undefined | Better HN

0 pointsjpollock18d ago0 comments

Faults are injected into the code at a constant rate per developer. Then there's the intentional injections.

Auto-installing random software is the problem. It was a problem when our parents did it, why would it be a good idea for developers to do it?

0 comments

rounce18d ago

This is related to a massive annoyance of mine: when I run a piece of software and the system is missing a required dependency, I want the software to *tell me* that dependency is missing so I can make a decision about proceeding or not. Instead it seems that far too often software authors will try and be “clever” by silently installing a bunch of dependencies, either in some directory path specific to the software, or even worse globally.

I run a distro that often causes software like this to break because their silent automatic installation typically makes assumptions about Linux systems which don’t apply to mine. However I fear for the many users of most typical distros (and other OS’ in general as it’s not just a Linux-only issue) who are subject to having all sorts of stuff foisted onto their system with little to no opportunity to easily decide what is being heaped upon them.

skydhash18d ago

Ruby gems and CPAN have build scripts that rebuild stuff on the user's device (and warn you if they can't find a dependency). But I believe one of the Python's tools that started the trend of downloading binaries instead of building them. Or was it NPM?

Izkata17d ago

Python's pip predates npm, installs dependencies automatically, can include binaries, and the old-style packages could run arbitrary code during the install.

Ruby gems are older than that, but I have no idea what capabilities it has/had.

i_think_so18d ago

Is it really a constant rate? Or is it a Law of Large Numbers kind of thing, where past a certain scale the randomness gets smoothed out and looks constant? Or something else?

(Obviously some developers are better or worse than others, so I presume your observation is assuming developer skill as a constant.)

jpollockOP17d ago

Well, I think there are two things at play here.

1) As org size grows, it's the team's average quality that matters (so yes, large numbers).

2) Even with a single team, the velocity will increase to match the acceptable level of quality.

Management will push the accelerator until they get too many bugs, then it will be "we need fewer outages".

So, in an team+environment, you end up with a constant (in time) detection rate, which basically means a constant in time injection rate.

If the teams' velocity increases without increasing quality, the bug injection rate (and detection rate) will increase.

AKA if the AI is slightly worse, but 10x faster, stop carrying the pager. :)

teiferer18d ago

curl ... | sudo bash

yolo!

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse