Post #903471
2026-02-17 21:35 UTC
Replies (16)
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@dthompson@toot.cat 2026-02-17 21:36
I use Scheme I basically need to implement everything myself and you will not stop me!!!
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@purpleidea@mastodon.social 2026-02-17 22:23
@dthompson@toot.cat Don't you dare implement any compiler optimizations in #mgmtconfig, especially not the ones with open issues being tracked!!
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@lichwitch@jade.moe 2026-02-18 06:51
@dthompson@toot.cat the thing about being a programmer is that you do eventually have to program something sometimes
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@revk@toot.me.uk 2026-02-18 07:54
@dthompson@toot.cat I grew up in a software world where you pretty much had to make things almost from scratch, and have stuck to that a lot (yes, even to extent of operating system and tcp/ip stack and so on in one case). These days I do look to see if libraries do what I want, and occasionally they do. I use curl library for example, that is good. But so often I write for myself and learn so much as a result, hence I have loads of libraries published open source. Note that #AI deprives you…
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@conejo@social.tinygo.org 2026-02-18 07:56
@dthompson@toot.cat we learned A LOT while implementing our own framework, will I do it again? probably not. Was it perfect? fuck no! but it was just what we needed, without extra bullshit, so it was fast and simple.
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@36pickledeggs@famichiki.jp 2026-02-18 08:45
@dthompson@toot.cat Don't build out your own semiconductor fabrication plant. It is not worth the effort and you don't have the money or man-hours to do it in your lifetime.
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@darkling@mstdn.social 2026-02-18 13:10
@dthompson@toot.cat I wish I could control the stack. It keeps overflowing. Maybe I need more heap variables.
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@nelson@wetdry.world 2026-03-02 19:40
@dthompson@toot.cat you SHOULD make your own game engine, it's going to SUCK and that's the POINT
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@cdonat@hostsharing.coop 2026-03-02 19:40
@dthompson@toot.cat Don't you dare, and implement a secure federated payment scheme preferably without a blockchain, that could be used by ActivityPub based e-commerce systems, like e.g. Flohmarkt. Or for Tips to PeerTube, Castopod, or OwnCast creators. Or BandWagon musicians. Or to support Open Source projects. Etc. We'd really need that to beat the big silos, like YouTube, Twitch, Bandcamp, etc. Currently people resort to PayPal, or Stripe - yet even more big silos, or Blockchains.
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@sundew@beige.party 2026-03-02 19:58
@dthompson@toot.cat I both love and hate this! :) Some ways it's not great: * Cryptography has dozens of classic gotchas - failure to use constant-time comparisons and choosing to use RSA spring to mind. * Security bugs come in so many exciting flavours - XSS and SQL injection being personal favourites. Both categories can have devastating real-life consequences on anyone actually using stuff you make. Absolutely make toys, scratch personal itches, learn how stuff works, and get some experience - just don't make anyone else pay for any mistakes you make along the way!
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@alys@selfy.army 2026-03-02 20:11
@dthompson@toot.cat i feel like there are a lot of things to not roll your own if reliability and security are paramount and very few if fun and learning are paramount.
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@octorine@fosstodon.org 2026-03-02 20:25
@dthompson@toot.cat My main problem with reinventing wheels is that it keeps me from the stuff I really need to work on, like reading other people's code or learning how to contribute to a project you don't control.
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@TemplailloAhi@mastodon.social 2026-03-02 20:49
@dthompson@toot.cat "Don't reinvent the wheel" Fuck that. If we didn't reinvent the wheel every once in a while, we'd still be rolling on stones.
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@momo@social.linux.pizza 2026-03-02 22:24
@dthompson@toot.cat Everybody's like "NEVER do your own crypto! Chances are high you will fail." and while I think this is generally correct, you are right, too. You only learn by doing, fucking up and fixing shit. So maybe do your own crypto, but better not in prod. 😅
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@gkrnours@mastodon.gamedev.place 2026-03-02 23:43
@dthompson@toot.cat I think once for work, I spend as long looking for a msgpack parser suiting my need than I spend building one. I needed streaming so I could display the data as I was downloading it. Pretty happy with the end result
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@admin@mastodon.slightlycyberpunk.com 2026-03-03 07:15
@dthompson@toot.cat Yes. We've been telling people not to write shit themselves for *decades*! When we starting saying that, finding the relevant library was a pain in the ass. There was a good chance you'd be looking it up in a book. I wouldn't be surprised if that advice pre-dates search engines entirely! Nobody was *actually* jumping to a library for something trivial, unless the library was also pretty trivial. Now? Fuck, people import twenty gigs of libraries that they aren't even using! People import ten random packages they found on various questionable websites just to avoid writing three lines of code! It's past time we stop saying "always use a library" and instead start asking "do you actually need that library?"