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No codebase worth being deeply invested in is deeply understood by anyone, including the original authors. The eternal maintenance argument is tiresome. If ther

No codebase worth being deeply invested in is deeply understood by anyone, including the original authors. The eternal maintenance argument is tiresome. If there is a problem in need of fixing, you figure it out, you do not depend on some author being available, and LLMs are exceptionally helpful in this regard as well. Then, if the LLM has trouble figuring out, so will another human. It is a code smell.

zahlman 1mo ago
There are all kinds of projects out there that have had significant impact on the world, which were written and maintained over the course of years by a single, highly capable developer. The way people talk about code nowadays, just because they have more powerful authoring tools, is frankly disgraceful. Imagine if modern construction techniques had become a reason to stop caring about the natural beauty of wood grain.
- incrudible 1mo ago
  People are reading this as a slight against single authors, but it is a slight against the belief that anyone deeply understands complex code they wrote even a week ago. It is just a bullshit belief. Yes, you build an intuition about it, but you need to constantly refresh your understanding. That is just how the brain works. Now, if you have program that is highly complex, written by a single author who is not you, hinging on the ongoing goodwill and capability of that single author, that is a liability you do not want to have, operationally. Again, that is just how it is.
seanhunter 1mo ago
Strongly disagree. The obvious counterexample is in the foss world is ffmpeg, which I would submit is deeply understood by Fabrice Bellard. As a sibling points out, there are also various worthwhile single author projects. Outside the world of foss there are for example multiple games that are highly respected that were all entirely or largely developed by a single developer. Rimworld, Songs of Syx, Dwarf Fortress, Ostranauts and many others. In a proprietary context I have myself deeply understood codebases and worked with others who have also. That being said, you are arguing against a straw man that neither I nor the rust article propose. They are not saying maintainers need to understand all the code they are saying the person submitting a pr needs to deeply understand that pr. Why? Because they want to build a community who deeply understand various aspects of rust so when things need maintenance there are experts around who even if they don’t know a particular piece are invested in the success of the project and know enough to get up the curve and fix whatever needs to be fixed.
- bryanlarsen 1mo ago
  I have a bunch of single-author projects that I wrote myself that I no longer have a deep understanding of. None are near as large as your references. Fabrice Bellard is obviously a superhuman, but I expect even he relies on re-analyzing code he previously wrote and has subsequently forgot. This doesn't take him long because he knows his own conventions and proclivities. But I'm confident he doesn't "deeply understand" the entire code base. He has a shallow understanding of the entire code base. He has a deep understanding of crucial parts of it. And he has the ability to quickly re-establish a deep understanding of any piece.
- NobodyNada 1mo ago
  > The obvious counterexample is in the foss world is ffmpeg, which I would submit is deeply understood by Fabrice Bellard Bellard hasn't worked on FFMpeg since 2003.
sensanaty 1mo ago
I disagree. For sure there doesn't exist anyone out there who knows every detail of Rust (or any similarly complex project) because that's simply not possible, but domain expertise is a very real thing and simply invaluable to the long term success of any project. From my own work experience, the "dinosaurs" are the most valuable people in the whole org, because oftentimes understanding the code isn't nearly sufficient to make good long term choices. You very often need to know the historical context of why certain things were made in order to not shoot blindly in the dark with random changes.

zahlman 1mo ago

There are all kinds of projects out there that have had significant impact on the world, which were written and maintained over the course of years by a single, highly capable developer. The way people talk about code nowadays, just because they have more powerful authoring tools, is frankly disgraceful. Imagine if modern construction techniques had become a reason to stop caring about the natural beauty of wood grain.

incrudible 1mo ago
People are reading this as a slight against single authors, but it is a slight against the belief that anyone deeply understands complex code they wrote even a week ago. It is just a bullshit belief. Yes, you build an intuition about it, but you need to constantly refresh your understanding. That is just how the brain works. Now, if you have program that is highly complex, written by a single author who is not you, hinging on the ongoing goodwill and capability of that single author, that is a liability you do not want to have, operationally. Again, that is just how it is.

seanhunter 1mo ago

Strongly disagree. The obvious counterexample is in the foss world is ffmpeg, which I would submit is deeply understood by Fabrice Bellard. As a sibling points out, there are also various worthwhile single author projects. Outside the world of foss there are for example multiple games that are highly respected that were all entirely or largely developed by a single developer. Rimworld, Songs of Syx, Dwarf Fortress, Ostranauts and many others. In a proprietary context I have myself deeply understood codebases and worked with others who have also. That being said, you are arguing against a straw man that neither I nor the rust article propose. They are not saying maintainers need to understand all the code they are saying the person submitting a pr needs to deeply understand that pr. Why? Because they want to build a community who deeply understand various aspects of rust so when things need maintenance there are experts around who even if they don’t know a particular piece are invested in the success of the project and know enough to get up the curve and fix whatever needs to be fixed.

bryanlarsen 1mo ago
I have a bunch of single-author projects that I wrote myself that I no longer have a deep understanding of. None are near as large as your references. Fabrice Bellard is obviously a superhuman, but I expect even he relies on re-analyzing code he previously wrote and has subsequently forgot. This doesn't take him long because he knows his own conventions and proclivities. But I'm confident he doesn't "deeply understand" the entire code base. He has a shallow understanding of the entire code base. He has a deep understanding of crucial parts of it. And he has the ability to quickly re-establish a deep understanding of any piece.
NobodyNada 1mo ago
> The obvious counterexample is in the foss world is ffmpeg, which I would submit is deeply understood by Fabrice Bellard Bellard hasn't worked on FFMpeg since 2003.

sensanaty 1mo ago

I disagree. For sure there doesn't exist anyone out there who knows every detail of Rust (or any similarly complex project) because that's simply not possible, but domain expertise is a very real thing and simply invaluable to the long term success of any project. From my own work experience, the "dinosaurs" are the most valuable people in the whole org, because oftentimes understanding the code isn't nearly sufficient to make good long term choices. You very often need to know the historical context of why certain things were made in order to not shoot blindly in the dark with random changes.