4 ms·

I find the way that issue was opened incredible obnoxious, but it is baffling that the maintainers seem to have let AI loose on rsync. Like, why? Why try compar

I find the way that issue was opened incredible obnoxious, but it is baffling that the maintainers seem to have let AI loose on rsync. Like, why? Why try comparatively experimental crap when your fortune and reputation is made and you're the leader of a niche and immune to market pressure and the people love the thing and it does exactly what it's supposed to and works well? It's like the Matrix, with the little rant about the primitive human minds not being able to accept paradise. You wrote the perfect tool, you won, almost undisplaceable in a niche, reliable, a metaphorical household name. It makes no sense to anyone to gamble or mess with that, it's just mind boggling. And that's still a damn obnoxious thing to do in the formal issue tracker. Bad attitude, bad faith.

roenxi 4mo ago
Are you basing this opinion on the issue or actual evidence? Because this github link, although interesting, is almost completely context free on what the drama is beyond "Claude". The rsync maintainers could be anywhere on the spectrum from the perfect and responsible maintainer to incompetent children and we couldn't really tell.
- xiphias2 4mo ago
  The problem is the we couldn’t really tell part. Changes made to mature finished projects should be minimal and readable and understandable by humans. Also rsync is handling copying binary data, it’s a project that’s super sensitive to hardware faults for example, which means it’s not just enough for the tests to pass.
  - throwaway7356 4mo ago
    > finished projects rsync is not a finished project: it has hundreds of open issues (bugs, feature requests, ...). "Finished projects" are a mythical thing that rarely exists in reality and even less in actually used software like rsync or the Linux kernel.
- bulbar 4mo ago
  To me it seems people had actual problems with newer versions. Additionally, a significant portion of the code changed within a very short time frame. Doesn't matter if they did it by hand or with AI.
  - seba_dos1 4mo ago
    I just had the first case of a file not being copied correctly after using rsync that I noticed a few days ago. It was a raw image file so it was visually noticeable, some lines of pixels just went black. It may be unrelated, it may not have even been rsync's fault, but this drama and timing just makes me wonder if I got clauded there.
    - Npovview 4mo ago
      Do you not do the md5 or sha hashes of the copied zip file?
      - zimpenfish 4mo ago
        That's ... what rsync is supposed to do for you.
      - seba_dos1 4mo ago
        zip file?... I was syncing photos from my phone.
    - pmarreck 4mo ago
      Related: I'm writing a file-format validator whose first focus is on image data. https://validate.pics https://validate.pics Also related: I'm using LLM assistance to write it, but I also have a test suite that proves it's working (I call it the "shotgun" suite: given a good image file, it first flips a random bit ("sniper"), then a random byte ("boltgun") and then a random 4096 byte segment which is the typical sector size ("shotgun"); each time it tries to validate the file by decoding it fully, and records what percentage of time it is detected at each scope, and it collects statistics about this over hundreds of times.) The point of it is to detect things like corrupt data and bitrot... across 240+ different filetypes so far... since no other tool really exists yet in this space to do that. Note that some formats, notably Apple's HEIC, are so data-dense that corruption only results in undetectable image corruption (well, a human would notice it, but an algorithm cannot!) So I have ANOTHER app coming to help with that which does detection AND repair (to a point). ;) The CLI will be free and open-source, but I'm also writing a for-sale-in-future private-source GUI for it.
- nottorp 4mo ago
  > is almost completely context free on what the drama is beyond "Claude" As soon as it happened their rsync based backup system that was working before started to fail. It says right there.
  - michaelmrose 4mo ago
    The source code is all right there. An actual analysis would involve a complete description of what you were doing including code they are running proving that what you were doing is reasonable and correct and expected to work. An explanation of what actually happened and ideally the exact commit where it stopped working. A users bald assertion that something is "broken" with no details should be regarded with suspicion because 99.9% of the time the user is the cause of their own problems. NOTHING is right there. Nothing whatsoever. No commits no use code no error messages no description. Nothing but dripping contempt for their betters.
    - bakugo 4mo ago
      Why should a random user bother analyzing the code when the "developer" didn't bother doing the same before committing huge chunks of AI generated code? The effort put into the issue was roughly the same as was put into the release that caused the issue to be made. Fair is fair.
