Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

You don't know how other peoples' libraries work, and that's fine.

I think in this case the argument is that the author of the library also doesn't know how it works. Which means they can't fix it.



In addition to this, if the source code is available you could potentially take a peek and generally understand what's going on. But I can imagine that we could have a generation of developers who know little about nuts and bolts that underpin how their software works. Perhaps this is now already the case in certain domains. E.g. you could be working on a Jupyter notebook and be effective without being aware of what's happening behind the scenes. I think is qualitatively different as in this example you could be working at such a high level of abstraction that the nuts and bolts are not something you'd even be aware of. Whereas if you're writing a Java program and you bring in some third party libraries you could potentially look up that library. But more importantly you're still relatively close to the metal.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: