[ramesh31]

>How come this is trying to install its own vendored dependencies, including executable binaries, instead of checking for what's already installed? That approach can lead to both security and performance issues.

Because the person who vibecoded this had no idea they should have been doing that.

[solvik]

It’s a desktop app for mostly non-technical users, so bundling the runtime is a deliberate tradeoff to reduce setup friction and machine-specific breakage.

That said, an optional “use system environment if available” mode could make sense for advanced users. A PR for that would be welcome, as long as it also handles the real complexity involved: platform differences, Python package compatibility, GPU backends, and missing system/compiler flags.

[Gormo]

> It’s a desktop app for mostly non-technical users, so bundling the runtime is a deliberate tradeoff to reduce setup friction and machine-specific breakage.

That's not a very reasonable justification, considering that dynamic linking of dependencies has been industry standard in software designed for "non-technical users" for the past thirty years or so, and is basically a solved problem.

I can understand having a downloadable archive that already includes things like FFMpeg and Python for Windows users (with everything already included in appropriate locations, so no runtime downloads necessary).

But this is an especially bad practice for Linux, since most of the vendored dependencies are already installed by default on pretty much every Linux distro, and package managers are designed to sort out and install appropriate dependencies on behalf users, so that the "non-technical" among them aren't exposed to the massive risks of having application software retrieve and execute arbitrary binaries from the internet.

The only thing it somewhat makes sense for would be the AI models it's retrieving, but even that ought to be implemented via a separate download/update script and not just baked into the main application runtime without even prompting the user that it's about to download a huge dataset.

> A PR for that would be welcome, as long as it also handles the real complexity involved: platform differences, Python package compatibility, GPU backends, and missing system/compiler flags.

These are the sort of things that config scripts at build time are designed to handle. It's already using Cargo here, which should be able to handle all of this just fine, so it's very perplexing to see that it isn't being used for this purpose, and what should be build-time dependency resolution is instead being palmed off to the application itself at runtime. That is an extremely strange -- and potentially dangerous -- approach.

[marssaxman]

> dynamic linking of dependencies has been industry standard

So it has, and I've been hating the excess complexity it brings for most of that thirty years! I'm glad to see the recent swing back toward self-contained executables. Where this author went wrong was not in vendoring the app's exact dependencies, which is a good idea, but in trying to download them and install them separately on first launch, rather than including them in the app bundle, where they can remain isolated from the rest of the system.

[Gormo]

> So it has, and I've been hating the excess complexity it brings for most of that thirty years!

It reduces complexity compared to the administrative and security mess of every application having its own version of every library, let alone its own version of external tools and interpreters.

> I'm glad to see the recent swing back toward self-contained executables.

I wish there was one. Static linking is a great solution for this. Instead, we're seeing dynamically linked libraries being bundled alongside of executables in a way that increases complexity vastly.

> Where this author went wrong was not in vendoring the app's exact dependencies, which is a good idea, but in trying to download them and install them separately on first launch, rather than including them in the app bundle, where they can remain isolated from the rest of the system.

Agreed. Dependency resolution at build time is normal. Dependency resolution in user mode at runtime is crazy.

[SchemaLoad]

I'd agree if they actually were bundled rather than trying to hotlink files off the internet on first run which is just as fragile if not more so than using the system ones.

[charcircuit]

Such a setting will cause more headaches for the developer since it explodes their support matrix. Supporting a single version of dependencies and shipping those is a much more scalable solution for delivering high quality software.

[Gormo]

Quite the opposite, in fact: if the app gains popularity that people start looking to build and package it for their respective OSes or distribution channels, the author will be inundated with support requests on account of doing dependency management in such an unusual and risky way.

"Normal" users wouldn't even encounter anything here, as they'd just install prebuilt binary packages with all of the dependencies already sorted out. As things stand, the application trying to install its own dependencies at runtime is creating a whole new class of user-facing issues to generate escalations (such as the app's failure to locate the Python interpreter it itself had just installed).

[charcircuit]

>in such an unusual and risky way

There is more risk in the shenanigans people who package software for distros do. Kdenlive suffered from big damage to their reputation due to all of the crashes packagers added by using incorrect versions of dependencies.

>"Normal" users wouldn't even encounter anything here, as they'd just install prebuilt binary packages with all of the dependencies already sorted out.

That's the benefit of just shipping what the developer released instead of swapping out dependencies under developers' feet.

[rzzzzru]

hey both!

thanks for your feedback and reports, I'd be happy if they are added as issues on github.

as said in the separate comment, I really wanted an app to be as "grandma-proof" as possible, therefore I really wanted to have one binary that does the magic for you. it's a karaoke app, not a tool that is aimed at engineers.

we can indeed look at the local packages before downloading an executable, it's just not done yet but might be added in the future.

I've built this project out of passion and it's 100% open-source and free, so please keep this in mind when criticizing.

[Gormo]

> I really wanted an app to be as "grandma-proof" as possible, therefore I really wanted to have one binary that does the magic for you.

Probably the best way to do that is to design, build, and distribute it like any other normal desktop application, and not come up with idiosyncratic and experimental methods for invoking bog-standard libraries and language interpreters.

On Windows, just include the necessary binaries as part of the application distribution itself, in hardcoded paths, without any runtime download of executables from unclear sources.

On Linux, use system defaults resolved at build time through a normal config script -- any "grandma users" on Linux will end up installing from distro repos, AppImage, Flatpak, etc, all of which have their own methods for handling dependencies, and is definitely not something the application should be trying to do by itself post-install.

[rzzzzru]

noted, mate, and thanks for the feedback, really!

I'm not experienced in building desktop apps per-se, so I went with the thing that looked reasonable to me. all your comments are valid tho. I'll take a look how can I resolve this in the future.

cheers!

[mentalgear]

While I can understand that, why not replace python deps with wasm versions ?

[rzzzzru]

Simply because I was not aware of this option, that's it. Happy to consider it and also happy to receive contributions.

[OrangeMusic]

Dog ate your shift key?

[user34283]

Personal attacks directed at people who build OSS are not cool, even if you take issue with their supposed use of AI or vendoring of dependencies.

[bheadmaster]

Vibe coders are NOT programmers, they are leeches, feeding from the blood of the open source.

[user34283]

I doubt that you know the OP's background and knowledge.

If someone on here would direct at me the insinuation that a flaw in my software was the result of me having "no idea" about what I am doing, we would not be having a civil discussion.

In my view personal attacks should be flagged, but I don't have that ability because my account does not have enough Karma.

[bheadmaster]

Look at the commit history. Vibe coded in 10 days, with obvious AI generated commit messages. Look at the diffs.

If you can't tell AI slop from handwritten code, that's your problem. I won't censor myself because of your opinions.

[user34283]

There is no need for me to look at "obvious AI generated commit messages" or check whether the code is handwritten.

Personal attacks are still against the rules of this site, and that's why you, or in this case the commenter before you, should have censored themselves. This is not a matter of opinions.

[bheadmaster]

Calling a duck a duck is not a personal insult, no matter how much the duck dislikes being called a duck.

[stavros]

Yeah yeah. This app is open source too.

[bheadmaster]

That's even worse, they're polluting the open source space with AI slop. Anyone learning from open source will not learn anything useful from it.

[stavros]

Man, nobody is learning anything any more, those days are gone. Programming with actual code is a niche hobby or a hyperspecialized profession now, like demoscene coders.

Besides, even before LLMs, it's not like anyone ever said "you shouldn't have open sourced this, we can't learn from your code". We just didn't bother reading that code.

Telling off people who contribute is not OK.

[bheadmaster]

AI slop is not a contribution.