2,281 karma · joined August 6, 2015
Website: https://www.schneems.com
I write Ruby and Rust code.
2) If you have something to say, just say it. Don't put words in my mouth and then argue with a thing I didn't say.
The classic Ruby buildpack is written in Ruby but we have to bootstrap it with bash and it's annoying and has edge cases. The CNB is written in rust to not have that problem and the idea that you can ship a single binary with no dependencies is really powerful.
Mike works at Basecamp (now and then). Based on comms I don't believe any of them acted on behalf of their employer i.e. no "team orders." Or if they did, they did so in ways that aligned with my perception of what I believed to be the correct read of the situation.
I also think that we (as humans) are much less incapable of knowing what things sway and influence our opinions than we think. We are much less capable of correcting for conflicts of interest than we would like. The study "tappers and listeners" is about adjusting for knowledge (curse of knowledge), but I think it applies to influence as well. Which is to say...I'm sure that everyone was influenced in many ways, but I felt they acted as individuals and reacted in real time.
There are other details of affiliations that I omitted from the former maintainers as well, that are true to state, and likely had some impact on their decisions ... but I used judgment to omit what I didn't think was fair or didn't think was immediately relevant. Not saying I got it all right all the time, but sort of chiming in to say "I'm not only omitting information in favor of one party." Yes, I'm biased...but I'm trying to correct for that bias. (A funny thing to state after just saying humans are bad at it, I know).
You'll have to take me on my word about it...but if I saw this as a driver of the issue I would have included it. I think saying "shopify was involved" is sort of like saying "people talked about RV at Rails World." Shopify is huge and hugely invested in Ruby's OSS ecosystem. I have my own critiques of the company, but not here. I think they're a net positive for Ruby OSS. I wish the general response was "more companies need to step up, I'll go talk to my leadership" rather than knocking these volunteers for their involvement. I've said elsewhere that if I were in the committee or in their shoes...I don't think the outcome would have been different (even if details would have). Also, you are welcome to disagree and have a different opinion.
I agree that it's best not to have situations like this. PSF bylaws "Section 5.15. Limits on Co-affiliation of Board Members." and similar rules are generally good at preventing the perception of conflict of interest (which is also important...that the perception alone can be damaging).
Right now, the committee is 100% one company (me). Because I'm the only one on it. Which is also a problem. Also, we're in a rebuilding/re-prioritizing phase with all of this...so it's hard to onboard while things are in flux.
This was never in dispute from the two parties. Ruby Central and "the maintainers" agreed from the beginning that it was collateral damage. The disagreement was what that meant and what to do with it. Hence the Sept 10 message from the Ruby Central Committee that they should move it to the Ruby core org (which IMO is long overdue).
The original plan (by the oss committee)was to move bundler to the Ruby org, that's what happened. When it did, the community generally like it (on HN and reddit comments).
I am confident in that description but don't actually know what it means in practice (yes I've seen papers and talks, but I kinda need not-compiler-engineer to explain it to me.)
As I understand it BBV still holds promise, but the sheer volume of knowledge of more traditional methods might mean it gets better outcomes (also IIRC ZJIT is still lagging YJIT).
Hiring posts (definitively) and tech posts (maybe) by YC companies. The whole product is one big ad for a venture fund. Its generally well done and unobtrusive. So kudos to them for that it goes relatively unnoticed.
Five years later, I wrote a novel algorithm for rate limiting GCRA clients https://www.schneems.com/2020/07/08/a-fast-car-needs-good-br....
No
It sounds like violently agree with everything other than my framing and wording choices.
> I think you're misreading that last line.
Maybe. I didn't notice it was a period and not a comma until posting it. I still read it as "we found...his life" sure maybe they interpret it was him wasting that life, but your prior sentiment I quoted is the thing I'm emphasizing. I'm not saying there's *no* judgement. I'm saying there's a clear (to me) attempt at understanding that goes beyond blame.
Yet, blame is easy and satisfying and true understanding requires empathy and is hard and often unsatisfying.
The term "understanding" is fractal and infinite. Therefore Its 100% reasonable to find a stopping point and say "I blame you" (or, as you point out, otherwise, no one would ever be allowed to assign blame).
My comment is more about intent. The "seeking" word weights heavy. Many commenters are not seeking understanding, they are seeking satisfaction. Validation. The author of the post could have stopped much sooner if they were seeking blame, they could have chosen to build a caricature to heap more judgement upon. But they chose a more nuanced and exploratory path.
Even if the end result is blame or judgement. It's important that the purpose of the journey is clear. True understanding requires empathy, and it's really hard to empathize with someone you're actively trying to judge or vilify.
They might be lead to believe "if only we got married ... if only we had kids ... that will 'fix' it." Even straight couples who aren't in love fall into this trap.
I don't know how well real life imitates art, but a lot of films involving gay historical characters have a similar enough narrative I assume it has some grain of truth: The gay person would rather not be gay (it would be easier for them), and is told by society that it's a choice. Maybe they even have some small amount of feelings for the spouse or think they can "learn to love them." See Rustin 2023 as an example of the psychology in action.
> I'll go to my grave still very sad about the could-have-beens.
Sorry for that. Loss is one of the hardest, most confusing emotions. That lack of closure and the unknown is a truly awful feeling.
The author seemingly had a lot of judgement and blame for the dad before finding this out. It sounds like they are seeking understanding. I think the last line makes that clear:
> the evening we found the love letters. his entire life, and mine as well
And it's not to say someone can't attach judgement to characters, or that no one should hold blame. But I think it's important to honor what the author is seeking.
I hope truffle ruby does well, too. But even if it doesn’t, he’s still made an impact on me, and on the community. I told him “thank you” to his face when we met. I also wish I could have also somehow let him know my thanks and appreciation was unconditional.
Open Source contributors and maintainers feel that there is a constant pressure to be producing. That somehow our worth is somehow only as good as our recent patches. That note says to me: that’s not the case. That even after the contributions stop, or we do, that our efforts and impacts are felt and remembered.
FWIW I captured a timeline of events in this post but a lot of the Twitter links are dead now. https://schneems.com/2021/05/12/the-room-where-it-happens-ho...
Like, if you’ve got a tight deadline coming up, it’s not the time to spend a week making CI slightly faster. On the other hand, if someone is telling you to not do work (right now), then they also need to help be responsible for finding time to do that work and understanding the impacts of that work never gets done.
I explain this to people as the tension between important urgent work. Some work is important but never（rarely) urgent. And if you ignore important work (like maintenance) it might become urgent at a very bad time.