4 ms·

> If ypur car's engine breaks, it's usually petty localized I think your point here is that typically with software, changing one line of code means that you n

> If ypur car's engine breaks, it's usually petty localized I think your point here is that typically with software, changing one line of code means that you need to rebuild the entire executable. Your analogy breaks down pretty fast, though. While fixing one thing on a car _never_ requires totally rebuilding the thing from scratch, there are still tons of interlocking dependencies and architectural challenges that can impact the time/complexity required to change out a part. (See the effort required in most vehicles to change simple wear items such as a timing chain or a water pump....) In my experience of software, most of the "rebuild pain" is self-inflicted by the project maintainers (poor automation/containerization of the build process). Software has the luxury of abstraction and automation that can reduce the build effort required from an individual in ways that a mechanic could only dream of!

nine_k 3y ago
I agree: the pain of rebuilding characteristic to large software is not inherent to software in general. Software can be highly modular, allowing for fast and flexible changes of many important parts. You don't have to rebuild a Linux or Windows kernel to update a driver; usually you don't even need to reboot it. But Firefox specifically, and a few other old, large, and highly multiplatform projects had more important things to do than to make building them easy, and in doing so made contributing to them harder. It's like a Honda Civic vs some Jaguar.
chongli 3y ago
Your analogy breaks down pretty fast, though Yeah this analogy doesn't make sense to me. My dad has seen head gaskets fail on multiple previous cars of his. Each time, the labour cost to replace the head gasket (a fairly cheap part) exceeded the value of the car, so he sold it to a scrapyard instead of ordering the repair. Software does not have anything remotely analogous to this. One small bug somehow requiring you to throw out the entire codebase and start over from scratch?
- lelanthran 3y ago
  > Your analogy breaks down pretty fast, though > Yeah this analogy doesn't make sense to me. My dad has seen head gaskets fail on multiple previous cars of his. Each time, the labour cost to replace the head gasket (a fairly cheap part) exceeded the value of the car, so he sold it to a scrapyard instead of ordering the repair. The key word there is labour. I change my own headgaskets. Giving up a Sunday (which is not worth money to me) to replace the head gasket is analogous to me giving up a Sunday to track down and fix a software annoyance to me (yes, I've committed fixes to a few open source projects). So the analogy does sorta fit, for opensource anyway.

nine_k 3y ago

I agree: the pain of rebuilding characteristic to large software is not inherent to software in general. Software can be highly modular, allowing for fast and flexible changes of many important parts. You don't have to rebuild a Linux or Windows kernel to update a driver; usually you don't even need to reboot it. But Firefox specifically, and a few other old, large, and highly multiplatform projects had more important things to do than to make building them easy, and in doing so made contributing to them harder. It's like a Honda Civic vs some Jaguar.

chongli 3y ago

Your analogy breaks down pretty fast, though Yeah this analogy doesn't make sense to me. My dad has seen head gaskets fail on multiple previous cars of his. Each time, the labour cost to replace the head gasket (a fairly cheap part) exceeded the value of the car, so he sold it to a scrapyard instead of ordering the repair. Software does not have anything remotely analogous to this. One small bug somehow requiring you to throw out the entire codebase and start over from scratch?

lelanthran 3y ago
> Your analogy breaks down pretty fast, though > Yeah this analogy doesn't make sense to me. My dad has seen head gaskets fail on multiple previous cars of his. Each time, the labour cost to replace the head gasket (a fairly cheap part) exceeded the value of the car, so he sold it to a scrapyard instead of ordering the repair. The key word there is labour. I change my own headgaskets. Giving up a Sunday (which is not worth money to me) to replace the head gasket is analogous to me giving up a Sunday to track down and fix a software annoyance to me (yes, I've committed fixes to a few open source projects). So the analogy does sorta fit, for opensource anyway.