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I mean, these are fair questions if you’re the library maintainer :)

stavros 10mo ago
Before LLMs, did you ask maintainers how much of the code they wrote themselves, vs how much of it did someone else write, and how well they reviewed the code? Because I haven't seen this ever, everyone just went by "does this library work for me? If not, I'll fix it or stop using it". It's only now, with LLMs, and particularly on HN that we're so all up in arms about authorship all of a sudden.
- latexr 10mo ago
  > and how well they reviewed the code? Yes! It’s insane to not worry about how well a maintainer reviews submitted code. Every semi-competent open-source developer understands that merging code they do not understand is a recipe for disaster and maintenance burden. Furthermore, they understand that not doing so is how you get malicious vulnerabilities merged. Have you truly not seen any such cases in recent memory? The fact you don’t think good reviews are important is worrying and puts into question all your repos.
  - stavros 10mo ago
    I regret sharing this, that's for sure.
    - Zetaphor 10mo ago
      I appreciate you taking the time to make this exist. Ignore the folks who just want to complain instead of bringing their own solution into existence.
      - stavros 10mo ago
        Thank you!
      - latexr 10mo ago
        Please stop assuming bad faith. I didn’t complain about anything, I asked a few questions to make an initial call on the level of engagement I’d want to have with the project. I even openly said I’d have just moved on without further reply if it was admitted to be entirely LLM generated with no review. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46364478 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46364478
        mikemcquaid 10mo ago
        If multiple people are assuming bad faith: perhaps you should adjust your communication in future rather than trying to change their mind. An apology wouldn’t hurt, either.
        latexr 10mo ago
        > If multiple people are assuming bad faith It’s not “multiple people”, I asked that of one person multiple times. And respectfully Mike, you’re not the person to be schooling others on respectful communication and requesting apologies. You are incredibly abrasive, often rude, and the reason many people avoid Homebrew altogether. You’re repeatedly criticised for “being a dick” or an “asshole” (I personally would use neither), including on HN submissions. You are very far from the paragon you are exalting. I used to defend you when I contributed more regularly to Homebrew, but as time went on I now only ever find you in contexts of trading insults and never giving an inch or admitting wrongdoing. Even when it seems you are, you always find a way to end with some subtle jab at the other person. For sure I could do better. I try and often fail, and that’s how we grow. But it is profoundly hypocritical of you to act like you are an example. No shade on most other Homebrew maintainers, though, and thank you nonetheless for all the work you do.
        mikemcquaid 10mo ago
        You will find many examples of me apologising and changing on Homebrew’s issue tracker, they just tend to not be the cases that people decide to bring up here. It’s unsurprising to me that 16 years of working on Homebrew most days has a bunch of suboptimal communication in that time. I am not perfect but also never claimed to be. Attacking my communication here doesn’t help you. I got involved in this thread after seeing someone saying they regret sharing this (interesting) project from your reaction and feeling the same way after your reaction to something I’ve shared. Feel free to ignore me as is your right.
    - mikemcquaid 10mo ago
      Don’t. It’s a cool idea and vibe coding it doesn’t make it less interesting. You don’t owe anyone anything and the mean behaviour you’re in receipt of says more about them than you.
  - Zetaphor 10mo ago
    You could always just not use it. Or better yet go write a replacement yourself by hand and make a direct comparison.
    - latexr 10mo ago
      > You could always just not use it. Yes, exactly. And the author could just answer a simple question to help us decide if we want to use it or not. That’s why I asked!
vmasto 10mo ago
Can you explain why it makes a difference what the answers are? When using an open source library assumptions should be: - The code does what it advertises. - The owner is responsible for the functionality. - The owner's reputation is based on the quality. You're making it sound that you're more sure for the above when the code is "hand-written" than LLM-driven. Why exactly? Do you tend to deeply understand the strengths and limitations of every coder whose software you're using in your projects? As long as the owner is responsible for the quality of a project why does it matter how it was executed?
- latexr 10mo ago
  > Can you explain why it makes a difference what the answers are? You answered it yourself: > the owner is responsible for the quality of a project If you didn’t write, review, or understand the code, then you cannot be responsible for its quality. If you don’t have the skills to write it by hand and understand it, you don’t have to skills to properly address bug reports or understand and prevent malicious submissions. All of those are legitimate concerns and considerations when deciding if you want to invest your time in a project. Honestly, if the author had responded “I vibe coded it and didn’t review any of it, but it’s been working for me for <however long>”, that would’ve been fine. It would have been a clear, honest answer that would let everyone decide how they want to proceed.
  - stavros 10mo ago
    No, I disagree with the premise, that's why I don't want to answer. I am responsible for the quality of the project by virtue of publishing it, not because I wrote it in a way you agree or disagree with. Your questions are irrelevant. The only thing that's relevant is whether my name is on the repo or not. If I didn't think it's good enough to release, I'd say something like "I vibe-coded this and didn't check it, use at your own peril". How much of the code I understand and how much an LLM wrote is entirely irrelevant.
    - latexr 10mo ago
      > No, I disagree with the premise What premise?! I made general questions that I want to know for myself. They were questions, not accusations. The fact you saw then as such says something about you, not me. You flipped out for no reason. > that's why I don't want to answer. Then you could’ve said that too, instead of dismissing it with a sketch and lamenting without any clarification. > Your questions are irrelevant. That’s not for you to decide. Silly example: Imagine you have a peanut allergy and go to a restaurant. You ask the waiter if some dessert has peanuts in it and they answer “that is irrelevant”. Questions are relevant to the asker. You didn’t even try to understand why I made the questions, you simply assumed bad faith. > If I didn't think it's good enough to release, I'd say something like "I vibe-coded this and didn't check it, use at your own peril". And how is anyone supposed to know you’d do or not do that? If you had been upfront about using LLMs from the start, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. > How much of the code I understand and how much an LLM wrote is entirely irrelevant. No, no it is not. It may be irrelevant to you, but it’s not to everyone else. You don’t get to decide what other people think is relevant.

