Nineteen distribution channels later: what it actually costs to give a terminal editor away for free on Linux, and why the next step is a static musl binary that updates itself.
Just give the source away. Don’t package it at all (or at most, do so for your own distro). If your software is good enough, others will do the packaging for you. You’ll have to field a few inquiries, maybe, until someone steps up, but if you’ve got a canned response already written those don’t take long to handle.
This dev’s problems are twofold: first, he’s in too much of a hurry to get this thing out everywhere, instead of waiting for others to take the burden off him. Second, he wrote his code in Rust, which is difficult to package correctly in a self-contained manner because it tries to force you into using its own language-specific dependency system. He picked up a footgun and shot himself with it, in other words, and is now hopping around cursing.
Just give the source away. Don’t package it at all (or at most, do so for your own distro). If your software is good enough, others will do the packaging for you.
As someone who’s developed and shipped software you may know, who’s worked in rel/eng, OS security, escalations (we research the fix for the sploit and build the artifact for the update pipeline; everyone calls it something else) before being just an admin to manage hordes of machines; with the knowledge gained in every post I’ve ever held, let me say:
THIS. ABSOLUTELY THIS.
If you are a great coder but suck at packaging or hate it, then don’t. You’d produce something sub-par anyway.
Let the knowledgeable enthusiastic obsessively-detailed people do it for you and you’ll be happier and so will they.
There’s nothing wrong with the language that I’m aware of, but some aspects of the ecosystem seem to have not been thought out with Linux packaging in mind, let’s say.
some aspects of the ecosystem seem to have not been thought out
Absolutely. But this is a natural effect of ditching mentors and documentors more than 20 years ago – coders now have no idea in general how to do supply-chains right; nor why.
Just give the source away. Don’t package it at all (or at most, do so for your own distro). If your software is good enough, others will do the packaging for you. You’ll have to field a few inquiries, maybe, until someone steps up, but if you’ve got a canned response already written those don’t take long to handle.
This dev’s problems are twofold: first, he’s in too much of a hurry to get this thing out everywhere, instead of waiting for others to take the burden off him. Second, he wrote his code in Rust, which is difficult to package correctly in a self-contained manner because it tries to force you into using its own language-specific dependency system. He picked up a footgun and shot himself with it, in other words, and is now hopping around cursing.
As someone who’s developed and shipped software you may know, who’s worked in rel/eng, OS security, escalations (we research the fix for the sploit and build the artifact for the update pipeline; everyone calls it something else) before being just an admin to manage hordes of machines; with the knowledge gained in every post I’ve ever held, let me say:
THIS. ABSOLUTELY THIS.
If you are a great coder but suck at packaging or hate it, then don’t. You’d produce something sub-par anyway.
Let the knowledgeable enthusiastic obsessively-detailed people do it for you and you’ll be happier and so will they.
But I thought rust was 100% safe and the best? /s
There’s nothing wrong with the language that I’m aware of, but some aspects of the ecosystem seem to have not been thought out with Linux packaging in mind, let’s say.
Absolutely. But this is a natural effect of ditching mentors and documentors more than 20 years ago – coders now have no idea in general how to do supply-chains right; nor why.
I’m just making fun of the people who treat rust like the next best thing after sliced bread and pretend it will make it so you have 0 bugs.
Well, that sounds really immature.
Heckling introduces stress, providing incentive for improvement if the misbehaving member has that potential; otherwise shunning.
Their behaviour or me making fun of them?
Yes