      - michaelmrose 4mo ago
        Because they actually want something fixed as a long term user of a software.
      - msm_ 4mo ago
        >the "developer" didn't bother doing the same before committing huge chunks of AI generated code? This is something that you assume, not something that you have any proof of. To put it a bit more strongly, this is something that you (and hundreds of other people in that github thread) made up in your head. The maintainer is a very experienced OS developer and there's no reason to suspect they didn't review the committed code. Bugs happen, and the mere existence of bugs is not a proof that someone is doing a poor job. Assuming those bugs even exist. I am inclined to believe they do, but the issue does a poor job of reporting them. Instead of factually reporting regressions, the "issue" is a screenshot of a viral tweet. Your vicious reaction is not justified, and you should do better in the future. >The effort put into the issue was roughly the same as was put into the release that caused the issue to be made. Fair is fair. It is not fair. The rsync maintainer does not owe you anything. You owe them for using their software. How much did you donate to rsync this year?
- kzrdude 4mo ago
  We could tell, if someone did independent work of reviewing a sample of the contributions and recent changes (and published in a blog post for example).
vips7L 4mo ago
> Like, why? Because everyone, including this forum, is addicted to the instant gratification of LLMs. It’s pure hubris of thinking you can scan the output and it does what you think it does.
- teaearlgraycold 4mo ago
  TBH I don't really feel the same most of the time. I give the LLM little chunks to do. I read the code. I think. I plan. I write a bit of code. I have the LLM crunch out some bullshit task like setting up an annoying C repo. There aren't that many moments in building with LLMs where things line up so the AI can just absolutely nail some code and save me a ton of time.
  - nbaugh1 4mo ago
    I think a lot of people have a sort of “slot machine” experience with it at some point. You just start firing off prompts on some new project, wait a few seconds, see what prize you got. Then you start doing that over and over just letting the LLM code and code and not even review what it’s doing. It really is like getting hooked on gambling. You’re getting a thrill from anticipation, not the actual results. This is what I personally consider “vibe coding”, not simply using LLMs or agents or whatever in your workflow
    - wyre 4mo ago
      Absolutely, vibecoding is addictive, agents being able to do all of these hard things that would otherwise take days or weeks to figure out how to do by hand. It's just another avenue of dopamine addiction, not unlike scrolling TikTok, Reddit, or wherever except vibecoding is disguised as being productive.
    - teaearlgraycold 4mo ago
      I’m confused by the people that “don’t even look at the code anymore”. I’m looking at the code Opus generates. And I’m glad that I am, because it needs revision.
  - 4mo ago
rakel_rakel 4mo ago
I agree about letting AI loose on rsync is baffling, and also that how the issue was filed was incredible obnoxious. A thought crossed my mind though, with the risk of going slightly off topic. Disregarding the fact that mature software like Rsync does not need this kind of movement in changed LOC. Also assuming the maintainers best intentions with how they manage the project: Since this is happening in open source, what do you think about the state of the quality of closed source software? AI usage (input as a success metric) is part of what you're being evaluated on as an employee, and people are panicking at the threat of mass layoffs due to AI. Yikes!
tasuki 4mo ago
> when your fortune and reputation is made and you're the leader of a niche Huh? "Fortune"? You mean the slog of maintaining a popular open source project half the world relies on without compensation?
dannersy 4mo ago
A couple years back, I think I would have bent over backwards to defend the maintainers. It is a gruelling and thankless effort to maintain any open source project, let alone one as established as rsync. I guess I just don't see AI being a net positive anywhere, and I have to see this backlash to using gen AI as a good course correction from the general populous. There are other posts talking about the instant gratification of LLM use and the more I have to interact with people using the tools, I think this may truly be the problem. Our biology can't handle it. I see otherwise very smart people do really really stupid things because the slot machine told them, but it has even trained them to be helpless when the slot machine fails them. I'm being seen as a Luddite, blind to the advancement, and then I see colleagues writing benchmarks that make no sense but have beautiful graphs made with AI. Then I basically have to choose to smile at them and pretend it's good work or scold them for not seeing that the bench is testing an interval baked in as a constant so it's moot. Both options are treating them like they are 7 years old, not intelligent colleagues.
