Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 15, 2024 20:53 UTC (Fri) by mb (subscriber, #50428)
In reply to: Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++ by pizza
Parent article: Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

You are right. The users cannot demand that in an open source project.
Therefore, that cannot be the reason for the step down.
He could have just continued with his "me driving in the right direction and 1000 people driving wrong".

Just stop publishing things, if you don't care about users. It really is that simple.
And most important, don't complain, if all users tell you that you are wrong. Because most likely you are wrong.

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 15, 2024 21:57 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (10 responses)

> Just stop publishing things, if you don't care about users. It really is that simple.

You keep assuming that users are somehow owed "care" by some sort of divine right. [1]

If you want "care" then you must supply equivalent "compensation" [2]

And it really is that simple.

> And most important, don't complain, if all users tell you that you are wrong. Because most likely you are wrong.

You've been in this field far too long to truly believe that.

(And just in case you are actually serious, if the user has a different use case or expectations to what the author claimed to the software would provide, then yes, the user is *wrong*. But remember, this particular bruhaha was about the *style of implementation* of completely legal Rust code.)

[1] I've written software to sovle a problem my partner was having. That was the only user I "cared" about.
[2] Which can include "happy wife, happy life" euphamisms.

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 15, 2024 22:46 UTC (Fri) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (9 responses)

> You've been in this field far too long to truly believe that.

You know what? The longer I have been in this field, the more I care about code correctness and about what other people say. I want to learn from other people. I know that I am wrong most of the time.

>if the user has a different use case or expectations to what the author claimed to the software would provide, then yes, the user is *wrong*.

That is something I absolutely disagree with.
I think the user might be right.

I as the author do reserve the option to not do anything about it and keep the project as-is.
But that means that I will *have* to leave the project, if the majority of users wants a feature that I reject.
I can still maintain the project without this feature in private or as a fork.
I really don't see the problem.
I would not loose anything.

In free software there is no immediate "wrong" or "right". It's just that the "right" solution will continue to live. If I am actually right and 1000 people are wrong, then at the end I will succeed.

But unnecessary unsafe code won't succeed, IMO.
IMO that is pretty obvious.
But ya know. I might be wrong. Who knows.

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 16, 2024 22:40 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

> >if the user has a different use case or expectations to what the author claimed to the software would provide, then yes, the user is *wrong*.

> That is something I absolutely disagree with.
> I think the user might be right.

Screw. Meet hammer.

Just because many users think Excel is a database, just because clueless idiots think that F1 racing cars would be an excellent fast delivery vehicle, doesn't make them right.

Actually, that F1 example is pretty apt. The project was designed for SPEED, not heavy lifting. Just because idiots want to use a racing car to deliver 44-tonne loads, words fail me ...

Cheers,
Wol

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 16, 2024 22:43 UTC (Sat) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link]

> clueless idiots

That is not a base for further discussion.

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 17, 2024 14:40 UTC (Sun) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (6 responses)

I think the user might be right.

If the user thinks they're “right” but the maintainer of the code disagrees, it is the user's privilege to fork the code. The user is not entitled to have the maintainer change the code, at no charge, to conform to the user's wishes, and the user most certainly does not get to hijack the original project by driving away the original maintainer.

The principle of free software is, you scratch your own itches. Scratching other people's itches, particularly for free, is entirely optional (even though some free-software maintainers take satisfaction from that, and if that happens, good for those other people). In fact, the whole idea behind free software in the first place is putting other people in a position where they can scratch their own itches and don't need to rely on anyone else to scratch those itches for them.

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 17, 2024 14:52 UTC (Sun) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (5 responses)

Except that "hijacking" and "driving away" is not what actually happened here.

Popular projects don't live in a vacuum. If a maintainer of a popular project makes decisions that many users disagree with, then the maintainer will have to live with the feedback.
That has nothing to do with "hijacking".

Please go and take a look at the code. Some uses of unsafe were completely ridiculous.
And so were his responses in the PRs trying to improve that code. Please look at it.

>The principle of free software is, you scratch your own itches

That is only a very small part of it.
The major part of free software is collaboration, communication and technical improvements. All three of which the maintainer failed at, in the opinion of many users.

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 17, 2024 16:45 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (4 responses)

Again, please can you give an example of these unreasonable responses by the original author.

I am sceptical that it is possible for an author to leave responses to PRs/CRs made on their own personal project that could justify a campaign of negative comments against them. A campaign apparently that included "death threats" and which the author felt included "abuse". How can an unreasonable response by an author to PRs on their own project justify anything _else_ but "Thanks for the code, I'll make those changes somewhere else myself"?

You keep saying those responses exist, can you show them?

The level of entitlement that is implied by what you are saying is completely off the scale.

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 17, 2024 16:57 UTC (Sun) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (3 responses)

Many links have been posted here. I won't repeat.

>included "death threats"

You surely have a link to that?

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 18, 2024 15:07 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (2 responses)

The "death threats" were in comments - second hand stuff on forums. Not strong evidence of anything. What matters: I don't think it is disputed that the ngix author found the reaction to include sufficient abusive comments that he shut down his own project. His words, from his "post mortem" are:

"You alway face with rude and hate, everyone knows better how to build software, nobody wants to do home work and read docs and think a bit and very few provide any help. ... I started to receive complaints that docs are not updated and i have to go fix my shit. Encouraging. ... You felt betrayed after you put so much effort and then to hear all this shit comments, even if you understand that that is usual internet behavior."

https://github.com/fafhrd91/actix-web-postmortem

That is authoritative text on how the author felt. And I think we were all aware of that text before we started this discussion.

Now, your counter to this is that /his/ responses to the criticisms he received were unprofessional. I have asked for an example, twice now I think, but you've not given any, other than to claim I can find it if I look. Well, from reading around forums on this, the most heinous charge I can find levelled against the author is that he called a PoC change in a comment "boring":

http://web.archive.org/web/20200116231317/https://github....

I don't think /any/ response by an author, on their own issue tracker for their own personal project, could justify a campaign of "ostracism" (which in an online comment pretty much implies lots of toxic comments being left on various forums; from the target's own issue trackers, to reddit, etc. - i.e. abuse and bullying). I especially think that "this patch is boring" does not justify it.

The correct response is "Thanks for all your hard work on this code, and your generosity in open sourcing it - appreciate it, and I'll see about making my desired changes in my own version". Always really. At least, for anyone who is not a toxic ingrate.

If you had another comment in mind by the author, feel free to link to it.

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 18, 2024 17:16 UTC (Mon) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (1 responses)

> "everyone knows better how to build software,"

So? Maybe they are right?

> "nobody wants to do home work"

Also applies to the author.

> "and read docs and think a bit and very few provide any help."

Also applies to the author.
You see, the author complains about stuff that he does, too.

But it's Ok to have a different opinion.

> I have asked for an example, twice now I think, but you've not given any,

I said twice, that this has been posted already. I am not going to search the discussion threads for you.

> At least, for anyone who is not a toxic ingrate.

Do you realize that your definition of "toxic ingrate" also applies to yourself?
You are disagreeing with me and instead of going your way and forking this discussion to somewhere else, you keep on "harassing" me (by your definition) by trying to push your opinion onto me.
How rude. I am the victim. (Not really. It's called a discussion.)

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 18, 2024 18:13 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

It's a discussion that, I think, has run its useful course and beyond; perhaps we could bring it to a close, please?