5 ms·

I have to say, this whole saga is extremely interesting. Not just from a popcorn-enjoyer's point of view, but as a bit of a bell weather for 2026 software dev.

fallenscope 5mo ago
[dead]
christophilus 5mo ago
Time will tell. I predict this is just the same 20 year pattern of: people on the internet are irate about $latest_thing, and everyone will move on to some other hot topic.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- consumer451 5mo ago
  For some reason, when thinking about this, the visual of all the scientists at CERN camping out for the results of the Higgs Boson experiment jumped into my mind. This is not as big an experiment as that. But, for software dev, it feels very significant.
- jakobnissen 5mo ago
  But surely, whether or not the Internet mob moves on has no bearing on what actual lessons to learn from this saga. Will the vibe rewrite turn out to be a disaster or are LLMs already capable of writing human level code at this scale? That question is interesting no matter the level of attention this gets.
  - stephbook 5mo ago
    I'm believe projects that pin old versions or maintain their own shoddy fork will be left behind. Deprecation is fine.
    - versecafe 5mo ago
      maintaining a fork on the zig version works short term but does open some questions about longterm stability/approach and if features should be cut to make maintenance easier; ie Bun.Image, fetch("", {grpc: true}), Bun.redis since it never got finished, etc
- Npovview 5mo ago
  The same thing happened when MS acquired Github. So much outrage and so little action of moving to Gitlab.
ibejoeb 5mo ago
People are going to be using a lot less software if the selection criteria include not being no agents.
- skeeter2020 5mo ago
  This is a very uncharitable interpretation of the twitter post: "It’s a combination of anthropic’s stance of not doing human reviews or any kind of rational roll out and stabilization." They mention nothing about agents being used, rather focus on humans in the review cycle and some sort of gated roll-out process. Why we would bin these practices in the name of a faster release cycle is an important question & debate.
  - ibejoeb 5mo ago
    I kind of agree, but it goes both ways. Has Jarred said that there was no review? I know that he stated that rust bun passes tests. Now, I don't know the amount or quantity of coverage, but as a thought experiment, let's assume they are good. What does that count for?
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - riffraff 5mo ago
      I think most people believe it unlikely that one million line of codes can be reviewed in one week, and the fact that tests pass does not imply good code. I have no idea whether the new or old code is/was good, just pointing out what seems like a plausible thought process for people who object to this rewrite.
      - zoogeny 5mo ago
        I think it is interesting, using your framing, to consider why people may or may not believe that one million lines of code could be reviewed. I mean, until very recently, the idea that one million lines of code could be written (rather than mechanically translated) in a month was unbelievable. It is clearly the case that times have changed since the tools have been updated. So if we challenge one assumption, why not also challenge the other? Bun presumably will have access to Mythos, which is purportedly reviewing million line code-bases (Mozilla, etc.) and uncovering real value for the devs of those projects. I find it hard to deny extrapolating these trends to this Bun rewrite.
Cpoll 5mo ago
Trivia: The term is "bellwether," i.e. a wether (castrated sheep) wearing a bell, used to guide the flock.
- consumer451 5mo ago
  I kept checking the thread for responses and finally realized it, but too late to edit. I will probably wake up in a few days from a nightmare about this misspelling on HN. Happens all the time, no joke. I think that in my mind, it was always some sort of weather related bell, like you ring it, when the weather changes. Hopefully the sheep reference will help me remember.
  - eichin 5mo ago
    I'd suggest reading the Connie Willis novel by that name - no idea if it will actually help, it's just really good writing :-)
  - satvikpendem 5mo ago
    You might be interested in https://hnreplies.com/ https://hnreplies.com/ to automatically get an email for HN replies
- Hnrobert42 5mo ago
  I have ADHD. I am super sensitive to noise. When other people let their phones ding incessantly, it drives me crazy. I went hiking in Albania recently. I saw many sheep grazing in the mountains. I wondered about the sheep chosen to wear the bell. Like, was it the same sheep every day? Did the chosen sheep think, "Fuck me this thing is annoying"?
  - hoppp 5mo ago
    I don't think it has any choice so it probably accepted fate. I think its the same sheep but no clue if they rotate.
giancarlostoro 5mo ago
What's funnier to me is none of them seem to want to abandon npm which keeps getting exploited and hacked. NPM has been the source of just how many industry wide hacks? Three major ones, and a massive supply-chain industry wide campaign against npm. But yeah, bun is the real concern here. I think we need to smell the coffee and review npm and scrutinize it because it is getting dangerously out of hand.
- tankenmate 5mo ago
  From my perspective it is a synthesis of "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." and "but npm is the source of all the shiny shiny!".
- TiredOfLife 5mo ago
  Also Rubygems, Packagist, PyPi
  - baggy_trough 5mo ago
    What's the worst hack to affect users of rubygems?
    - pwdisswordfishs 5mo ago
      DHH, of course.
  - ghusto 5mo ago
    pip install pulls in what I've listed in my package list, plus their dependencies which are at most 2 levels deep. The dependency's dependencies are reviewable. npm install pulls in my dependencies plus god knows what else at god knows how many levels. 500MB of dependencies? The dependency's dependecies are not reviewable. I wish people would stop trying to compare NPM to PyPi and others. NPM is an unfixable disaster because of the entire mindset and ecosystem around JavaScript.
    - 5mo ago
MuffinFlavored 5mo ago
I wonder how many "behind the curve/not super modern" corporations were using Bun or Deno to begin with. Part of me thinks it's a mild overreaction. It's not like people audit every line of kernel/driver/BIOS/EFI code before running Linux? As long as the tests pass and the performance doesn't regress and it's secure... why are people so mad that it was vibe coded? Is it because it was an irresponsible thing to do? Maybe? I don't know, I see both sides.
- dahs12 5mo ago
  It isn't about users auditing Linux. The Bun developers don't audit "their own" (stolen) vibe code output. How would anyone know if it is secure?
- worble 5mo ago
  > It's not like people audit every line of kernel/driver/BIOS/EFI code before running Linux? That's basically Torvolds full time job?
  - cookiengineer 5mo ago
    > That's basically Torvolds full time job? It's actually more like 50 devs, each of them specialized in their own field, with 20+ years programming experience. And even they make mistakes sometimes (see the recent TOCTOU exploit wave). What vibecoders never get: it's about stability of software. Nobody will rely on your vibecoded project if even you yourself don't give a damn about any API stability or API contracts. If you expect others to use vibecode assistants to use your software/library... then what was the reason in the first place to write it, if it's effectively not solving a problem? The whole points of dependencies and packages goes out of the window once the library maintainers start to use slopcoding practices.
- nicoburns 5mo ago
  > As long as the tests pass and the performance doesn't regress and it's secure... why are people so mad that it was vibe coded? Because the chances that they had a test suite that was actually comprehensive enough to guarantee correctness through this kind of refactor are approximately zero. Normally we combine tests with careful "correctness by construction" design work and code review because we know that tests aren't sufficient.
zoogeny 5mo ago
I think a more apt analogy (or cliche) is canary in the coalmine.
ifwinterco 5mo ago
Exactly, I'm glad bun has done this because it will be fascinating to see how it plays out. I'm also glad I don't use bun
hoppp 5mo ago
My bet is that Bun is going to die. They kill it with this rewrite bs.

