Democratising software development inherently means that people are going to develop software in ways you don't like and which seem objectively wrong and welp that's also the argument people made against Linux so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not
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@mjg59 as i understand it, "endless hacktober" is more apt
endless september was about new people not learning the rules
endless hacktover is about people doing extractive work
@tef But it's both? A huge amount of this bullshit is people automating making my life miserable, but some of it is someone has a genuine problem and they want to fix it and the machine gave them a solution and it worked and now they want to share that solution with other people
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@mjg59
Another well-known past 'democratization' of programming has been the spreadsheet with its macro system. In the 80s, it changed how many professionals manage data.
Spreadsheets had similar results: a lot of slop, with confusion between data and computation, but even some good results when used with a grain of salt. Was that good or bad? It depends on who judges that, and it varies from case to case. -
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All I'm actually saying here is that (waves broadly) a lot more people who have never opened a PR or maintained a project being in a position to either open a PR or maintaining a project is going to result in them not behaving within the social norms we've developed as a group that is, to be fair, far less insular than in the 90s but is still somewhat insular compared to society as a whole and yes we are going to have to get used to the equivalent of HTML mail and top posting
This isn't me saying that what's happening is good, it's me saying that we've had decades of trying to force new people into existing norms and the trend is that it doesn't work and what's our answer to that going to be
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@mjg59 What does ”democratizing” mean here, if I may ask?
My first guess would be an allusion to LLMs, but it’s hard to be sure. The way I usually interpret the word is something akin to ”lowering the barrier to entry”.
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All I'm actually saying here is that (waves broadly) a lot more people who have never opened a PR or maintained a project being in a position to either open a PR or maintaining a project is going to result in them not behaving within the social norms we've developed as a group that is, to be fair, far less insular than in the 90s but is still somewhat insular compared to society as a whole and yes we are going to have to get used to the equivalent of HTML mail and top posting
@mjg59 Baseless inflation of skill is not democratization. In the past people would lurk in forums, or track projects from the sideline, until they were comfortable with some aspects of it - and showed this process. Then they would step in. Now anyone with 5min with Claude thinks that a contribution is valid.
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@mjg59 Baseless inflation of skill is not democratization. In the past people would lurk in forums, or track projects from the sideline, until they were comfortable with some aspects of it - and showed this process. Then they would step in. Now anyone with 5min with Claude thinks that a contribution is valid.
@koen_hufkens That does not match my experience of helping maintain a Linux distribution for the past 25 years in the slightest
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@koen_hufkens That does not match my experience of helping maintain a Linux distribution for the past 25 years in the slightest
@koen_hufkens WebTV granted more people access to Usenet, Usenet norms changed. Ubuntu granted more people access to a functioning Linux desktop, support norms changed. This keeps happening. Every time it happens, people complain about the status quo being disrupted. This kind of disruption is the historical norm.
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@koen_hufkens WebTV granted more people access to Usenet, Usenet norms changed. Ubuntu granted more people access to a functioning Linux desktop, support norms changed. This keeps happening. Every time it happens, people complain about the status quo being disrupted. This kind of disruption is the historical norm.
@mjg59 In all those instances there were strong gatekeepers (for better or worse) and little in ways of "flooding the zone". I argue that "this" is not that.
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@mjg59 In all those instances there were strong gatekeepers (for better or worse) and little in ways of "flooding the zone". I argue that "this" is not that.
@koen_hufkens I, uh, were you there?
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