Before LLMs, did you ask maintainers how much of the code they wrote themselves, vs how much of it did someone else write, and how well they reviewed the code? Because I haven't seen this ever, everyone just went by "does this library work for me? If not, I'll fix it or stop using it". It's only now, with LLMs, and particularly on HN that we're so all up in arms about authorship all of a sudden.

latexr 10mo ago
> and how well they reviewed the code? Yes! It’s insane to not worry about how well a maintainer reviews submitted code. Every semi-competent open-source developer understands that merging code they do not understand is a recipe for disaster and maintenance burden. Furthermore, they understand that not doing so is how you get malicious vulnerabilities merged. Have you truly not seen any such cases in recent memory? The fact you don’t think good reviews are important is worrying and puts into question all your repos.
- stavros 10mo ago
  I regret sharing this, that's for sure.
  - Zetaphor 10mo ago
    I appreciate you taking the time to make this exist. Ignore the folks who just want to complain instead of bringing their own solution into existence.
    - stavros 10mo ago
      Thank you!
    - latexr 10mo ago
      Please stop assuming bad faith. I didn’t complain about anything, I asked a few questions to make an initial call on the level of engagement I’d want to have with the project. I even openly said I’d have just moved on without further reply if it was admitted to be entirely LLM generated with no review. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46364478 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46364478
      - mikemcquaid 10mo ago
        If multiple people are assuming bad faith: perhaps you should adjust your communication in future rather than trying to change their mind. An apology wouldn’t hurt, either.
        latexr 10mo ago
        > If multiple people are assuming bad faith It’s not “multiple people”, I asked that of one person multiple times. And respectfully Mike, you’re not the person to be schooling others on respectful communication and requesting apologies. You are incredibly abrasive, often rude, and the reason many people avoid Homebrew altogether. You’re repeatedly criticised for “being a dick” or an “asshole” (I personally would use neither), including on HN submissions. You are very far from the paragon you are exalting. I used to defend you when I contributed more regularly to Homebrew, but as time went on I now only ever find you in contexts of trading insults and never giving an inch or admitting wrongdoing. Even when it seems you are, you always find a way to end with some subtle jab at the other person. For sure I could do better. I try and often fail, and that’s how we grow. But it is profoundly hypocritical of you to act like you are an example. No shade on most other Homebrew maintainers, though, and thank you nonetheless for all the work you do.
        mikemcquaid 10mo ago
        You will find many examples of me apologising and changing on Homebrew’s issue tracker, they just tend to not be the cases that people decide to bring up here. It’s unsurprising to me that 16 years of working on Homebrew most days has a bunch of suboptimal communication in that time. I am not perfect but also never claimed to be. Attacking my communication here doesn’t help you. I got involved in this thread after seeing someone saying they regret sharing this (interesting) project from your reaction and feeling the same way after your reaction to something I’ve shared. Feel free to ignore me as is your right.
  - mikemcquaid 10mo ago
    Don’t. It’s a cool idea and vibe coding it doesn’t make it less interesting. You don’t owe anyone anything and the mean behaviour you’re in receipt of says more about them than you.
- Zetaphor 10mo ago
  You could always just not use it. Or better yet go write a replacement yourself by hand and make a direct comparison.
  - latexr 10mo ago
    > You could always just not use it. Yes, exactly. And the author could just answer a simple question to help us decide if we want to use it or not. That’s why I asked!

