5 ms·

Coding must be fun, using code too. Guys did right. This whole idea of opensource having to be coldstone serious is only because of corporations running it. But

by larodi 2y ago

Coding must be fun, using code too. Guys did right. This whole idea of opensource having to be coldstone serious is only because of corporations running it. But you see, when a program is being written by myself and my brov, I'd put easter eggs all over it, just ot remind people there were people on the other end of the line.

Etheryte 2y ago
Yeah, definitely agreed, there's few things as fun and satisfying as a well hid easter egg. Doubly so if what you're working on is surrounded by a lot of red tape. My personal favorite is a Rick Roll I managed to hide in the source code of a government application I helped fix years ago on a consulting gig. The only way you'd find it is if you're a developer working on a very specific subsystem, but if you do find it, you'll know why it's there from the context.
bauerd 2y ago
>I'd put easter eggs all over it, just ot remind people there were people on the other end of the line Most people won't come across your Easter egg since it's hidden. The ones that do encounter it will likely stumble over it, as did the OP, who had their CI pipeline broken. I think easter eggs are a poor tool to "remind people there were people on the other end of the line". Edit: at least outside of entertainment software
- fkyoureadthedoc 2y ago
  Oh no, anything but the pipeline run!
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  If your build pipeline depends on "man -w" and you don't work on man, the easter egg wasn't the problem.
  - rendall 2y ago
    Agreed. I'm really trying but failing to come up with a non-screwed-up scenario where this Easter egg legitimately breaks a well-planned testing suite.
  - Denvercoder9 2y ago
    I guess you could have an integration test that validates that your installer puts the man pages in a directory that man searches in? It's a bit far-fetched but also not entirely outlandish.
- Nifty3929 2y ago
  This! Is it illegal to have a sense of humor or something? Must everything be serious, when the consequences are essentially zero? Some of these old easter eggs are great, and I don't think we do enough of that anymore.
- seabass 2y ago
  Running `man` without any arguments is a fine place to put an easter egg, though. I'm glad this at least stayed there and was only removed from `man -w`.
morning-coffee 2y ago
One man's funny easter egg is another man's non-deterministic trigger for errant behavior in their workflow with possible real-world consequences, I suppose... Yet another reason I have a hard time trusting software that is the product of integrating many disparate pieces with different engineering processes into something used in any life-safety or mission-critical application.
- kibwen 2y ago
  If you want serious software, then pay for it. If you want free-as-in-beer software, you'll take what I give you, easter eggs and all. Anything else is just entitlement.
  - chgs 2y ago
    Absolutely, if you’re precious about it review the code, remove the lines, and away you go. Your pipeline will error with an unexpected result from man, you can grep the man code for “gimme” and remove it in 2 minutes, far quicker than reading a man page. I miss the Linux world of the 90s before all the money grabbers came. I accept I’m in a tiny minority, and that would be fine. Sadly corporate interests overwhelm the ecosystem now.
  - retsibsi 2y ago
    You can have, and share, opinions about a thing without feeling that you're 'entitled' to have it conform to your wishes! I'll take it or leave it, but I'll also feel free to say what I think about it (within bounds of politeness and decency).
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    I wonder how many paid for Linux distributions patched this out? As surely they have reviewed all pieces of code for exactly this sort of malicious behaviour.
  - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
    I have skepticism for anything that has a free/paid tier. The reduced functionality version has typically been gimped in a way that doesn't make much sense. You end up with cases where the button for the paid functionality is just missing so users don't even know that the thing is possible... and other such problems. It ends up feeling rather 1984. But I'd respect a maintainer who had a paid tier which differed in some kind of goofy way: - the free version does something goofy at 11:11, but works fine otherwise - the paid version is identical to the free version, but it doesn't do anything goofy at 11:11 Of course it would be trivial to just do this: if time.now() == time(hours=11, minutes=11): sleep(60) freeversion() But if you've got a pipeline which absolutely must not fail then you should probably be paying the maintainer. Hacking around the easter egg would hopefully feel enough like an admission of guilt to just talk your boss into paying.

by larodi 2y ago

Etheryte 2y ago

Yeah, definitely agreed, there's few things as fun and satisfying as a well hid easter egg. Doubly so if what you're working on is surrounded by a lot of red tape. My personal favorite is a Rick Roll I managed to hide in the source code of a government application I helped fix years ago on a consulting gig. The only way you'd find it is if you're a developer working on a very specific subsystem, but if you do find it, you'll know why it's there from the context.

bauerd 2y ago

>I'd put easter eggs all over it, just ot remind people there were people on the other end of the line Most people won't come across your Easter egg since it's hidden. The ones that do encounter it will likely stumble over it, as did the OP, who had their CI pipeline broken. I think easter eggs are a poor tool to "remind people there were people on the other end of the line". Edit: at least outside of entertainment software

fkyoureadthedoc 2y ago
Oh no, anything but the pipeline run!
mrguyorama 2y ago
If your build pipeline depends on "man -w" and you don't work on man, the easter egg wasn't the problem.
- rendall 2y ago
  Agreed. I'm really trying but failing to come up with a non-screwed-up scenario where this Easter egg legitimately breaks a well-planned testing suite.
- Denvercoder9 2y ago
  I guess you could have an integration test that validates that your installer puts the man pages in a directory that man searches in? It's a bit far-fetched but also not entirely outlandish.
Nifty3929 2y ago
This! Is it illegal to have a sense of humor or something? Must everything be serious, when the consequences are essentially zero? Some of these old easter eggs are great, and I don't think we do enough of that anymore.
seabass 2y ago
Running `man` without any arguments is a fine place to put an easter egg, though. I'm glad this at least stayed there and was only removed from `man -w`.

morning-coffee 2y ago

One man's funny easter egg is another man's non-deterministic trigger for errant behavior in their workflow with possible real-world consequences, I suppose... Yet another reason I have a hard time trusting software that is the product of integrating many disparate pieces with different engineering processes into something used in any life-safety or mission-critical application.

kibwen 2y ago
If you want serious software, then pay for it. If you want free-as-in-beer software, you'll take what I give you, easter eggs and all. Anything else is just entitlement.
- chgs 2y ago
  Absolutely, if you’re precious about it review the code, remove the lines, and away you go. Your pipeline will error with an unexpected result from man, you can grep the man code for “gimme” and remove it in 2 minutes, far quicker than reading a man page. I miss the Linux world of the 90s before all the money grabbers came. I accept I’m in a tiny minority, and that would be fine. Sadly corporate interests overwhelm the ecosystem now.
- retsibsi 2y ago
  You can have, and share, opinions about a thing without feeling that you're 'entitled' to have it conform to your wishes! I'll take it or leave it, but I'll also feel free to say what I think about it (within bounds of politeness and decency).
- Ekaros 2y ago
  I wonder how many paid for Linux distributions patched this out? As surely they have reviewed all pieces of code for exactly this sort of malicious behaviour.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  I have skepticism for anything that has a free/paid tier. The reduced functionality version has typically been gimped in a way that doesn't make much sense. You end up with cases where the button for the paid functionality is just missing so users don't even know that the thing is possible... and other such problems. It ends up feeling rather 1984. But I'd respect a maintainer who had a paid tier which differed in some kind of goofy way: - the free version does something goofy at 11:11, but works fine otherwise - the paid version is identical to the free version, but it doesn't do anything goofy at 11:11 Of course it would be trivial to just do this: if time.now() == time(hours=11, minutes=11): sleep(60) freeversion() But if you've got a pipeline which absolutely must not fail then you should probably be paying the maintainer. Hacking around the easter egg would hopefully feel enough like an admission of guilt to just talk your boss into paying.