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nothingburger [2020/05/24 12:20] – external edit 127.0.0.1 | nothingburger [2020/09/03 12:59] – external edit 127.0.0.1 | ||
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Practically everybody uses Git nowadays but back then the standard thing was CVS, which was what Java.net used. CVS may be more crufty and capricious than Git, but if it is a question of just getting an overview of the history of a codebase, CVS serves perfectly well for that purpose. | Practically everybody uses Git nowadays but back then the standard thing was CVS, which was what Java.net used. CVS may be more crufty and capricious than Git, but if it is a question of just getting an overview of the history of a codebase, CVS serves perfectly well for that purpose. | ||
- | If I were a more masterful storyteller, | + | Now, if I were a more masterful storyteller, |
//To all intents and purposes, **no** work had been done in those five years. **Nothing.**// | //To all intents and purposes, **no** work had been done in those five years. **Nothing.**// | ||
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===== Return to Planet of the Apes? ===== | ===== Return to Planet of the Apes? ===== | ||
- | It occurred to me recently that there is a science fiction genre that characterizes quite well this nothingburger state of affairs. In a post-apocalyptic, | + | It occurred to me recently that there is a science fiction genre that characterizes quite well this nothingburger state of affairs. In a post-apocalyptic, |
Now, in this scenario, suppose somebody shows up (from the past somehow?) who really has the technical know-how to take these machines apart, fix whatever problem, and put them back together. How is this priesthood going to react? I think it is obvious. They' | Now, in this scenario, suppose somebody shows up (from the past somehow?) who really has the technical know-how to take these machines apart, fix whatever problem, and put them back together. How is this priesthood going to react? I think it is obvious. They' | ||
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- When very minor changes to the code are made, patches that, by the principles of [[https:// | - When very minor changes to the code are made, patches that, by the principles of [[https:// | ||
- | One could surely list other important symptoms of // | + | One could surely list other important symptoms of // |
At this point, let me be clear about one thing: I do not mean to say that one should not have a certain amount of structure and organization in how one goes about things. Rather, I am talking about a situation where this is all taken to such lengths that it creates a quite mentally oppressive environment. Come to think of it, I am sure that, on occasion, this is a factor in the original author(s) losing interest and abandoning the project! Many things in this life are a question of balance, after all. Yes, a reasonable level of hygiene is a good idea, but what we are talking about here is something more akin to [[https:// | At this point, let me be clear about one thing: I do not mean to say that one should not have a certain amount of structure and organization in how one goes about things. Rather, I am talking about a situation where this is all taken to such lengths that it creates a quite mentally oppressive environment. Come to think of it, I am sure that, on occasion, this is a factor in the original author(s) losing interest and abandoning the project! Many things in this life are a question of balance, after all. Yes, a reasonable level of hygiene is a good idea, but what we are talking about here is something more akin to [[https:// | ||
Now, to be clear, a // | Now, to be clear, a // | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== How about a Tanning Contest this Summer? ===== | ||
Now, as for the other point I mention above, this excessive reverence for " | Now, as for the other point I mention above, this excessive reverence for " | ||
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Frankly, I have no more intention of competing with any of these people on // | Frankly, I have no more intention of competing with any of these people on // | ||
- | As for my final point above, that the extreme overvaluation of minor patches will lead to the nothingburger project having an absurdly high version number, this is a frequent symptom, but not really a //sine qua non// either. However, we do observe it in the legacy JavaCC project, which is apparently gearing up for an 8.0 release. The fact of the matter is that, in its 17 years of open source history, that project has not had a level of forward evolution that would correspond to a single point release (0.8 to 0.9 say) by the approximate rules of Semantic Versioning outlined [[https:// | + | As for the final point above, that the extreme overvaluation of minor patches will lead to the nothingburger project having an absurdly high version number, this is a frequent symptom, but not really a //sine qua non// either. However, we do observe it in the legacy JavaCC project, which is apparently gearing up for an 8.0 release. The fact of the matter is that, in its 17 years of open source history, that project has not had a level of forward evolution that would correspond to a single point release (0.8 to 0.9 say) by the approximate rules of Semantic Versioning outlined [[https:// |
+ | |||
+ | ===== The Army with No Soldiers ===== | ||
I have no doubt that there are certain people who will jump at any opportunity to twist and misrepresent what I am saying here, so I feel I have to be very very clear about certain things. By no means am I saying here that the //only// thing anybody can do of any value in a software project is write code. In fact, it is frequently the case that the most value that can be added at a given point is by doing things other than coding. For example, most (pretty much all) open source projects are sorely in need of better documentation than what they have. | I have no doubt that there are certain people who will jump at any opportunity to twist and misrepresent what I am saying here, so I feel I have to be very very clear about certain things. By no means am I saying here that the //only// thing anybody can do of any value in a software project is write code. In fact, it is frequently the case that the most value that can be added at a given point is by doing things other than coding. For example, most (pretty much all) open source projects are sorely in need of better documentation than what they have. | ||
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Would that not be completely surreal? How much expertise in military affairs would it take for you to realize that there is something very screwy going on? Of course, we could also imagine a situation where the journalist realizes all this but keeps it to himself, since he realizes that honestly reporting on this absurd state of affairs might be career suicide. In this story, one is not claiming that nobody should be doing any office work. A modern army is a very large bureaucratic organization and it is inevitable that there are lots of personnel engaged in accounting and record keeping and such. However, an army in which every last person has a desk job is an utter absurdity regardless. | Would that not be completely surreal? How much expertise in military affairs would it take for you to realize that there is something very screwy going on? Of course, we could also imagine a situation where the journalist realizes all this but keeps it to himself, since he realizes that honestly reporting on this absurd state of affairs might be career suicide. In this story, one is not claiming that nobody should be doing any office work. A modern army is a very large bureaucratic organization and it is inevitable that there are lots of personnel engaged in accounting and record keeping and such. However, an army in which every last person has a desk job is an utter absurdity regardless. | ||
- | ===== It's fun to be a superhero! ===== | + | ===== It must be nice to be a superhero! ===== |
We could shift that military metaphor a bit and get to another point, which is that the stance of people in a // | We could shift that military metaphor a bit and get to another point, which is that the stance of people in a // | ||
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//But the analogy with the physically dangerous activity is completely nutso!// | //But the analogy with the physically dangerous activity is completely nutso!// | ||
- | No matter how irreparably you mess up the code, it can always be restored to the previous state anyway. | + | No matter how irreparably you mess up the code, it can always be restored to the previous state anyway. |
This leads us to another frequent symptom of // | This leads us to another frequent symptom of // | ||
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//The insiders in a nothingburger project frequently **affect** that they don't understand how version control systems work.// | //The insiders in a nothingburger project frequently **affect** that they don't understand how version control systems work.// | ||
- | The // | + | The // |
- An extremely aggressive stance in terms of evolving the code forward, refactoring etcetera. (Because if you do some things that turn out to be a bad idea, nothing is lost anyway!) | - An extremely aggressive stance in terms of evolving the code forward, refactoring etcetera. (Because if you do some things that turn out to be a bad idea, nothing is lost anyway!) |