vmasto 10mo ago

Can you explain why it makes a difference what the answers are? When using an open source library assumptions should be: - The code does what it advertises. - The owner is responsible for the functionality. - The owner's reputation is based on the quality. You're making it sound that you're more sure for the above when the code is "hand-written" than LLM-driven. Why exactly? Do you tend to deeply understand the strengths and limitations of every coder whose software you're using in your projects? As long as the owner is responsible for the quality of a project why does it matter how it was executed?

latexr 10mo ago
> Can you explain why it makes a difference what the answers are? You answered it yourself: > the owner is responsible for the quality of a project If you didn’t write, review, or understand the code, then you cannot be responsible for its quality. If you don’t have the skills to write it by hand and understand it, you don’t have to skills to properly address bug reports or understand and prevent malicious submissions. All of those are legitimate concerns and considerations when deciding if you want to invest your time in a project. Honestly, if the author had responded “I vibe coded it and didn’t review any of it, but it’s been working for me for <however long>”, that would’ve been fine. It would have been a clear, honest answer that would let everyone decide how they want to proceed.
- stavros 10mo ago
  No, I disagree with the premise, that's why I don't want to answer. I am responsible for the quality of the project by virtue of publishing it, not because I wrote it in a way you agree or disagree with. Your questions are irrelevant. The only thing that's relevant is whether my name is on the repo or not. If I didn't think it's good enough to release, I'd say something like "I vibe-coded this and didn't check it, use at your own peril". How much of the code I understand and how much an LLM wrote is entirely irrelevant.
  - latexr 10mo ago
    > No, I disagree with the premise What premise?! I made general questions that I want to know for myself. They were questions, not accusations. The fact you saw then as such says something about you, not me. You flipped out for no reason. > that's why I don't want to answer. Then you could’ve said that too, instead of dismissing it with a sketch and lamenting without any clarification. > Your questions are irrelevant. That’s not for you to decide. Silly example: Imagine you have a peanut allergy and go to a restaurant. You ask the waiter if some dessert has peanuts in it and they answer “that is irrelevant”. Questions are relevant to the asker. You didn’t even try to understand why I made the questions, you simply assumed bad faith. > If I didn't think it's good enough to release, I'd say something like "I vibe-coded this and didn't check it, use at your own peril". And how is anyone supposed to know you’d do or not do that? If you had been upfront about using LLMs from the start, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. > How much of the code I understand and how much an LLM wrote is entirely irrelevant. No, no it is not. It may be irrelevant to you, but it’s not to everyone else. You don’t get to decide what other people think is relevant.