- rf15 4mo ago
  > instant gratification I'm with you. I don't understand why it affects some people more than others. To me, using AI triggered my sense for drugs and addiction after a while: when your first association for an engineering product is "it feels _great_!" then run, it's just cocaine with extra components. A tool should not make you feel good, just accomplish the task.
  - MrGilbert 4mo ago
    ADHD might be in play, and I think it‘s undiagnosed by more people than we assume. And it‘s fine, because as long as you can deal with it, it‘s not an issue. I can imagine that the addiction to LLM hits the same areas as addiction to, say, gambling, binge eating or shopping. I wrote a small thing about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48081469 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48081469
    - pmarreck 4mo ago
      So is ADHD also to blame for "being addicted" to driving instead of walking? What about using a sewing machine instead of hand-sewing? Washing machines instead of hand-washing? (Some people still swear by air-drying instead of using a dryer, but there aren't that many "hand-washing is just better" holdouts, even if it might be true!) Note that in all of these cases, you ALWAYS grin when you first use the more automated thing after having done the manual thing, and you ALWAYS lose something by going the faster/less-laborious route. If people are simply hyperfocusing on what is lost when you lean on LLM for coding, then they're simply going to miss the train (yet another invention that superseded walking and horseback-riding, with its own set of tradeoffs!) We all know a walk is good on its own terms even if a car is faster, but if your goal is to get from point A to B in less than a certain amount of time, sometimes only a car will do. Hand-washing probably is less wear-and-tear on the clothes and lets you focus on dirty spots. Air-drying leads to fresher-smelling clothes that don't shrink. And hand-coding leads to a more curated solution than an LLM ever could... All of these at a comparatively extreme extra time or labor cost.
JodieBenitez 4mo ago
> the maintainers seem to have let AI loose on rsync is it an assumption ?
- mort96 4mo ago
  No: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commits/master/ https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commits/master/
  - KolmogorovComp 4mo ago
    Almost all the commits are regarding the testsuite or CI, both of which are IMO great use of AI.
    - mort96 4mo ago
      I think that’s misleading. Yes, almost all commits co-authored by Claude lately are about test suite and CI, but that’s just because almost all commits lately are about test suite and CI. The commits which aren’t test suite and CI are also co-authored by Claude. Go a bit further back in the commit history (April 29 onwards) you still see a sea of non-CI/testsuite Claude commits.
      - mort96 4mo ago
        Oh and another thing I just learned: it seems like the reason there are so many test suite commits recently is ... Tridge got Claude to rewrite all the tests in Python and delete the old shell test suite: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/pull/903/ https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/pull/903/ That's ballsy. I feel like if I used Claude heavily for a piece of code, an existing test suite would be something I would want to rely on to catch mistakes.
charcircuit 4mo ago
[flagged]
- vor_ 4mo ago
  > most code changes are AI generated That's a huge claim.
- bigstrat2003 4mo ago
  > The industry standard is that most code changes are AI generated. That is absolutely not the case.
  - charcircuit 4mo ago
    Everyone I know from every company I know no longer writes their code by hand anymore. Doing it by hand is the exception. Anecdotally I find it true, but I haven't seen actual industry wide surveys.
    - Eufrat 4mo ago
      > Anecdotally I find it true, but I haven't seen actual industry wide surveys. And this is the problem. I have yet to see any actual studies of efficacy. It’s just people using “feelings” to justify the spend. If I did this for anything else, I might get fired. Why does AI get a pass for this? This is insane.
      - charcircuit 4mo ago
        >Why does AI get a pass for this? Because business leaders are watching the exponential trend lines and are working off of predictions of the future.
        Eufrat 4mo ago
        There is still no evidence, it’s all vibes. If you replaced AI with tulips, it would make no difference.
ejpir 4mo ago
you know what is baffling? you commenting about letting loose AI on rsync, where you, and me included, have absolutely zero insight in how he used Claude. What https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/929#issuecomment-4585695638 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/929#issuecommen... shows is that it no longer works on older Darwin and Linux < 5.6, which has been deprecated in 2020. Plus some other bugs as well. You cannot expect maintainers to support old systems and know the impact their changes have. Whether its done by AI or hand.

