[Napoleon1963]

Maybe it's because it involves Steve Klabnik, who is a prominent commenter here?

While the tone of the report may not have been very polite, it is understandable why the reporter was disappointed.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for a user to ask that a library's deficiencies be made obvious in some way, regardless of why they exist. The readme file is a good place for this.

I don't think that Steve handled it very well at all, though. Calling the report creator an "ass" is uncalled for. Creating unnecessary drama over a perfectly reasonable request is uncalled for. Closing the bug without adding a line or two to the readme file addressing this deficiency is uncalled for. Preventing further discussion is uncalled for.

[mfringel]

"Politeness" is not a vestigial compile-time option, to be discarded in the pursuit of efficiency.

Having a basic respect for another hacker's time on a project they're maintaining out of the goodness of their heart is what causes people to keep maintaining projects.

[mercurial]

> "Politeness" is not a vestigial compile-time option, to be discarded in the pursuit of efficiency.

Especially since rudeness is a good way to get drama and nothing done. To paraphrase Neil Gaiman, maintainers are not your bitch. Treat them as courteously as you would like to be treated yourself.

[scarygliders]

Perhaps if the issue was raised as a pull request with the desired changes to the Readme, rather than just raising the issue as a general whine.

The whine itself stinks of someone not having gone through the source to see if the product really does what they want it to do. It reeks of "hey this looks like what I want YOINK! " , implementing it in their code, and discovering afterwards that some Things are missing. Then getting pissed off at the producer of the product, rather than at themselves for their oversight/laziness.

[cpncrunch]

I shouldn't have to look through the source code to see if a library does what I want it to do.

[carols10cents]

That is absolutely what you have to do with open source. If you aren't willing to do that, don't use OSS.

[cpncrunch]

I've been using open source for 20 years and I don't think I've ever had to do that. Sometimes I have to fix bugs in a library or ditch it because it's a piece of crap. However you generally shouldn't have to read the source code to see what it actually does. If so, that's just laziness on the part of the author (and it's wasting everyone's time).