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You, nine days ago[0]: > I work on Bun and this is my branch > This whole thread is an overreaction. 302 comments about code that does not work. We haven’t co

by tasuki 5mo ago

You, nine days ago[0]: > I work on Bun and this is my branch > This whole thread is an overreaction. 302 comments about code that does not work. We haven’t committed to rewriting. There’s a very high chance all this code gets thrown out completely. Maybe... it wasn't such an overreaction? [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48019226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48019226

camdenreslink 5mo ago
Yea, what the heck.
imenani 5mo ago
The author discussed this here four days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48077663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48077663
embedding-shape 5mo ago
You're not alone in voicing this, another (now dead) comment did it earlier too with a bit more of an emotional response (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48134229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48134229). Still, do you folks never do something to see how you feel about something, then chose to go one way or another? I'm not sure why it's so hard to see that it was an overreaction at the time, because it was an experiment, then at one point it stopped being an experiment and now they've chosen to actually run with it? Is this not a common occurrence for other people? Personally I change my mind all the time, especially based on new evidence, which usually experiments like this surface, I'm not sure I understand the whole "You said X some days ago" outrage that seems to cause people's reaction here.
- tasuki 5mo ago
  Yes sure it's ok to change your mind. But don't you think the people Jarred accused of "overreacting" in retrospect didn't?
  - embedding-shape 5mo ago
    No, what we knew then is still what was known then. Today is different, and seemingly they've committed to the rewrite, so now it makes sense that people have strong feelings about it, as it's no longer just an experiment.
    - tasuki 5mo ago
      Maybe the people who "were overreacting" just happened to have more foresight than you and me? Perhaps they saw where this was heading, and that led to their "overreaction"?
      - embedding-shape 5mo ago
        In what way? Foresight about what? It was an experiment before, regardless of people's reaction at the time doesn't make it less of an experiment back then. I feel like I'm misunderstanding this entire conversation right now.
        rcxdude 5mo ago
        The difference is an assumption of good faith, for the most part, and that is to some extent modulated by how reasonable people believe a large scale LLM and/or rust rewrite is a reasonable idea.
        tasuki 5mo ago
        > It was an experiment before, regardless of people's reaction at the time doesn't make it less of an experiment back then. I feel like I'm misunderstanding this entire conversation right now. Yes - I think I didn't explain my feelings well. But, now I understood them finally! So: It was an experiment back then. Now, nine days and a million lines later, it suddenly isn't an experiment anymore? I understand there's a comprehensive test suite (yay!) but still... a million-line diff in nine days still sounds like an experiment to me.
        wiseowise 5mo ago
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- wiseowise 5mo ago
  It's a high profile open source project. While Bun/Jarred don't owe anything to anyone, nobody should be surprised when decisions like these result in strong backlash. Imagine if Guido or Linus said a couple of days ago that they're just experimenting and then submitted and merged complete machine-assisted rewrite of CPython or Linux in Rust.
- buu700 5mo ago
  This actually happened to me a couple months ago. Started a Rust rewrite of a project as an experiment, then a few weeks later it was presented to the team and promoted to mainline. Although in that case the language change was almost incidental — the rewrite was very much not a straight 1:1 port, but more of a substantive architectural overhaul and longstanding tech debt cleanup; Rust was just one of many tools and design decisions that helped get the best possible end result. There were also various reasons it made sense to attempt a rewrite within that particular window of time. The upshot is we've ended up with a substantially stronger QA posture, a much higher-quality and more maintainable codebase, and an extremely positive audit report by a group that was brought in to review the project. There were some early kinks to work out, but the longer we've lived in this version of code the more it's proven itself to be a stronger foundation than its predecessor. Of course, Bun is its own thing and all circumstances are unique. I have no idea how that rewrite was approached, whether it was the right decision, or how it will ultimately prove itself. Just saying the shift from "experiment" to "official new direction" is normal and credible, and that I'd give it some time to see how it handles contact with reality before passing judgement. If it's truly a disaster, nothing's stopping them from reversing course and backporting any new changes to the old Zig codebase.
dannersy 5mo ago
I was down voted pretty hard for calling this comment out. I would say I'm surprised but honestly? Completely predictable.
Tesl 5mo ago
I'm really out the loop here so maybe you can help answer me a question - why is HN unhappy about this rewrite? why are people writing here almost as if they feel betrayed by Bun being rewritten from Zig into Rust? I genuinely don't get it. I've been following this Bun stuff a bit but I don't understand where the HN sentiment is coming from.
- taejavu 5mo ago
  My read is that it just seems a bit reckless doing a full rewrite so quickly.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- itishappy 5mo ago
  My read is it's less the rewrite and more the messaging around the rewrite. Nine days between "you're over-reacting" and merge is surprising, to say the least. Sure will be interesting to see that blog post!
- noelsusman 5mo ago
  Vibe coding a Rust rewrite of a widely used tool is basically catnip for the HN crowd.
  - zarzavat 5mo ago
    Not if you use that tool, then it's just scary.
    - petcat 5mo ago
      I would think the Zig implementation with 500+ issues on Bun's GitHub tracker mentioning "segfault" would be even scarier.
- sigmar 5mo ago
  posting my read (since it differs so much from the others')- there's a 'holy war' being waged by people that think LLMs shouldn't do full rewrites of software. There are various reasons people think this (think LLMs are parrots that make slop and are incapable of writing good code, have environmental concerns, or are angry that software licenses can be circumvented). I call it a 'holy war' because I think most see our current trajectory as a bit inevitable and have a strong urge to proselytize their views and chide maintainers that use LLMs in ways they don't like. Very similar angry comments happened with the discussions of the Chardet rewrite, next.js/vinext, and JSONata/gnata if you want to look at this in context.

