The counterpoint is that building software is not building a fence. When you create something in software, nothing tangible changes until that's accepted and running on all the places that you deploy to. A PR is just a hey, here's a fence that the contributor built elsewhere that proves that building something like this is possible.
The corollary is design your open source libraries so they're obvious enough that the chesterton's gaps are obvious. Anytime an AI tool submits something that breaks your expectation of things not being necessary it usually highlights that there's a missing gap in the explanation of what is necessary.
I’m not sure I share your view of PRs. I still see submitting PRs as something that puts pressure on maintainers. Even incorrect PRs take time to verify and review.
I also don’t see how this differs between the “gap” and the “fence” part of the metaphor. Whether someone submits a rewrite/removal (fence) or a new feature (gap) for PR review, it’s still going to cost me attention.
Related to this, the concept of "Free as in Puppies" from Richard Hipp, the creator of SQLite, quote:
"""
Suppose you had a pull request for SQL. Hey. I've got this new feature for SQLite. Here's the pull request.
When you're wanting me to pull that into the tree, you say, oh, it's free.
No. It's not free. What you're doing is asking me that "I have this this cool feature", and want you want me to maintain it for you, to to document it for you, to test it for you, to maintain it for you for the next twenty five years.
That's not free.
You know, Linus Torvalds is famous famous for saying, you know, there's free as in beer and free as in speech.
Mhmm. But there's another kind of freedom. Free as in as in puppies.
Oh, look. I've got a free puppy for you. Okay? You see where this is going?
A pool request is a free puppy. And then you just got a kennel at the end of the day full of puppies. You're just like Yeah. And and you can't just throw them out.
Okay? They're you you're you're morally obligated to take care of them for natural life. Yep.
I know. I don't want any free puppies.
Thanks! This is very similar indeed. Related: I see a lot of “drive-by” PRs by agents, who obviously have no intent of ever maintaining the code they wrote.
The counterpoint is that building software is not building a fence. When you create something in software, nothing tangible changes until that's accepted and running on all the places that you deploy to. A PR is just a hey, here's a fence that the contributor built elsewhere that proves that building something like this is possible.
The corollary is design your open source libraries so they're obvious enough that the chesterton's gaps are obvious. Anytime an AI tool submits something that breaks your expectation of things not being necessary it usually highlights that there's a missing gap in the explanation of what is necessary.
I’m not sure I share your view of PRs. I still see submitting PRs as something that puts pressure on maintainers. Even incorrect PRs take time to verify and review.
I also don’t see how this differs between the “gap” and the “fence” part of the metaphor. Whether someone submits a rewrite/removal (fence) or a new feature (gap) for PR review, it’s still going to cost me attention.
Related to this, the concept of "Free as in Puppies" from Richard Hipp, the creator of SQLite, quote:
"""
Suppose you had a pull request for SQL. Hey. I've got this new feature for SQLite. Here's the pull request. When you're wanting me to pull that into the tree, you say, oh, it's free.
No. It's not free. What you're doing is asking me that "I have this this cool feature", and want you want me to maintain it for you, to to document it for you, to test it for you, to maintain it for you for the next twenty five years.
That's not free.
You know, Linus Torvalds is famous famous for saying, you know, there's free as in beer and free as in speech. Mhmm. But there's another kind of freedom. Free as in as in puppies.
Oh, look. I've got a free puppy for you. Okay? You see where this is going?
A pool request is a free puppy. And then you just got a kennel at the end of the day full of puppies. You're just like Yeah. And and you can't just throw them out.
Okay? They're you you're you're morally obligated to take care of them for natural life. Yep. I know. I don't want any free puppies.
"""
source: https://youtu.be/x8_ZZhRL3YU?t=1715
Thanks! This is very similar indeed. Related: I see a lot of “drive-by” PRs by agents, who obviously have no intent of ever maintaining the code they wrote.
FYI there are quite a few glitches in there:
> and want you want me to maintain it for you
> to to document it for you
> Linus Torvalds is famous famous
> A pool request
> They're you you're you're morally obligated