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There's a comment on the blog post that I thought was very good, it was from Rob, and it ends with: "Please, try harder or get forked. Not sure how else to say

There's a comment on the blog post that I thought was very good, it was from Rob, and it ends with: "Please, try harder or get forked. Not sure how else to say that."

johnchristopher 13y ago
Rob's comment was spot on. Here's a link to the full text: http://blog.npmjs.org/post/78085451721/npms-self-signed-certificate-is-no-more#comment-1264657416 http://blog.npmjs.org/post/78085451721/npms-self-signed-cert...
- dullroar 13y ago
  And now that comment seems to have disappeared behind an "awaiting moderation" message after it has already been out there four hours. Nice. But the above link still works (for now).
  - johnchristopher 13y ago
    Yup. I hesitated to paste the post but someone else did it so it's in the wild anyway now.
cjbprime 13y ago
Seems to have been moderated away by the blog owners. Classy. Here's the comment under discussion: == Hey. Crazy kids. This probably needs to be that one event where you sort of realize: "Oh. Shit. Other people...like...use this & stuff. We need a damn road map and a release schedule. Stop smoking dabs all day, breh." Now is also a great time to learn how to think about the potential ramifications a production push will have prior to making said production push. And, if your change might impact some or perhaps even all of the other people who use your technology, then some degree of coordination - perhaps an email? - would be nice. It's one of those things that will help make you look professional. I suck at professionalism. You have no idea. But, even I know this much. Because, right now, I sort of feel like I'm asking some very rightfully fearful people to consider entrusting perhaps their actual career into the development of technology they need to succeed and thrive. And, I just started recommending Node.js - with a caveat - that npm basically sucks. I hate having to do that and it needs to stop. So, here we are. Your words continue to be one thing, and your actions continue to be quite another. If it is even possible to break a tool like this, that tool is not enterprise grade. If there is nothing that can be done to successfully insulate a tool from unexpected behavior like this, then that tool scores less in evaluations that consider the risk of using it. npm, at this point, has more going against it in the discussion than going for it right now. Events like this are, in the grand context, very significant and telling. They are also ill-timed. Because big, important decisions are trying to happen right now regarding the use of Node.js. It is literally on the cusp of going mainstream. And, that seems to be generating some pressure that at least one team (npm) doesn't seem to be equipped to handle. So, before you find yourself facing a community that forks instead of trying to work with you, I would like to just make a simple recommendation. In the future, you seriously need to sit and think about the potential ramifications of a production push. And...this is the important part...if those changes are going to have a wide impact on your users - send some sort of email WELL IN ADVANCE. A flippant blog post the day of is not Doing It Right™. Because, and I feel like I might not only be speaking for myself, I'm not going to allow the promise of Node.js to be voided by the lackluster and problematic performance of its weird bolt-on archive service. Someone, perhaps even me (as in: today), will simply replace you with a workable, decentralized solution that enterprise can specialize to purpose and communities can use to grow and thrive. If you have any questions, ask somebody. Anybody. If you're struggling with some concept of enterprise grade operations, what people expect of you and how you can succeed with events like this in the future, I'm positive every capable person here would provide some level of guidance and support. We want you to succeed. Please, try harder or get forked. Not sure how else to say that. Best regards, -Rob
- diminoten 13y ago
  Thanks for saving it, probably hit too close to home for them. A lot of this is also in how they manage the fallout of this decision - the "Streisand Effect" may come into play here...
- IsaacSchlueter 13y ago
  We didn't moderate away anything. I am literally the only person who CAN moderate those comments, and I was at a conference all day. 100% of my online time was spent working with my team to figure out the fastest path to a fix. We didn't realize the extent until way too late, and that's bad on us. I apologize. I didn't delete your comment. I'll look at the moderation queue and see if maybe disqus is set to auto-hide after some time or something. I'm sorry for the confusion there.
saurik 13y ago
Who is Rob? (Was it simply attributed to "Rob", or am I supposed to know who Rob is? I do not do much with node.js, and Google searches for "rob node.js" are not pulling up anyone terribly canonical-looking; mostly just some one-off talks, and from node.js only people who work at companies I also haven't heard of that use node.js.)
- robcolbert 13y ago
  I am Rob (Colbert) rob.isConnected@gmail.com. I'm nobody special other than someone who faces the constant up-hill struggle to convince IT that Node.js is ready only to have it shot down time and time again. I'm unemployed right now just trying to find a way to use the right tools for the job. And, I'm sick of failing because other people suck, won't learn, won't adapt, won't address problems or make progress. The "canonical" resource for my comment on npmjs.org today can be found here: http://robcolbert.com/#/posts/5311055a38bb373638000007 http://robcolbert.com/#/posts/5311055a38bb373638000007 That is my personal blog running on my personal server on a DSL line that I can't afford while about to go homeless. I have no choice. I have to speak up and fight for what I want to be using or throw in the towel. What would you do?
  - andyzweb 13y ago
    I would observe the CPAN community. I highly recommend reading http://www.cpan.org/misc/ZCAN.html http://www.cpan.org/misc/ZCAN.html and then begin forking+mirroring the registry immediately.
  - s_kilk 13y ago
    >> struggle to convince IT that Node.js is ready only to have it shot down time and time again Devils advocate, is it actually ready? Especially in light of the incompetence on display with this particular issue?
    - btown 13y ago
      To be fair, Ruby's had similar issues with its gem repository, including an intrusion that one time (about a year ago).
Pacabel 13y ago
It's disappointing to see unnecessary and unjustifiable censorship of perfectly legitimate comments like that. I think it has become more of an issue in general as the discussion of software projects has moved away from mailing lists and newsgroups to blogs and other more centralized discussion forums. I recently saw similar censorship happen at Opera's blogs. I would read some of the comments one evening, and there'd be some good discussion about features that the newer versions of Opera's desktop browsers are still missing. They weren't always positive comments, but they'd be relevant and remarkably civilized given the circumstances. Then I'd read the same blog post a day or two later, and entire discussion threads full of useful content would be gone. Criticism and negative discussion is often the most valuable that there is. It often highlights real problems that need to be solved. To delete such commentary is not at all helpful, and actually probably quite harmful.
- silentOpen 13y ago
  It's happened to me on the Chromium blog as well when attempting to correct a factual error. Gotta love fauxpen source!
novaleaf 13y ago
fyi, all yesterday i was getting npm registry timeouts all day, from machines in DC's around the globe. seems due to an unrelated issue also reported on their blog: http://blog.npmjs.org/post/78048834276/elevated-error-rates-2014-02-27 http://blog.npmjs.org/post/78048834276/elevated-error-rates-... So yeah.. I was thinking this myself. this type of errors are unacceptable.
seldo 13y ago
Hi! As I said in the comment's on Rob's own post: we didn't censor any comments. We did no moderation of any kind on any comments today; we were way too busy trying to fix the problem. I don't know what happened to Rob's comment, but it was nothing anyone at npm did.