roenxi 4mo ago

Are you basing this opinion on the issue or actual evidence? Because this github link, although interesting, is almost completely context free on what the drama is beyond "Claude". The rsync maintainers could be anywhere on the spectrum from the perfect and responsible maintainer to incompetent children and we couldn't really tell.

xiphias2 4mo ago
The problem is the we couldn’t really tell part. Changes made to mature finished projects should be minimal and readable and understandable by humans. Also rsync is handling copying binary data, it’s a project that’s super sensitive to hardware faults for example, which means it’s not just enough for the tests to pass.
- throwaway7356 4mo ago
  > finished projects rsync is not a finished project: it has hundreds of open issues (bugs, feature requests, ...). "Finished projects" are a mythical thing that rarely exists in reality and even less in actually used software like rsync or the Linux kernel.
bulbar 4mo ago
To me it seems people had actual problems with newer versions. Additionally, a significant portion of the code changed within a very short time frame. Doesn't matter if they did it by hand or with AI.
- seba_dos1 4mo ago
  I just had the first case of a file not being copied correctly after using rsync that I noticed a few days ago. It was a raw image file so it was visually noticeable, some lines of pixels just went black. It may be unrelated, it may not have even been rsync's fault, but this drama and timing just makes me wonder if I got clauded there.
  - Npovview 4mo ago
    Do you not do the md5 or sha hashes of the copied zip file?
    - zimpenfish 4mo ago
      That's ... what rsync is supposed to do for you.
    - seba_dos1 4mo ago
      zip file?... I was syncing photos from my phone.
  - pmarreck 4mo ago
    Related: I'm writing a file-format validator whose first focus is on image data. https://validate.pics https://validate.pics Also related: I'm using LLM assistance to write it, but I also have a test suite that proves it's working (I call it the "shotgun" suite: given a good image file, it first flips a random bit ("sniper"), then a random byte ("boltgun") and then a random 4096 byte segment which is the typical sector size ("shotgun"); each time it tries to validate the file by decoding it fully, and records what percentage of time it is detected at each scope, and it collects statistics about this over hundreds of times.) The point of it is to detect things like corrupt data and bitrot... across 240+ different filetypes so far... since no other tool really exists yet in this space to do that. Note that some formats, notably Apple's HEIC, are so data-dense that corruption only results in undetectable image corruption (well, a human would notice it, but an algorithm cannot!) So I have ANOTHER app coming to help with that which does detection AND repair (to a point). ;) The CLI will be free and open-source, but I'm also writing a for-sale-in-future private-source GUI for it.
nottorp 4mo ago
> is almost completely context free on what the drama is beyond "Claude" As soon as it happened their rsync based backup system that was working before started to fail. It says right there.
- michaelmrose 4mo ago
  The source code is all right there. An actual analysis would involve a complete description of what you were doing including code they are running proving that what you were doing is reasonable and correct and expected to work. An explanation of what actually happened and ideally the exact commit where it stopped working. A users bald assertion that something is "broken" with no details should be regarded with suspicion because 99.9% of the time the user is the cause of their own problems. NOTHING is right there. Nothing whatsoever. No commits no use code no error messages no description. Nothing but dripping contempt for their betters.
  - bakugo 4mo ago
    Why should a random user bother analyzing the code when the "developer" didn't bother doing the same before committing huge chunks of AI generated code? The effort put into the issue was roughly the same as was put into the release that caused the issue to be made. Fair is fair.
    - michaelmrose 4mo ago
      Because they actually want something fixed as a long term user of a software.
    - msm_ 4mo ago
      >the "developer" didn't bother doing the same before committing huge chunks of AI generated code? This is something that you assume, not something that you have any proof of. To put it a bit more strongly, this is something that you (and hundreds of other people in that github thread) made up in your head. The maintainer is a very experienced OS developer and there's no reason to suspect they didn't review the committed code. Bugs happen, and the mere existence of bugs is not a proof that someone is doing a poor job. Assuming those bugs even exist. I am inclined to believe they do, but the issue does a poor job of reporting them. Instead of factually reporting regressions, the "issue" is a screenshot of a viral tweet. Your vicious reaction is not justified, and you should do better in the future. >The effort put into the issue was roughly the same as was put into the release that caused the issue to be made. Fair is fair. It is not fair. The rsync maintainer does not owe you anything. You owe them for using their software. How much did you donate to rsync this year?
kzrdude 4mo ago
We could tell, if someone did independent work of reviewing a sample of the contributions and recent changes (and published in a blog post for example).

