The Bloat of a 'Blank Project': 1991 vs. 2021

Description

A two-panel comparison meme that highlights the increasing complexity of software development. The top panel, labeled 'Blank Project In 1991', shows a screenshot of a classic blue-screen, text-based IDE, likely Borland's Turbo C++ or Pascal. The main editing window is completely empty, representing a truly blank start. The interface is minimalist, with simple menu options like 'File', 'Edit', 'Run'. The bottom panel, labeled 'Blank Project in 2021', shows a modern, dark-themed IDE, resembling Android Studio or IntelliJ IDEA. In stark contrast, the 'blank' project is anything but empty; the file explorer on the left is populated with a deep hierarchy of dozens of auto-generated files and folders. This includes build scripts (Gradle), configuration files (.gitignore, proguard-rules.pro), and extensive directory structures for source code, resources, and multiple types of tests. The meme humorously critiques the massive amount of boilerplate, configuration, and dependency management overhead that is now standard before a developer writes a single line of application code

Common Tags

IDEsAndTextEditors DeveloperHumor TechNostalgia ModernVsLegacy LegacyVsModern TechHistory ToolingFrustration SoftwareBloat OverEngineering

Comments

155

Anonymous ★ Top Pick In 1991, your first compile error was your own typo. In 2021, your first compile error is a transitive dependency conflict from the boilerplate

Anonymous ★ Top Pick

In 1991, your first compile error was your own typo. In 2021, your first compile error is a transitive dependency conflict from the boilerplate
Anonymous

1991: New project hands you an empty .bas file; 2021: New project fires up Gradle, indexes 700 transitive deps, and quietly warns there’s already a log4j CVE in your HelloWorld
Anonymous

Back in '91, we complained about having to write our own linked lists. Now we spend three days configuring the toolchain before we can write 'Hello World' - and somehow we've convinced ourselves this is progress because at least the semicolons are automatically inserted
Anonymous

In 1991, 'blank project' meant you could start coding immediately. In 2021, 'blank project' means you've only run the scaffolding tool and now have 47 configuration files, 300MB of node_modules, and still haven't written a single line of business logic. Progress is when your 'Hello World' requires a CI/CD pipeline, three linters, a bundler, a transpiler, and a 12-step build process - but hey, at least it's type-safe and tree-shakeable
Anonymous

1991 blank project: one cursor, zero regrets. 2021: npm init spawns a dependency graph deeper than your call stack on prod OOM
Anonymous

In 1991 you pressed Run; in 2021 Run first builds the build system, resolves 1,200 transitive deps, and then reminds you there’s no main() yet
Anonymous

Blank project in ’91: a cursor. Blank project in 2021: a monorepo, Dockerfile, k8s YAMLs, a Gradle wrapper, and your first CVE before Hello World
@ANTICHRISTUS_REX 5y

OMG, The Antediluvian Era ❤️!!
@LastStranger 5y

Android)
@sashakity 5y

i mean its still achievable, just use a text editor and a terminal. i honestly prefer that way
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  cabal new wil still generate a shitload of files
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  what's cabal new?
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  a command to setup a haskell project
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  that's not what i'm talking about though
@sashakity 5y

im talking about editing a file or two with a text editor, and compiling it with like make or something
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  yeah that's pretty much only possible in c/c++ nowadays
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  are you sure about that? lol
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  i mean, you can compile rust projects with rustc and haskell onse with ghc, and java or whatever ones with javac, but name a person who actually does that
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  i do, on the rare occasion i work with java
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  idk about java much, maybe it may make sense there
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  i dont really see any reason to do anything else
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  your build system may automatically find and install the deps you need, run test and benchmarks for you
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  that just sounds like a bunch of stuff that i dont really have control over then
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  depends on the actual build system
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  for example: cmake sucks, it's unexpressive ugly blah blah blah, i use make for my c++
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  rusts cargo is good bc it lets me manage my deps mostly how i want, and you don't fight against it all the time, so i use it
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  true but i prefer having a minimalist codebase
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  and its a bit hard to achieve this when theres a bunch of automated stuff going on
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  yeah that's true, but you don't have to have a complete full hardcore setup most ow the time, just source tree and the build tree
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  im not sure what you mean by full hardcore
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  writing every single test, every single benchmark, every single piece of doc, using all linters, sanitizers, all that
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  why not just write code
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  bc literally noone cares about your code without docs, bc tests give you validation that you've written actually good code, and brnchmarks will test the speed of your code (if that's important to you)
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  so you're telling me that build systems can automatically figure out what your end goal is, and design bug tests, and performance tests?
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  no, they don't write tests, but they automate them
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  so they automate automation? that sounds complicated
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  and how's are they automating automation?
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  they detect where your tests are and run them? idk
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  but where's the "automating automation" part?
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  you still have to write tests, but you can expect them to execute them automatically
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  (that's why all the empty folders are there)
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  and it's much easier to just add the deps to your dep file and go :!cargo run or whatever than to install everything yourself
@SuperiorProgramming 5y