There's a comment on the blog post that I thought was very good, it was from Rob, and it ends with: "Please, try harder or get forked. Not sure how else to say that."

johnchristopher 13y ago

Rob's comment was spot on. Here's a link to the full text: http://blog.npmjs.org/post/78085451721/npms-self-signed-certificate-is-no-more#comment-1264657416 http://blog.npmjs.org/post/78085451721/npms-self-signed-cert...

dullroar 13y ago
And now that comment seems to have disappeared behind an "awaiting moderation" message after it has already been out there four hours. Nice. But the above link still works (for now).
- johnchristopher 13y ago
  Yup. I hesitated to paste the post but someone else did it so it's in the wild anyway now.

cjbprime 13y ago

Seems to have been moderated away by the blog owners. Classy. Here's the comment under discussion: == Hey. Crazy kids. This probably needs to be that one event where you sort of realize: "Oh. Shit. Other people...like...use this & stuff. We need a damn road map and a release schedule. Stop smoking dabs all day, breh." Now is also a great time to learn how to think about the potential ramifications a production push will have prior to making said production push. And, if your change might impact some or perhaps even all of the other people who use your technology, then some degree of coordination - perhaps an email? - would be nice. It's one of those things that will help make you look professional. I suck at professionalism. You have no idea. But, even I know this much. Because, right now, I sort of feel like I'm asking some very rightfully fearful people to consider entrusting perhaps their actual career into the development of technology they need to succeed and thrive. And, I just started recommending Node.js - with a caveat - that npm basically sucks. I hate having to do that and it needs to stop. So, here we are. Your words continue to be one thing, and your actions continue to be quite another. If it is even possible to break a tool like this, that tool is not enterprise grade. If there is nothing that can be done to successfully insulate a tool from unexpected behavior like this, then that tool scores less in evaluations that consider the risk of using it. npm, at this point, has more going against it in the discussion than going for it right now. Events like this are, in the grand context, very significant and telling. They are also ill-timed. Because big, important decisions are trying to happen right now regarding the use of Node.js. It is literally on the cusp of going mainstream. And, that seems to be generating some pressure that at least one team (npm) doesn't seem to be equipped to handle. So, before you find yourself facing a community that forks instead of trying to work with you, I would like to just make a simple recommendation. In the future, you seriously need to sit and think about the potential ramifications of a production push. And...this is the important part...if those changes are going to have a wide impact on your users - send some sort of email WELL IN ADVANCE. A flippant blog post the day of is not Doing It Right™. Because, and I feel like I might not only be speaking for myself, I'm not going to allow the promise of Node.js to be voided by the lackluster and problematic performance of its weird bolt-on archive service. Someone, perhaps even me (as in: today), will simply replace you with a workable, decentralized solution that enterprise can specialize to purpose and communities can use to grow and thrive. If you have any questions, ask somebody. Anybody. If you're struggling with some concept of enterprise grade operations, what people expect of you and how you can succeed with events like this in the future, I'm positive every capable person here would provide some level of guidance and support. We want you to succeed. Please, try harder or get forked. Not sure how else to say that. Best regards, -Rob

