[jgon]

I agree that the analogy is simplistic but I disagree with your weed killer analogy. I use weed killer on my own lawn and when I do I apply it in a targeted spray specifically to the weeds in question. I am still making a judgement and doing the hard work to separate parasites from useful organisms. Based on the article is sound like they sprayed everything ie removed the apis in question, and weed killer will indeed kill the grass surrounding the weed if you are not careful.

So I think that the analogy still stands, in that if you want an ecosystem there isn't really any way to mechanize it yet and you have to be prepared to do some of the work by hand. Creating an ecosystem worth having means offering up interesting capabilities. Offering up interesting capabilities means that parasites will appear. You can remove the parasites either by removing the interesting capabilities, or by doing the hard work to single them out. Doing the former can have grave consequences for your ecosystem even if it appears easier/cheaper in the short term.

[amirmc]

Simplistic or not, I think the analogy serves its purpose very well (thank you for sharing it). As I was reading the GP post the analogy I was thinking of was spraying weed-killer indiscriminately everywhere and naively thinking it would only take out the 'bad-guys'.

Doing it properly does involve understanding both what 'weed' means to you and 'desirable plant' then being careful not to poison the latter (and actually encourage it) while you try to deal with the former.

[aboodman]

I interpreted it as: they removed an API (or reduce the functionality of an API in a way that) they thought was only useful to weeds. But it turned out that there were legitimate uses for that functionality, and it hurt more than just weeds.

I don't really know the details; this is just reflecting my experience from working on platforms.

As you say, in many cases, it ultimately requires human judgement, which is something that engineers are loathe to rely upon.