Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by whilenot-dev 257 days ago
To not just link to another thread: The specialty of ljharbs issues sits somewhere between "JavaScript is a very dynamic programming language that grew a lot and quite fast" and "we cannot trust developers to do the right thing".

His libraries tend to build up on older runtime implementations and freeze every used functionality during runtime, so they provide "second-run safety" and "backwards compatibility". Developers disagree with some of its effects, such as a grown dependency tree and impacts in performance of multiple magnitudes (as measured in micro-benchmarks). ljharb seems to follow a rather strong ideology, but is a member of the TC39 group and a highly trusted person.
1 comments
12345hn6789 256 days ago
ljharb is also conveniently paid per download. His actions border on malicious especially when viewing from a supply chain attack angle.

https://github.com/A11yance/axobject-query/pull/354#issuecom...

link
pxc 256 days ago
It definitely feels a bit strange and potentially alarming, but after reading through that whole thread he ultimately seems like a sincere person doing work that he thinks matters, now getting dogpiled for it.
link
lpln3452 256 days ago
If he had kept his strange and alarming behavior to himself, he wouldn't be 'getting dogpiled' for it now.

The problem is that he's forcing his ways on others. If we're identifying an aggressor here, it's him. The project maintainers are the victims.

link
pxc 255 days ago
At least in the thread linked here, it seems like his maintainership over the project is legitimate, which makes it wrong to characterize him as "forcing" his ways on anyone.
link
lpln3452 255 days ago
Even ignoring that examples of his behavior are easily found elsewhere, the link itself shows him completely disregarding feedback from other contributors to force his own way.

Honestly, I can't understand the intent behind such a defensive rebuttal to the criticism of his actions.

link
pxc 254 days ago
I don't care one way or another. I'm not a JS developer. I'm just struck by a reaction that seems quite extreme, and very visible dogpiling.
link
Sammi 256 days ago
I haven't found one person who agrees with him on what he thinks matters. His way is wasteful and slow and just indefensible.
link
silverwind 256 days ago
Also, I imagine cost of the globally wasted CPU cycles is much higher than what he profits. It's a pure abuse of resources.
link