vips7L 4mo ago

> Like, why? Because everyone, including this forum, is addicted to the instant gratification of LLMs. It’s pure hubris of thinking you can scan the output and it does what you think it does.

teaearlgraycold 4mo ago
TBH I don't really feel the same most of the time. I give the LLM little chunks to do. I read the code. I think. I plan. I write a bit of code. I have the LLM crunch out some bullshit task like setting up an annoying C repo. There aren't that many moments in building with LLMs where things line up so the AI can just absolutely nail some code and save me a ton of time.
- nbaugh1 4mo ago
  I think a lot of people have a sort of “slot machine” experience with it at some point. You just start firing off prompts on some new project, wait a few seconds, see what prize you got. Then you start doing that over and over just letting the LLM code and code and not even review what it’s doing. It really is like getting hooked on gambling. You’re getting a thrill from anticipation, not the actual results. This is what I personally consider “vibe coding”, not simply using LLMs or agents or whatever in your workflow
  - wyre 4mo ago
    Absolutely, vibecoding is addictive, agents being able to do all of these hard things that would otherwise take days or weeks to figure out how to do by hand. It's just another avenue of dopamine addiction, not unlike scrolling TikTok, Reddit, or wherever except vibecoding is disguised as being productive.
  - teaearlgraycold 4mo ago
    I’m confused by the people that “don’t even look at the code anymore”. I’m looking at the code Opus generates. And I’m glad that I am, because it needs revision.
- 4mo ago

rakel_rakel 4mo ago

I agree about letting AI loose on rsync is baffling, and also that how the issue was filed was incredible obnoxious. A thought crossed my mind though, with the risk of going slightly off topic. Disregarding the fact that mature software like Rsync does not need this kind of movement in changed LOC. Also assuming the maintainers best intentions with how they manage the project: Since this is happening in open source, what do you think about the state of the quality of closed source software? AI usage (input as a success metric) is part of what you're being evaluated on as an employee, and people are panicking at the threat of mass layoffs due to AI. Yikes!

tasuki 4mo ago

> when your fortune and reputation is made and you're the leader of a niche Huh? "Fortune"? You mean the slog of maintaining a popular open source project half the world relies on without compensation?

dannersy 4mo ago

A couple years back, I think I would have bent over backwards to defend the maintainers. It is a gruelling and thankless effort to maintain any open source project, let alone one as established as rsync. I guess I just don't see AI being a net positive anywhere, and I have to see this backlash to using gen AI as a good course correction from the general populous. There are other posts talking about the instant gratification of LLM use and the more I have to interact with people using the tools, I think this may truly be the problem. Our biology can't handle it. I see otherwise very smart people do really really stupid things because the slot machine told them, but it has even trained them to be helpless when the slot machine fails them. I'm being seen as a Luddite, blind to the advancement, and then I see colleagues writing benchmarks that make no sense but have beautiful graphs made with AI. Then I basically have to choose to smile at them and pretend it's good work or scold them for not seeing that the bench is testing an interval baked in as a constant so it's moot. Both options are treating them like they are 7 years old, not intelligent colleagues.

