• Saapas@piefed.zip
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    8 hours ago

    Piefed has more features and different devs. From an user perspective they’re not very different.

    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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      7 hours ago

      How different are the devs? Is it just a fork where they regularly pull the upstream lemmy? Or ground up?

      This account is getting pretty old and about due for a nuking and dessalines seems to be speedrunning being the tankie musk (right down to surrounding himself with bot-friends). Lemmy is still good enough software but looking for an offramp if you catch my drift.

      • [object Object]@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        Piefed is unrelated at all, afaik.

        They’re a bit cavalier with development, though: when they recently rolled out the feature of posts having a ‘selected answer’ a-la StackOverflow, someone pointed out that the marker for the selected answer should be on the post’s data structure, not the comment’s, so a commenter can’t hijack the marker — but the developer replied that they already moved on from that feature and won’t be changing it.

        • hendrik@palaver.p3x.de
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          6 hours ago

          Yes. Entirely different software. Different programming language and tech stack. Also different system requirements and feature set.

          Not sure about the developer spirit. PieFed development has traditionally been moving crazy fast and it gets like several new features every month. I think that’s a matter of focus. It comes with consequences, though. But I think overall the project is doing a good job with trying to be compatible to other software. Prioritizing important stuff and doing the right thing. Sometimes some things get done, rather than be 100% perfect. But past experience tells me things often get fixed or changed around once necessary. Not sure if that’s a wise decision here. The JSON exchanged between the servers is probably extra work if changed around later.

          • Skavau@piefed.social
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            6 hours ago

            I’d legit rather the software develop and occasionally spaff it up and break the server for a few hours every once in a while rather than the non-moving 5 year plans of Lemmy development.

            Also, usually piefed.social is the only instance that gets hit with this as, being the flagship server - it takes the brunt of more ‘experimental’ features. Most other servers don’t upgrade to the latest iteration until they’re sure it’s not going to break them.

            • [object Object]@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              break the server for a few hours every once in a while

              That’s not what botching the protocol does. It opens the way to mess up the posts that shouldn’t be messed up, until the devs get around to fixing it in the protocol and implement the fix on the server and all the clients change their implementation. By that time data on the posts can be irretrievably borked unless someone sits down and retroactively reassigns which answer is the the ‘selected’ one, which again might need an addition to the protocol because it isn’t a central database, except the dev also can’t actually unilaterally decide which is the ‘selected’ answer because the user might’ve changed the selected answer themselves.

              Does this sound like ‘breaking the server for a few hours’?

              This smells of fresh college-grad coding with people who can’t foresee how their programming decisions affect the software’s workings in the future.

              • Rimu@crust.piefed.social
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                4 hours ago

                Haha

                I have 25 years of experience at this and am well aware of the tradeoffs I’m making.

                We’re not building a space shuttle, here. Lighten up.

                • [object Object]@lemmy.world
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                  3 hours ago

                  I have a bit over twenty years with some of them spent at a site that had a million users daily. Seeing as we’re measuring dicks here.

                  We’re not building a space shuttle, here. Lighten up.

                  Come on man. It should be a mantra for web devs to never ever lose or bungle users’ data. You know, the thing that gives the web its entire worth, one person sharing with others their personal experience in overcoming the daily grind and tedium: them asking “how do you deal with this shit?” and others replying “well if you contort just so to keep your back from giving out, and press these buttons, you can in fact live to the end of the day”. This should persist on the web for years to come and for everyone to discover. But somehow you think that if you save five minutes on ruminating through your decisions, that’s worth a whole lot and everyone should cheer on you for implementing that change despite the fact that I could overwrite that reply with “you greedy schmuck need to shut up and do your miserable job because you suck”, and this is entirely okay with you.

                  • Rimu@crust.piefed.social
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                    3 hours ago

                    Seeing as we’re measuring dicks here.

                    That’s not what is going on, no. You called my work “fresh college-grad coding” and I described my experience to assure you that it is not. I made no intimations about the length of your dick, qualifications or credibility.

                    Good day, sir.

                  • Rimu@crust.piefed.social
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                    3 hours ago

                    never ever lose or bungle users’ data

                    This is a strawman. I reject your premise that losing or bungling user’s data is at risk here.

                    Yes the ‘answer’ value is on the comment but the full ActivityPub representation of the comment is only under the control of the comment author in the most narrow and technical sense - only for those who have access to the underlying database of their instance (to get the private key for signing the Activity). There is no realistic scenario where this becomes a big problem. And if it does, I can spit out a new release that changes it within a day.

                    This is a really small part of the picture and to dig down into one boolean value in a project of 50k lines of code and use that to dismiss the whole thing is just asinine.

              • Skavau@piefed.social
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                5 hours ago

                I’m speaking generally. I’d rather Piefed development speed and the side-effects that come with that than Lemmy’s stagnation.

                • [object Object]@lemmy.world
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                  5 hours ago

                  Everyone could just write in a big Google Docs document (or any alternative thereof), this would allow anyone immediately implement any feature they want that’s achievable with text and images. Never mind that I could overwrite all your input with garbage, we aren’t picky about that.

