4 ms·

If nobody has the repo checked out, what are the odds it's important?

bryant 1y ago
> If nobody has the repo checked out, what are the odds it's important? Oh boy. Tons of apps in maintenance mode run critical infrastructure and see few commits in a year.
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  And the people using it multiple times a year delete it afterwards?
  - RealStickman_ 1y ago
    relying on random local copies as a backup strategy is not a strategy.
    - bufferoverflow 1y ago
      [dead]
  - bryant 1y ago
    > And the people using it multiple times a year delete it afterwards? The people wouldn't, but in the environments I'm thinking of, security policies might. What you're leaning into is a high-risk backup strategy that would rely mostly on luck to get something remotely close to the current version back online. It's pretty reckless.
    - darkwater 1y ago
      > The people wouldn't, but in the environments I'm thinking of, security policies might. In environments that go so far (deleting local checkouts of code out of security concerns), I bet they do have a mirror/copy of the version controlled code.
  - Lammy 1y ago
    More like “none of the people who worked on it are at the company any more”
  - shakna 1y ago
    They often only have a binary that you would have to reverse engineer. Source code gets lost. To step outside just utility programs, the reason why Command & Conquer didn't have a remaster was: > I'm not going to get into this conversation, but I feel this needs to be answered. During this project of getting the games on Steam, no source code from any legacy games showed up in the archives.
NewJazz 1y ago
Devs clean up their workstation sometimes. You can get fancy about deleting build artifacts or just remove the whole directory. Devs move to new machines sometimes and don't always transfer everything. Devs leave. Software still runs, and if you don't have the source then you'll only have the binary or other build artifact.
OutOfHere 1y ago
You clearly haven't worked much with code over many years. When laptops change, not all existing projects get checked out. In fact, in VSCode, one can use a project without cloning and checking it out at all.
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  Honestly I'm just really wondering what the odds are. In particular for code that made it onto git.
  - OutOfHere 1y ago
    Over the long term, the odds reach 100% that it won't be checked out. That's because people mostly only work on newer projects. As for mature older projects, even if they're running in production, cease to see many/any updates, and so they don't get cloned on to newer laptops. This doesn't mean that the older projects are now less important, because if they ever need to be re-deployed to production, only the source code will allow it.
  - CRConrad 1y ago
    > In particular for code that made it onto git. By “onto git”, do you mean “onto GitHub”? I really wish people would stop conflating the two. In fact, I can't tell whether this confusion is just another symptom of, or a (major?) part of the reason for, why we're in the mess we're in.
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      I do not mean that, and I was not conflating anything. Just making and committing to a repo at all is a step that implies a certain level of caretaking.
burnt-resistor 1y ago
Popularity != importance. There is plenty of absolutely critical FOSS code that receives very little maintenance and attention, yet is mission critical to society functioning efficiently. And the same happens in organizations too, with say their bootloader for firmware of hardware products.

> If nobody has the repo checked out, what are the odds it's important? Oh boy. Tons of apps in maintenance mode run critical infrastructure and see few commits in a year.

Dylan16807 1y ago
And the people using it multiple times a year delete it afterwards?
- RealStickman_ 1y ago
  relying on random local copies as a backup strategy is not a strategy.
  - bufferoverflow 1y ago
    [dead]
- bryant 1y ago
  > And the people using it multiple times a year delete it afterwards? The people wouldn't, but in the environments I'm thinking of, security policies might. What you're leaning into is a high-risk backup strategy that would rely mostly on luck to get something remotely close to the current version back online. It's pretty reckless.
  - darkwater 1y ago
    > The people wouldn't, but in the environments I'm thinking of, security policies might. In environments that go so far (deleting local checkouts of code out of security concerns), I bet they do have a mirror/copy of the version controlled code.
- Lammy 1y ago
  More like “none of the people who worked on it are at the company any more”
- shakna 1y ago
  They often only have a binary that you would have to reverse engineer. Source code gets lost. To step outside just utility programs, the reason why Command & Conquer didn't have a remaster was: > I'm not going to get into this conversation, but I feel this needs to be answered. During this project of getting the games on Steam, no source code from any legacy games showed up in the archives.

NewJazz 1y ago

Devs clean up their workstation sometimes. You can get fancy about deleting build artifacts or just remove the whole directory. Devs move to new machines sometimes and don't always transfer everything. Devs leave. Software still runs, and if you don't have the source then you'll only have the binary or other build artifact.

OutOfHere 1y ago

You clearly haven't worked much with code over many years. When laptops change, not all existing projects get checked out. In fact, in VSCode, one can use a project without cloning and checking it out at all.

Dylan16807 1y ago
Honestly I'm just really wondering what the odds are. In particular for code that made it onto git.
- OutOfHere 1y ago
  Over the long term, the odds reach 100% that it won't be checked out. That's because people mostly only work on newer projects. As for mature older projects, even if they're running in production, cease to see many/any updates, and so they don't get cloned on to newer laptops. This doesn't mean that the older projects are now less important, because if they ever need to be re-deployed to production, only the source code will allow it.
- CRConrad 1y ago
  > In particular for code that made it onto git. By “onto git”, do you mean “onto GitHub”? I really wish people would stop conflating the two. In fact, I can't tell whether this confusion is just another symptom of, or a (major?) part of the reason for, why we're in the mess we're in.
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    I do not mean that, and I was not conflating anything. Just making and committing to a repo at all is a step that implies a certain level of caretaking.

burnt-resistor 1y ago

Popularity != importance. There is plenty of absolutely critical FOSS code that receives very little maintenance and attention, yet is mission critical to society functioning efficiently. And the same happens in organizations too, with say their bootloader for firmware of hardware products.