by tasuki 5mo ago

camdenreslink 5mo ago

Yea, what the heck.

imenani 5mo ago

The author discussed this here four days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48077663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48077663

embedding-shape 5mo ago

You're not alone in voicing this, another (now dead) comment did it earlier too with a bit more of an emotional response (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48134229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48134229). Still, do you folks never do something to see how you feel about something, then chose to go one way or another? I'm not sure why it's so hard to see that it was an overreaction at the time, because it was an experiment, then at one point it stopped being an experiment and now they've chosen to actually run with it? Is this not a common occurrence for other people? Personally I change my mind all the time, especially based on new evidence, which usually experiments like this surface, I'm not sure I understand the whole "You said X some days ago" outrage that seems to cause people's reaction here.

tasuki 5mo ago
Yes sure it's ok to change your mind. But don't you think the people Jarred accused of "overreacting" in retrospect didn't?
- embedding-shape 5mo ago
  No, what we knew then is still what was known then. Today is different, and seemingly they've committed to the rewrite, so now it makes sense that people have strong feelings about it, as it's no longer just an experiment.
  - tasuki 5mo ago
    Maybe the people who "were overreacting" just happened to have more foresight than you and me? Perhaps they saw where this was heading, and that led to their "overreaction"?
    - embedding-shape 5mo ago
      In what way? Foresight about what? It was an experiment before, regardless of people's reaction at the time doesn't make it less of an experiment back then. I feel like I'm misunderstanding this entire conversation right now.
      - rcxdude 5mo ago
        The difference is an assumption of good faith, for the most part, and that is to some extent modulated by how reasonable people believe a large scale LLM and/or rust rewrite is a reasonable idea.
      - tasuki 5mo ago
        > It was an experiment before, regardless of people's reaction at the time doesn't make it less of an experiment back then. I feel like I'm misunderstanding this entire conversation right now. Yes - I think I didn't explain my feelings well. But, now I understood them finally! So: It was an experiment back then. Now, nine days and a million lines later, it suddenly isn't an experiment anymore? I understand there's a comprehensive test suite (yay!) but still... a million-line diff in nine days still sounds like an experiment to me.
      - wiseowise 5mo ago
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
wiseowise 5mo ago
It's a high profile open source project. While Bun/Jarred don't owe anything to anyone, nobody should be surprised when decisions like these result in strong backlash. Imagine if Guido or Linus said a couple of days ago that they're just experimenting and then submitted and merged complete machine-assisted rewrite of CPython or Linux in Rust.
buu700 5mo ago
This actually happened to me a couple months ago. Started a Rust rewrite of a project as an experiment, then a few weeks later it was presented to the team and promoted to mainline. Although in that case the language change was almost incidental — the rewrite was very much not a straight 1:1 port, but more of a substantive architectural overhaul and longstanding tech debt cleanup; Rust was just one of many tools and design decisions that helped get the best possible end result. There were also various reasons it made sense to attempt a rewrite within that particular window of time. The upshot is we've ended up with a substantially stronger QA posture, a much higher-quality and more maintainable codebase, and an extremely positive audit report by a group that was brought in to review the project. There were some early kinks to work out, but the longer we've lived in this version of code the more it's proven itself to be a stronger foundation than its predecessor. Of course, Bun is its own thing and all circumstances are unique. I have no idea how that rewrite was approached, whether it was the right decision, or how it will ultimately prove itself. Just saying the shift from "experiment" to "official new direction" is normal and credible, and that I'd give it some time to see how it handles contact with reality before passing judgement. If it's truly a disaster, nothing's stopping them from reversing course and backporting any new changes to the old Zig codebase.

dannersy 5mo ago

I was down voted pretty hard for calling this comment out. I would say I'm surprised but honestly? Completely predictable.

Tesl 5mo ago

I'm really out the loop here so maybe you can help answer me a question - why is HN unhappy about this rewrite? why are people writing here almost as if they feel betrayed by Bun being rewritten from Zig into Rust? I genuinely don't get it. I've been following this Bun stuff a bit but I don't understand where the HN sentiment is coming from.

taejavu 5mo ago
My read is that it just seems a bit reckless doing a full rewrite so quickly.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
itishappy 5mo ago
My read is it's less the rewrite and more the messaging around the rewrite. Nine days between "you're over-reacting" and merge is surprising, to say the least. Sure will be interesting to see that blog post!
noelsusman 5mo ago
Vibe coding a Rust rewrite of a widely used tool is basically catnip for the HN crowd.
- zarzavat 5mo ago
  Not if you use that tool, then it's just scary.
  - petcat 5mo ago
    I would think the Zig implementation with 500+ issues on Bun's GitHub tracker mentioning "segfault" would be even scarier.
sigmar 5mo ago
posting my read (since it differs so much from the others')- there's a 'holy war' being waged by people that think LLMs shouldn't do full rewrites of software. There are various reasons people think this (think LLMs are parrots that make slop and are incapable of writing good code, have environmental concerns, or are angry that software licenses can be circumvented). I call it a 'holy war' because I think most see our current trajectory as a bit inevitable and have a strong urge to proselytize their views and chide maintainers that use LLMs in ways they don't like. Very similar angry comments happened with the discussions of the Chardet rewrite, next.js/vinext, and JSONata/gnata if you want to look at this in context.