Rsync and outrage(medium.com)
82 pointsby st3fan6 hours ago6 comments
  • tomhow3 hours ago
    Please Do Not Vibe Fuck Up This Software - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48342705 - May 2026 (466 comments)

    Rsync 3.4.3 has hundreds of Claude commits - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48334021 - May 2026 (81 comments)

  • happymellon3 hours ago
    A bit of a mixed one here.

    The vibe coding got the project attention and it looks like he's going to get the help he needed.

    However the "outrage", if you even call it that, wasn't entirely misplaced when pretty basic bugs were introduced by this, such as:

    Can't use rsync with absolute paths:

    https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/922

    Links mode is broken:

    https://github.com/RsyncProject/rsync/issues/915

    The scale of the commits, and rewriting the entire testing framework was pretty big for a "bugfix" revision.

    • deng2 hours ago
      I wouldn't say these are "basic bugs". The first is specific to using 'rrsync', and the second is when using the rsync daemon, and I can't remember when I last saw a system using that one (yes, I'm aware there are still use cases for using the rsync protocol, but I would consider it pretty obscure nowadays).

      You could argue that he should've bumped the version more and should've done a longer beta test, but on the other hand, these were mostly security fixes, and I can understand he wanted to get them out there rather sooner than later (also "doing a beta test" is easier said than done - how do you get people to run a test version of rsync?).

    • hdgvhicv3 hours ago
      I wonder whether there would have been less complaint had the number been a major increase, say to v4 beta. That amount of change in a minor version number bump seems unusual, but I don’t know rsync enough, I just use the version bundled in my 2/4 year old LTS distros and assume it works.

      This does once again feel like a case of https://xkcd.com/2347/

      I do wonder about “The world of software engineering has changed dramatically in the last few months”. Has it really? I’ve been hearing that for a few years now.

      • happymellon3 hours ago
        A major version bump would have been helpful, and having such a large rewrite be initially a beta could have calmed the hoards.

        > The world of software engineering has changed dramatically in the last few months

        I disagree, but I guess we shall see how this is going to pan out. We've all introduced schoolboy errors in our time regardless of how long we've been developers. Messing up absolute paths because you only tested on relative happens to the best of us, but generally we say "woops" and try to fix it.

        Doubling down and blaming users for your fuck up rarely ends well.

  • jddjan hour ago
    All of this noise and velocity will provide significant cover for the Jia Tans of the world.
  • p2detaran hour ago
    > I did not just vibe-code “convert test suite to python”. I’m a software engineer with 40 years experience (yeah, I’m OLD!)

    Interestingly enough, I see the trend of people with decades of experience using AI more and more often. I'm in the 20 years club myself, and I do AI-assisted coding every day. It does help, and I'm grateful to have a tool like this to quickly try new ideas and throw them away if they suck. Shaming the author for using AI to help with the CI stuff is baffling to me. Are we witnessing just another ideology-driven tribal reaction on the rise?

  • CaptainFever5 hours ago
    It's sad that the outrage posts got hundreds of comments while this article, from the maintainer explaining the CVEs and test suites, only has this singular comment and is already on the second page.

    A lie travels around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes. Do better, HN.

    • bitdiffusionan hour ago
      Maybe because the explanation isn't so much an explanation but an admission that core functionality was broken in a minor version release - and therefore almost orthogonal to the use of AI. If there had been no major regressions, do you think anyone would have complained?

      People are (correctly) not going to be held to some kind of lower standard just because they "used AI" and "were fixing security issues".

    • happymellon4 hours ago
      I'm showing that it was only published an hour ago.

      5am here in the UK, midnight Eastern US on a Tuesday night? I can see why it wouldn't have gained much traction yet.

      > A lie travels around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes. Do better, HN.

      Stop baiting.

      • CaptainFever4 hours ago
        We'll see if you're right, and if HNers can redeem themselves. I'm not holding out much hope, though.
      • 2muchtime4 hours ago
        Probably best to spell that “baiting”
  • ChrisArchitect4 hours ago
    Related:

    Please Do Not Vibe Fuck Up This Software

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48342705