                  • Skavau@piefed.social
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                    4 hours ago

                    Piefed has been fine for the most part so far. We’re aware of the concerns regarding the Stack-Overflow function, and Rimu is not the only person who updates and fixes features to Piefed.

            • hendrik@palaver.p3x.de
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              5 hours ago

              Good thing we have both development models and people can just pick what they like. I know which one I prefer. 😆 And seems Lemmy is approaching a release with their efforts of the last years as well, they’re at alpha.17 these days…

                • hendrik@palaver.p3x.de
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                  5 hours ago

                  Ah thanks. I wrongfully assumed alpha meant alpha testing version. But seems there’s still a lot to do before that.

                  • Nutomic@lemmy.ml
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                    3 hours ago

                    We are close to releasing a first beta version for 1.0. Admins who are adventurous can already upgrade their instance to that. The final release will take longer though, with bug fixing, performance optimisations and general polishing.

          • [object Object]@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            things often get fixed or changed around once necessary. Not sure if that’s a wise decision here. The JSON exchanged between the servers is probably extra work if changed around later.

            Exactly, changing a protocol is not like changing centralized functionality. Not only it introduces mess that could’ve been avoided and mandates some compatibility measures while every client picks up the modified protocol, but it also allows posts to be messed up while this is fixed — without a way to restore the data as it should be, because false data on the comments is indistinguishable from the user changing the selected answer.

            Messing up or losing users’ data should be the biggest no-no in web programming, but some people are remarkably carefree about it.

            • hendrik@palaver.p3x.de
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              3 hours ago

              It’s difficult to discuss development in public places like here. There’s always a hundred things on the backlog. People want this, other people want that and someone needs exactly the opposite if all of it. There are a a bazilion ways users can annoy each other and all of it needs fixing. Then a project needs to be stable and reliable. It also needs new features. Performance needs to be right… It’s a proper nightmare job to balance all of it and maintain a mid-sized project. On top of it people will feel entitled, send in security vulnerabilities, complicated stuff that needs review and messes with things, other devs want something to be cleaned up, changed around, want someone to write more or less unit tests… and that also needs time for a plethora of good communication. And then there’s the actual architecture design and coding, which isn’t easy to begin with.

              I didn’t study the code. But I’d bet the representation in the database stays the same, no matter which way it’s phrased on transport. It’s some sql relation between answer and post either way. A UI will also want to know how to style a comment at the point it processes that comment, so it makes sense to have it there. On the other hand it makes more sense for the semantics to have it attached to the post. Then there’s who can edit it. We need to trust incoming notes from third parties anyway. And maybe admins or mods can change it as well. They might be on arbitrary instances. So I’m not even sure if it changes anything with security.

              And then there’s always many ways to skin a cat in software development. We can have long meetings to write specifications. We can choose to be a bit more explorative and figure things out along the way. We can even choose to make mistakes and fix them later. I think that’s a great thing with computer programming. Fixing mistakes is usually very cheap compared to for example a mechanical engineer who maybe likes to avoid wrecking a $1m piece of equipment. But that also means software developers have the opportunity to work a different way. And there’s a time for each of the methods. The trick is to apply the correct one at the correct time. I really can’t make a good statement here, I’d need to read the code and judge based on all the nuances I just mentioned. It’s regularly not as simple as something appears from the outside.

              • [object Object]@lemmy.world
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                42 minutes ago

                Wow, that’s amazing crock of a shit of a speech you have there. You don’t know anything about anything, but you’re ready to pump out a whole pageful about it. It’s quite impressive.

                You didn’t study shit, but you bet it’s all fine. You bet the database stays the same, and the protocol is all fine, and nothing is ever bothered by anything. It’s all some ‘SQL’ bullshit, why bother about it when smelly nerds can bother about it all they want, right? It’s just some ‘SQL’ fucking nonsense, it means nothing anyway. Just style the UI and process the comment, and it all goes away, you fucking nerd, why are you ever bothered about anything?

                sniff

                Oh maybe it might in fact make more sense to have it processed by the post instead of the semantics being attached to the fuck of the comment, what the fuck do I know. Just edit the fuck out of it, it makes more sense on the other hand. We need to trust processing by the semantics of the sense, why not. Who can edit it, incoming parties, yeah! Admins or mods, I’m not even sure.

                sniff

                Then there’s the skin the cat, we can have many long meetings, the specifications, choose a bit, make mistakes, what the fuck do I know. A bit more explorative, make mistakes, fix them, it’s all fine. That’s the great thing. Fixing mistakes. sniff That’s the great thing with programming. It’s very cheap compared to, uh for example to, uh a mechanical, who maybe likes uh to avoid. But that also means. The opportunity. There’s a time bang for each bang of the methods. bang

                sniff

                I really can’t make a good statement here. It’s regularly not as simple. The trick is to apply the correct one.

          • [object Object]@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            I’m quoting the response from the piefed dev in the announcement thread that popped up in the feed on .world. So it’s not my monkeys as to whether it’s on the test instance, but the response is what it is.

    • UnspecificGravity@piefed.social
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      5 hours ago

      I think the registration process and “official” app made piefed a more welcoming enrollment for people who are just casual users. Like, I had to explain a lot of shit to get my GF signed up for Lemmy. My grandma could sign up for piefed without much guidance.