Comment by gabe [he/him]@literature.cafe on PSA: You can't delete photos uploaded to Lemmy. So don't (accidentally) upload a nude

For context, there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes when it comes to lemmy admin stuff especially in the matrix channels. There is a significant frustration and lack of confidence in the lemmy developers at this point. Even those who try to contribute to the project get eventually feeling pushed out.

Based on what I’ve seen on the public facing part of the developer side, I get the feeling this isn’t the kind of group that can build the kind of organization required to make this sustainable in the long run.

I’m just waiting for when Beehaw releases that they’ve given up on Lemmy and have created a new tech stack.

In terms of new tech stack currently theres sublinks being made by devs/admins of a bunch of instances (discuss.online, lemmy.world, programming.dev, etc.)

There’s also Kbin, I suppose.

Do they have an API yet?

Not in production.

There’s not a lot of dev time to go around at kbin.

It’s a somewhat similar story there, although the devs aren’t as difficult. Mbin is a fork and seems to be the codebase with the brightest future.

Anything public yet and are they sticking to Rust?

Java spring for backend, Go for federation, Next.js for frontend

demo.sublinks.org has the backend with the lemmy-ui frontend to show api compatibility

Task list and progress is public on the github org https://github.com/orgs/sublinks/projects/1

Matrix space where all the devs talk is also public and you can see progress talked about in them

Not really a substantial opinion, but I have little hope that replacing a fairly well established Rust codebase with a brand new Java one will do much in terms of increasing contribution.

Who knows. Java is a much bigger programming language than Rust. Might be easier to find developers. But obviously it depends on interest. Who knows.

Theres been a bunch of activity and people joining in in the dev matrix already

Backend pretty much already has parity and the frontend is currently the main thing that an updated demo is waiting on but should be ready really soon

I’ve been designing an updated home page recently for it that I’ll be pushing out this week that looks miles better than lemmy-ui since I could do everything from scratch and thus quickly

I wouldn’t shortchange how much making the barrier to entry lower can help. You have to fight Rust a lot to build anything complex, and that can have a chilling effect on contributions. This is not a dig at Rust; it has to force you to build things in a particular way because it has to guarantee memory safety at compile time. That isn’t to say that Rust’s approach is the only way to be sure your code is safe, mind you, just that Rust’s insistence on memory safety at compile time is constraining.

To be frank, this isn’t necessary most of the time, and Rust will force you to spend ages worrying about problems that may not apply to your project. Java gets a bad rap but it’s second only to Python in ease-of-use. When you’re working on an API-driven webapp, you really don’t need Rust’s efficiency as much as you need a well-defined architecture that people can easily contribute to.

I doubt it’ll magically fix everything on its own, but a combo of good contribution policies and a more approachable codebase might.

It’s open source. We don’t have to depend on the original developers.

If it gets too bad, someone can just make a fork.

Afaik people are just impatient with the developers and have different short term goals.

I mention a new tech stack because Beehaw brought it up as an option and a lot of people have commented on the difficulty of development in this environment.

That’d be disappointing. Rust seems like a great foundation.

Rust seems like a great foundation.

The fact that I know you’re referring to the programming language called “Rust” doesn’t make this sentence any less funny.

It could still be rust. Code is always the easy part. Design and organization and funding are hard

What about kbin, isn’t that entirely different software that can be developed to phase out Lemmy?

From what I heard Kbin’s developer is very inactive, so people started a fork called Mbin. Mbin might be alright?

That sucks. As a 3rd party Lemmy app developer, I’ve only had positive interactions with the Lemmy devs. They’re even being proactive in communications.

Are they open to these discussions?

Try submitting a pull request for something in one of the core repos.

They behave as if every line of code in your commit is a sentence proclaiming “Why yes, your wife is a whore, your dog doesn’t love you, AND your baby is ugly.”

I’m not kidding, there’s no hyperbole in that statement. Go read some of their declined pull requests threads for some entertainment.

Perhaps there’s starting to be a Lemmy clone/alternative? I think it’s named Sublinks

That’s kind of the impression I got but thought maybe I was just mistaken because I haven’t actually been hands-on with this project. That’s unfortunate to hear.

Even those who try to contribute to the project get eventually feeling pushed out.

Submitting a pull request to one of their repos on Github was really an experience, and I can tell you that I will never submit another one to the Lemmy project while they’re still the lead devs based on that experience.

Better to publish such issues on a public website than let it get buried in matrix. People other than devs & instance admins need to be aware of the risks that they’re taking when using Lemmy.

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

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PSA: You can't delete photos uploaded to Lemmy. So don't (accidentally) upload a nude(tech.michaelaltfield.net)

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