diminoten 13y ago
Thanks for saving it, probably hit too close to home for them. A lot of this is also in how they manage the fallout of this decision - the "Streisand Effect" may come into play here...
IsaacSchlueter 13y ago
We didn't moderate away anything. I am literally the only person who CAN moderate those comments, and I was at a conference all day. 100% of my online time was spent working with my team to figure out the fastest path to a fix. We didn't realize the extent until way too late, and that's bad on us. I apologize. I didn't delete your comment. I'll look at the moderation queue and see if maybe disqus is set to auto-hide after some time or something. I'm sorry for the confusion there.

saurik 13y ago

Who is Rob? (Was it simply attributed to "Rob", or am I supposed to know who Rob is? I do not do much with node.js, and Google searches for "rob node.js" are not pulling up anyone terribly canonical-looking; mostly just some one-off talks, and from node.js only people who work at companies I also haven't heard of that use node.js.)

robcolbert 13y ago
I am Rob (Colbert) rob.isConnected@gmail.com. I'm nobody special other than someone who faces the constant up-hill struggle to convince IT that Node.js is ready only to have it shot down time and time again. I'm unemployed right now just trying to find a way to use the right tools for the job. And, I'm sick of failing because other people suck, won't learn, won't adapt, won't address problems or make progress. The "canonical" resource for my comment on npmjs.org today can be found here: http://robcolbert.com/#/posts/5311055a38bb373638000007 http://robcolbert.com/#/posts/5311055a38bb373638000007 That is my personal blog running on my personal server on a DSL line that I can't afford while about to go homeless. I have no choice. I have to speak up and fight for what I want to be using or throw in the towel. What would you do?
- andyzweb 13y ago
  I would observe the CPAN community. I highly recommend reading http://www.cpan.org/misc/ZCAN.html http://www.cpan.org/misc/ZCAN.html and then begin forking+mirroring the registry immediately.
- s_kilk 13y ago
  >> struggle to convince IT that Node.js is ready only to have it shot down time and time again Devils advocate, is it actually ready? Especially in light of the incompetence on display with this particular issue?
  - btown 13y ago
    To be fair, Ruby's had similar issues with its gem repository, including an intrusion that one time (about a year ago).

Pacabel 13y ago

It's disappointing to see unnecessary and unjustifiable censorship of perfectly legitimate comments like that. I think it has become more of an issue in general as the discussion of software projects has moved away from mailing lists and newsgroups to blogs and other more centralized discussion forums. I recently saw similar censorship happen at Opera's blogs. I would read some of the comments one evening, and there'd be some good discussion about features that the newer versions of Opera's desktop browsers are still missing. They weren't always positive comments, but they'd be relevant and remarkably civilized given the circumstances. Then I'd read the same blog post a day or two later, and entire discussion threads full of useful content would be gone. Criticism and negative discussion is often the most valuable that there is. It often highlights real problems that need to be solved. To delete such commentary is not at all helpful, and actually probably quite harmful.

silentOpen 13y ago
It's happened to me on the Chromium blog as well when attempting to correct a factual error. Gotta love fauxpen source!

novaleaf 13y ago

fyi, all yesterday i was getting npm registry timeouts all day, from machines in DC's around the globe. seems due to an unrelated issue also reported on their blog: http://blog.npmjs.org/post/78048834276/elevated-error-rates-2014-02-27 http://blog.npmjs.org/post/78048834276/elevated-error-rates-... So yeah.. I was thinking this myself. this type of errors are unacceptable.

seldo 13y ago

Hi! As I said in the comment's on Rob's own post: we didn't censor any comments. We did no moderation of any kind on any comments today; we were way too busy trying to fix the problem. I don't know what happened to Rob's comment, but it was nothing anyone at npm did.