fallenscope 5mo ago

[dead]

christophilus 5mo ago

Time will tell. I predict this is just the same 20 year pattern of: people on the internet are irate about $latest_thing, and everyone will move on to some other hot topic.

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
consumer451 5mo ago
For some reason, when thinking about this, the visual of all the scientists at CERN camping out for the results of the Higgs Boson experiment jumped into my mind. This is not as big an experiment as that. But, for software dev, it feels very significant.
jakobnissen 5mo ago
But surely, whether or not the Internet mob moves on has no bearing on what actual lessons to learn from this saga. Will the vibe rewrite turn out to be a disaster or are LLMs already capable of writing human level code at this scale? That question is interesting no matter the level of attention this gets.
- stephbook 5mo ago
  I'm believe projects that pin old versions or maintain their own shoddy fork will be left behind. Deprecation is fine.
  - versecafe 5mo ago
    maintaining a fork on the zig version works short term but does open some questions about longterm stability/approach and if features should be cut to make maintenance easier; ie Bun.Image, fetch("", {grpc: true}), Bun.redis since it never got finished, etc
Npovview 5mo ago
The same thing happened when MS acquired Github. So much outrage and so little action of moving to Gitlab.

ibejoeb 5mo ago

People are going to be using a lot less software if the selection criteria include not being no agents.

skeeter2020 5mo ago
This is a very uncharitable interpretation of the twitter post: "It’s a combination of anthropic’s stance of not doing human reviews or any kind of rational roll out and stabilization." They mention nothing about agents being used, rather focus on humans in the review cycle and some sort of gated roll-out process. Why we would bin these practices in the name of a faster release cycle is an important question & debate.
- ibejoeb 5mo ago
  I kind of agree, but it goes both ways. Has Jarred said that there was no review? I know that he stated that rust bun passes tests. Now, I don't know the amount or quantity of coverage, but as a thought experiment, let's assume they are good. What does that count for?
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - riffraff 5mo ago
    I think most people believe it unlikely that one million line of codes can be reviewed in one week, and the fact that tests pass does not imply good code. I have no idea whether the new or old code is/was good, just pointing out what seems like a plausible thought process for people who object to this rewrite.
    - zoogeny 5mo ago
      I think it is interesting, using your framing, to consider why people may or may not believe that one million lines of code could be reviewed. I mean, until very recently, the idea that one million lines of code could be written (rather than mechanically translated) in a month was unbelievable. It is clearly the case that times have changed since the tools have been updated. So if we challenge one assumption, why not also challenge the other? Bun presumably will have access to Mythos, which is purportedly reviewing million line code-bases (Mozilla, etc.) and uncovering real value for the devs of those projects. I find it hard to deny extrapolating these trends to this Bun rewrite.

