[HN Gopher] Worst practices are viral for the wrong reasons (2014) ___________________________________________________________________ Worst practices are viral for the wrong reasons (2014) Author : throwaway81523 Score : 27 points Date : 2022-01-26 20:33 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.haskellforall.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.haskellforall.com) | overgard wrote: | I think sqlite is a good counterpoint for the open source | scenario. Rarely has any problems but its used all over the place | WJW wrote: | Sqlite is also an outlier in the open source world in that it | has an extremely decent funding model (basically premium | support). This has enabled continued work on it for 20+ years | by the same author and a small team of people he hired for this | work. Just the sheer lifespan of the project makes sure it | generates the buzz-over-time that TFA mentions as the lifeblood | of software projects. | dkarl wrote: | A related phenomenon: developers who generate a ton of LOC, | create new services willy-nilly, and adopt new technologies to | cure their boredom have the greatest impact on coding norms in an | organization. | | Developers who solve problems with less code and less complexity, | and check to see if libraries already in use have the | functionality they need before adopting new ones, those | developers are less visible in the codebase, and it isn't obvious | that others should see them as leaders and role models. | JamesLeonis wrote: | Interestingly I see a form of #2 in the Clojure community | whenever a newer Clojurist asks if a stable library is still | maintained. The answer is usually yes, but it hasn't needed an | update for a while. Sometimes even I have to double check. | deltree7 wrote: | If your software is too perfect, almost always it needs new | features. If it's too perfect and becomes popular then every user | requests a new feature. | | So, there is no such thing as a perfect software/library being | done. | throwaway1777 wrote: | nothing is done, but stable and not needing frequent updates is | totally possible. Pushing back on new features is often a key | part of stability. | SQueeeeeL wrote: | The point of using Stack Overflow questions as a metric is very | intriguing. I never thought about the negative feedback loop of | popular libraries just being buggy. | | _cough_ PyTorch _cough_ | marcosdumay wrote: | That's not even the largest bias. Stack Overflow ranking is | mostly defined by a software's popularity divided by the | quality of its documentation. The quality of the software | itself is far away in relevance. | defanor wrote: | An interesting thought. I keep finding it amusing how I learn a | bit more about the buggy and vulnerable software, via a security | announcements mailing list, while not hearing unexpectedly about | the software that is more secure. | | One of the comments to the linked article also mentions the | principal-agent problem, though not by name; an interesting and | tricky one, and likely indeed can happen in a software | development setting. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-01-26 23:00 UTC)