rf15 4mo ago
> instant gratification I'm with you. I don't understand why it affects some people more than others. To me, using AI triggered my sense for drugs and addiction after a while: when your first association for an engineering product is "it feels _great_!" then run, it's just cocaine with extra components. A tool should not make you feel good, just accomplish the task.
- MrGilbert 4mo ago
  ADHD might be in play, and I think it‘s undiagnosed by more people than we assume. And it‘s fine, because as long as you can deal with it, it‘s not an issue. I can imagine that the addiction to LLM hits the same areas as addiction to, say, gambling, binge eating or shopping. I wrote a small thing about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48081469 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48081469
  - pmarreck 4mo ago
    So is ADHD also to blame for "being addicted" to driving instead of walking? What about using a sewing machine instead of hand-sewing? Washing machines instead of hand-washing? (Some people still swear by air-drying instead of using a dryer, but there aren't that many "hand-washing is just better" holdouts, even if it might be true!) Note that in all of these cases, you ALWAYS grin when you first use the more automated thing after having done the manual thing, and you ALWAYS lose something by going the faster/less-laborious route. If people are simply hyperfocusing on what is lost when you lean on LLM for coding, then they're simply going to miss the train (yet another invention that superseded walking and horseback-riding, with its own set of tradeoffs!) We all know a walk is good on its own terms even if a car is faster, but if your goal is to get from point A to B in less than a certain amount of time, sometimes only a car will do. Hand-washing probably is less wear-and-tear on the clothes and lets you focus on dirty spots. Air-drying leads to fresher-smelling clothes that don't shrink. And hand-coding leads to a more curated solution than an LLM ever could... All of these at a comparatively extreme extra time or labor cost.

JodieBenitez 4mo ago

> the maintainers seem to have let AI loose on rsync is it an assumption ?

mort96 4mo ago
No: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commits/master/ https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/commits/master/
- KolmogorovComp 4mo ago
  Almost all the commits are regarding the testsuite or CI, both of which are IMO great use of AI.
  - mort96 4mo ago
    I think that’s misleading. Yes, almost all commits co-authored by Claude lately are about test suite and CI, but that’s just because almost all commits lately are about test suite and CI. The commits which aren’t test suite and CI are also co-authored by Claude. Go a bit further back in the commit history (April 29 onwards) you still see a sea of non-CI/testsuite Claude commits.
    - mort96 4mo ago
      Oh and another thing I just learned: it seems like the reason there are so many test suite commits recently is ... Tridge got Claude to rewrite all the tests in Python and delete the old shell test suite: https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/pull/903/ https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/pull/903/ That's ballsy. I feel like if I used Claude heavily for a piece of code, an existing test suite would be something I would want to rely on to catch mistakes.

charcircuit 4mo ago

[flagged]

vor_ 4mo ago
> most code changes are AI generated That's a huge claim.
bigstrat2003 4mo ago
> The industry standard is that most code changes are AI generated. That is absolutely not the case.
- charcircuit 4mo ago
  Everyone I know from every company I know no longer writes their code by hand anymore. Doing it by hand is the exception. Anecdotally I find it true, but I haven't seen actual industry wide surveys.
  - Eufrat 4mo ago
    > Anecdotally I find it true, but I haven't seen actual industry wide surveys. And this is the problem. I have yet to see any actual studies of efficacy. It’s just people using “feelings” to justify the spend. If I did this for anything else, I might get fired. Why does AI get a pass for this? This is insane.
    - charcircuit 4mo ago
      >Why does AI get a pass for this? Because business leaders are watching the exponential trend lines and are working off of predictions of the future.
      - Eufrat 4mo ago
        There is still no evidence, it’s all vibes. If you replaced AI with tulips, it would make no difference.

ejpir 4mo ago

you know what is baffling? you commenting about letting loose AI on rsync, where you, and me included, have absolutely zero insight in how he used Claude. What https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/929#issuecomment-4585695638 https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/929#issuecommen... shows is that it no longer works on older Darwin and Linux < 5.6, which has been deprecated in 2020. Plus some other bugs as well. You cannot expect maintainers to support old systems and know the impact their changes have. Whether its done by AI or hand.