C/C++ vs Android(Java/Kotlin)
@nuntikov 5y

Mmmm maven)))
@sashakity 5y

also i don't think a build system can automatically write documentation
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  it can assrmble it from comments n code
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  but you're still writing it
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  yes, but not in latex or markdown, but in comments to my code, and the doc program thing will automatically hook up the types involved and add links for easy navigation, assemble the whole thing into a nice conceivabe structure
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  i see this as only being useful if your code is too big
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  what's "too big" anyway?
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  when it's so big that you have trouble traversing the code by yourself
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  well, you don't write the docs for yourself, but for the users of your lib
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  and docs are needed always
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  it's not too hard to type out what your code does
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  mine for me? yes. Your for you? maybe yes, idk. Mine to you or your to me is a 100% no.
@sashakity 5y

im trying to figure out how it's different then just putting the name of a test script after make run or something
@sashakity 5y

you're making it sound like it's some insane effort
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  i mean, writing what each function dos is easy, but linking it all together is an O(n!) task
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  do you mean linking it together as in typing it in the same document
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  as in you do json_type parse_file(path_type); and linking the json_type to the json_type struct documentation, and the same for path_type respectively
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  so you don't have to search for it for hours
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  you write your docs in json??
@sashakity 5y

what??
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  oh nvm, misunderstood the wording
@sashakity 5y

then what are you on about lmao
@sashakity 5y

if it's some haskell stuff, i have no experience with that
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  this before is just the simplest c example
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  ohhhhh i see
@sashakity 5y

why would you need to link to other parts of the document?
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  so you don't have to search for them?
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  couldnt you just look at the document?
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  you can, but it gets hard when your doc is more than 10 functions
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  and like 3 structs
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  it gets messy fast
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  that's just one page
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  if you write a decent doc that'll be 7 pages easily
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  so decent = bloated?
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  decent doc, not decent code
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  i think there's an argument to be made that manually writing documentation encourages simpler code then
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  your numbers
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  oh no no, yours. because i'm talking about how your numbers would look like as code comments
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  i mean that you are the one who said that 10 funcs is 1 page
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  and you're the one who thinks it's reasonable to make a 7 page long block comment
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  yes, and they actually do look like that, pages long comments explaining the programmers intent for this function
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  what having a build system does to a mf
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  i mean, again, i still do use make for my c++ projects
@sashakity 5y

like
@sashakity 5y

if i made a doc that took up 7 pages just for 10 functions i'd either be writing incredibly large and ridiculous functions, or trying to reach a word count
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  like you don't want a doc for mmap() being just this function will map a file into process's memory
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  that's an example of bad doc
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  now go look at the actual mmap() doc
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  it's big, bc it documents function's behaviour in detail
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  so it should take a page?
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  well, in mmap's case it's more like 6-7 pages
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  that's comical
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/mmap.2.html
@sashakity 5y

if it does that many different things why is it 1 function?
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  it does only one that thing, but you can't write anything using only that information
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  also, by the way, we were originally talking about build systems writing these based on code comments, right?
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  yeah
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  7 page long comments?
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  are split up into multiple blocks
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  you're missing the point, wading through multiple blocks of comments totaling, even 1 page! just to get to some code is ridiculous
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  it's a whole lot better than getting to the coe right away and guessing wtf that function actually does
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  bc the author didn't document the code properly
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  what it does on an invalid input? what errors an it emmit? what's the return type? what do i feed it to make it work?
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  you just can't fit all that in like a half page
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  just look at the documentation while scrolling through it lol
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  if your doc style is 10 funcs per page the doc is pretty useless
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  it doesn't have to be 10 functions per page
@sashakity 5y

i would rather avoid doing that
@sashakity 5y

what i'm saying is, it's better to write those looong comments in a separate document
@sashakity 5y

that's why they call it the documentation
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  do you do it like that? is it easy to maintain like that?
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  yup!
@sashakity 5y

not the commentation
@sashakity 5y

when i even write documentation lol
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  that's the key phrase
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  for what lock?
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  for the lock of your understanding of documentation
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  at least my code isn't 90% block comments
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  i'm pretty sure it's 0% comments
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  at the very least, i make one liners that say what's going on at that particular moment, when it's not abundantly clear
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  that's not enough.
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  come back a year after, you will see
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  and regret
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  that's why i said "at the very least" you bird brain
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  you put them at the wrong place then
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  so why shouldn't i put them there?
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  ?????????????
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  also, do you use any linter?
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  the compiler is enough.
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  it's not most of the time
@sashakity 5y

to keep the code maintainable
@sashakity 5y

lets say i'm writing something in php
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  let's rather not.
@sashakity 5y

why should i put 7 page block comments before functions?
@sashakity 5y

php is already confusing enough
@sashakity 5y

comments should deobfuscate the code
@sashakity 5y

not make it harder to navigate
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  MITIGATIONS INCOMING, THESE ARE LEGIT DISADVANTAGES OF THE COMMENT BLOCK METHOD, but 1) you can fold them away if you don't need them 2) you can use the gotodefinition features of your editor to navigate, conents won't help nor make it harder
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  i prefer not to use an IDE
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  i don't use an ide, vim has 1 natively and 2 through a language plugin
@sashakity 5y

plus, i find it kind of ridiculous to fold away something you dont want to look at
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  well, if you actually don't want to look at that
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  again, you want to look at the useful doc
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  yeah i could be a normal person and have the documentation open in another window, and look at code in the window i have code in
@sashakity 5y

its sweeping it under the rug, lol
@sashakity 5y

i do not understand how block comments have an advantage over this method
1. Deleted Account 5y
  
  for me it's bc you look through your function doc every time when you edit it, and never forget to edit it when you edit the function, the doc generator can assemble it into a nice concievable structure, and that the doc generator will auto-generate half of the doc for me
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  what kinds of things do you make anyway
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  i'm making a safe vulkan wrapper for rust rn
  
  @sashakity 5y
  
  nice
  
  Deleted Account 5y
  
  before that i did an opengl renderer in c++ and that's an example on how not to do things
@sashakity 5y

im interested

Use J and K for navigation

The Bloat of a 'Blank Project': 1991 vs. 2021

Description

Categories

Common Tags

Comments

More like this

A Veteran of the Editor Wars Sees Cursor

The Ultimate Viewing Experience: Oppenheimer in Emacs

The Traumatic Life of a Developer's CTRL and S Keys