These are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head. Lowkey it'd be hilarious to try and build actual software with these, just for fun.
jstarfish 3y ago
How did you see that impact development of CDDA?
- drbig 3y ago
  I didn't really either way. Which given a) how long ago that was and, b) I specifically declined to look at bounties - the only thing I'm close to being sure about is that I don't remember any drama nor ruin from that.

by drbig 3y ago

Valodim 3y ago

This seems to assume that people actually put up bounties that get any serious amount of work done. If that is the case, I missed it.

drbig 3y ago
Yes. It assumes the asymptotic end condition, because to me that is the only reasonable way to judge such policies. Cases of "nothing was done because bounties weren't interesting", or "we had a feature bounty program and it done awesome!" are, for the purpose of my analysis and thus opinion formation, only more or less happy exceptions (hypothetical or real).

swagmoney1606 3y ago

Your comment posed a very interesting question to me, so I took the time to think of some other points in this multi-dimensional space of terrible software engineering. Here are some other terrible design systems: - Design by lottery (Single winners of a quarterly lottery dictate all decisions for that quarter) - Design by deliriant (same as design by committee, but all members of the committee must take Datura before making decisions (probably deeply unethical and problematic, but we're going for the worst possible here)) - Design by Anarchy (Literally anyone can commit straight to the main branch without any checks) - Design by Ouija Board (Committee members MUST consult a Ouija board before making decisions ) - Design by mob (A real-time public forum, accessible to anyone, can propose/vote up or down potential features or code changes. Highest votes within a 24-hour window are implemented immediately. Allows and even encourages raids from random sites like 4chan or corporate entities) - Design by Dog (Various options are written down on pieces of paper, scattered on the floor, and the pet's choice is determined by whichever piece it first sits or stands on. (In this alternate reality, our dog STILL hasn't decided to patch log4j. God help us.)) - Design by randomly-elected outsourced labor (Decisions are outsourced to the lowest bidder on freelance job platforms, regardless of their experience or skill level.) These are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head. Lowkey it'd be hilarious to try and build actual software with these, just for fun.

jstarfish 3y ago

How did you see that impact development of CDDA?

drbig 3y ago
I didn't really either way. Which given a) how long ago that was and, b) I specifically declined to look at bounties - the only thing I'm close to being sure about is that I don't remember any drama nor ruin from that.