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Be Aware of the Makefile Effect

(blog.yossarian.net)
431 points thunderbong | 1 comments | 11 Jan 25 04:13 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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dgan ◴[11 Jan 25 08:06 UTC] No.42664211[source]▶
Okey but to me, copying - pasting working code (even with sone extra unused bits) really looks no more different than inheriting a library - provided base class, and then extending it to one's needs.

That's literally the basis of all software. There is no need to invent "a Makefile effect/syndrome"

Yes that's an indication that a code sharing mechanism is needed but not implemented. Copying pasting solves that. You don't expect people to rewrite http client for every project which interacts with APIs, so you?

replies(2): >>42664293 #>>42664809 #
1. heisenbit ◴[11 Jan 25 10:23 UTC] No.42664809[source]▶
Well, I expect people to understand http clients and if things don't work to be sufficiently knowledgeable to recognize when they have a performance problem and figure out why they have it. For that one needs language, library and networking skills which to a degree most developers have because they do it every day.

At issue however are niche skills. We are dealing with the long tail of a distribution and heuristics which work most of the time might not - the author mentions e.g. security. The way I look at this is risk i.e. security, bus factor, disruptions due to software moving from state "works and is not understood" to "broken and is not understood" and last but not least ability to predict behavior of this niche technology when it is going to be pushed into an larger project.