Cpoll 5mo ago

Trivia: The term is "bellwether," i.e. a wether (castrated sheep) wearing a bell, used to guide the flock.

consumer451 5mo ago
I kept checking the thread for responses and finally realized it, but too late to edit. I will probably wake up in a few days from a nightmare about this misspelling on HN. Happens all the time, no joke. I think that in my mind, it was always some sort of weather related bell, like you ring it, when the weather changes. Hopefully the sheep reference will help me remember.
- eichin 5mo ago
  I'd suggest reading the Connie Willis novel by that name - no idea if it will actually help, it's just really good writing :-)
- satvikpendem 5mo ago
  You might be interested in https://hnreplies.com/ https://hnreplies.com/ to automatically get an email for HN replies
Hnrobert42 5mo ago
I have ADHD. I am super sensitive to noise. When other people let their phones ding incessantly, it drives me crazy. I went hiking in Albania recently. I saw many sheep grazing in the mountains. I wondered about the sheep chosen to wear the bell. Like, was it the same sheep every day? Did the chosen sheep think, "Fuck me this thing is annoying"?
- hoppp 5mo ago
  I don't think it has any choice so it probably accepted fate. I think its the same sheep but no clue if they rotate.

giancarlostoro 5mo ago

What's funnier to me is none of them seem to want to abandon npm which keeps getting exploited and hacked. NPM has been the source of just how many industry wide hacks? Three major ones, and a massive supply-chain industry wide campaign against npm. But yeah, bun is the real concern here. I think we need to smell the coffee and review npm and scrutinize it because it is getting dangerously out of hand.

tankenmate 5mo ago
From my perspective it is a synthesis of "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." and "but npm is the source of all the shiny shiny!".
TiredOfLife 5mo ago
Also Rubygems, Packagist, PyPi
- baggy_trough 5mo ago
  What's the worst hack to affect users of rubygems?
  - pwdisswordfishs 5mo ago
    DHH, of course.
- ghusto 5mo ago
  pip install pulls in what I've listed in my package list, plus their dependencies which are at most 2 levels deep. The dependency's dependencies are reviewable. npm install pulls in my dependencies plus god knows what else at god knows how many levels. 500MB of dependencies? The dependency's dependecies are not reviewable. I wish people would stop trying to compare NPM to PyPi and others. NPM is an unfixable disaster because of the entire mindset and ecosystem around JavaScript.
  - 5mo ago

MuffinFlavored 5mo ago

I wonder how many "behind the curve/not super modern" corporations were using Bun or Deno to begin with. Part of me thinks it's a mild overreaction. It's not like people audit every line of kernel/driver/BIOS/EFI code before running Linux? As long as the tests pass and the performance doesn't regress and it's secure... why are people so mad that it was vibe coded? Is it because it was an irresponsible thing to do? Maybe? I don't know, I see both sides.

dahs12 5mo ago
It isn't about users auditing Linux. The Bun developers don't audit "their own" (stolen) vibe code output. How would anyone know if it is secure?
worble 5mo ago
> It's not like people audit every line of kernel/driver/BIOS/EFI code before running Linux? That's basically Torvolds full time job?
- cookiengineer 5mo ago
  > That's basically Torvolds full time job? It's actually more like 50 devs, each of them specialized in their own field, with 20+ years programming experience. And even they make mistakes sometimes (see the recent TOCTOU exploit wave). What vibecoders never get: it's about stability of software. Nobody will rely on your vibecoded project if even you yourself don't give a damn about any API stability or API contracts. If you expect others to use vibecode assistants to use your software/library... then what was the reason in the first place to write it, if it's effectively not solving a problem? The whole points of dependencies and packages goes out of the window once the library maintainers start to use slopcoding practices.
nicoburns 5mo ago
> As long as the tests pass and the performance doesn't regress and it's secure... why are people so mad that it was vibe coded? Because the chances that they had a test suite that was actually comprehensive enough to guarantee correctness through this kind of refactor are approximately zero. Normally we combine tests with careful "correctness by construction" design work and code review because we know that tests aren't sufficient.

zoogeny 5mo ago

I think a more apt analogy (or cliche) is canary in the coalmine.

ifwinterco 5mo ago

Exactly, I'm glad bun has done this because it will be fascinating to see how it plays out. I'm also glad I don't use bun

hoppp 5mo ago

My bet is that Bun is going to die. They kill it with this rewrite bs.