[HN Gopher] I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it ...
___________________________________________________________________
I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself
Author : skeptrune
Score : 155 points
Date : 2025-08-01 16:59 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.skeptrune.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.skeptrune.com)
| echelon_musk wrote:
| This PR is quite the PR move.
| arguflow wrote:
| Code is always the best documentation and the best thing about
| opensource.'
| rjsw wrote:
| Having the source lets you fix something for yourself, there
| are an increasing number of barriers being put up to prevent
| you submitting a fix upstream.
|
| Going through this right now with part of libpng, their mailing
| list doesn't seem to like my email.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Using a source-based distro (previously Gentoo, now NixOS)
| lets me solve the problem for myself, even if my PR never
| gets accepted. Right now the count is at 4 patches in
| software I use that I submitted upstream that were (for one
| reason or another) never accepted.
|
| In at least one case, I later found out that I was not the
| only person to submit a fix for the problem I was running
| into, but their discussion on the ML _also_ went without
| comment 3 years earlier.
| doubled112 wrote:
| Code will tell you what but not the why. It also doesn't always
| tell you the intent.
| jmercouris wrote:
| Good commit logs or comments may tell you why
| kulahan wrote:
| Helluva wish.
| tobyhinloopen wrote:
| What about function names, class names and variable names?
| tunesmith wrote:
| They should invent a programming language that only compiles
| if the why is still true.
| 9rx wrote:
| They have, but they're beyond grasp of most developers.
|
| Tests were invented to express the "why" for the normal
| guy. They don't strictly prevent compilation, but a proper
| workflow will see them halt your process in the same way,
| offering the same outcome.
|
| Granted, there are a lot of horribly written tests out
| there that don't tell you "why" -- or, well, anything. As
| always, people will find a way to abuse anything you put in
| front of them. But when used well...
| tunesmith wrote:
| With a test, it might link up some functionality with
| "why" and pass, but then what happens if a business
| requirement just isn't a requirement anymore? The test
| will still pass. I'm thinking of something sillier, like
| a language that forces you to justify why for your code,
| and then regularly quizzes you if the business reasoning
| is still true. If anything changes, it rips out the code
| and breaks your site. :) So then you have to go in to fix
| it.
|
| I'd also love it if this were applied to politics and
| laws.
| cosmic_quanta wrote:
| > It reminds me of George Hotz's legendary single week at Twitter
| in 2022, where he joined just to fix a login popup that was
| bothering users, then bounced.
|
| The author remembers this, uh, event differently than I remember
| it... George Hotz boldly claimed that he could "fix Twitter
| search" faster than those lazy Twitter devs, only to bail almost
| immediately. Hubris!
|
| On the way out, he removed that login popup as a sort of
| consolation prize.
| skeptrune wrote:
| Updated the post to tell that story more accurately.
| Simultaneously took down the damn blog because Github pages has
| some freak bug, but oh well.
| rs186 wrote:
| Time to join GitHub
| skeptrune wrote:
| TRUE haha
| miyuru wrote:
| Please ask them to add IPv6 support if you do.
|
| context:
| https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/10539
| drexlspivey wrote:
| And then he was trying to pitch rewriting it from scratch to
| elon
| pyman wrote:
| I followed the whole saga on Twitter. He shared a video of
| his browser saying, "I fixed it in 5 minutes," and 5 days
| later he was still trying to figure out why his PR was
| failing the build. When Twitter engineers told him to write
| tests, he rage quit.
|
| It was embarrassing to watch.
| llbbdd wrote:
| Yeah, what? He seemingly joined Twitter, did fuck-all and
| quietly bounced. Embarrassing and completely self-inflicted.
| lukeinator42 wrote:
| https://archive.is/ntSHm
| clippyplz wrote:
| This link is a 404 for me
| skeptrune wrote:
| Fixed! Damn Github pages
| pengaru wrote:
| Problem solved, so... time to move on?
| skeptrune wrote:
| I thought about it, but nah. Really enjoying the new job so far
| deadbabe wrote:
| I wonder if it's legal for corporations to have employees that
| they send off to get hired at other companies, do some stuff in
| those companies that are beneficial to their actual employer, and
| then leave before the probationary period ends.
| chatmasta wrote:
| IANAL, but it's almost certainly legal, as long as all parties
| involved adhere to the applicable non-disclosure agreements,
| non-compete agreements, and intellectual property provisions of
| their employment contracts. Even then it's likely to remain a
| civil matter in most cases.
|
| Companies can sue each other for nearly anything, so any level
| of this behavior could result in a lawsuit. It wouldn't cross
| the line into criminality until it involved some fraudulent
| deception or blatant corporate espionage. For a recent example
| of that, see the ongoing litigation between Rippling and Deel.
| (But even that egregious espionage activity remains limited to
| civil court, at least for now.)
| lukan wrote:
| "to have employees that they send off to get hired at other
| companies, do some stuff in those companies that are
| beneficial to their actual employer, and then leave before
| the probationary period ends."
|
| To me that sounds like not disclosing, that they work also
| for another company and this certainly ain't legal on most
| jurisdictions.
| wavemode wrote:
| Can you cite the relevant law? I've never heard of it being
| illegal in the US to not tell your job that you have
| another job.
| tough wrote:
| and what if you don't work there or have a salary but
| happen to own some equity?
| lukan wrote:
| Not really without researching(also I am european and
| might have assumed wrong about US), but something with
| conflict of interest? Especially if another company
| ordered you to work for someone else. If all is
| disclosed, probably fine, but undisclosed? Definitely
| would not work in europe. Breach of trust etc.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| It's probably not the law (it would be shitty when
| working at a 7/11 on the weekends to have tolegally
| disclose all your other income resources)
|
| But basic employee contracts cover these aspects,
| including working in the interest of the company and IP
| assignments, and usually exclusivity if you're full time.
|
| These issues are old as time.
| wavemode wrote:
| Yeah I'm aware employment contracts might stipulate it.
| But violating a contract isn't against the law. Worst
| case you could get sued (though with an employment
| contract, the limit of repercussions are generally just
| termination).
| jameshart wrote:
| Not sure it falls foul of broader laws, but it almost
| certainly breaches your employment contract, which likely
| includes something about following the policies of your
| employer; that policy (in many companies you likely have to
| go through onboarding training and annual refreshers on it)
| probably includes a code of employee conduct that has
| specific mention of conflicts of interest.
| wavemode wrote:
| You'd achieve more by simply telling the company that you need
| a certain feature added to their product. If you're an
| important customer for them, you could probably negotiate a
| price for them to prioritize the work.
| bmacho wrote:
| I think we'd probably better off with the previous idea: just
| work for them for a period.
| wavemode wrote:
| I'm speaking from the perspective of company A, who needs a
| feature added to company B's product.
|
| They could send their engineers to work for company B,
| sure, but those engineers' time is still costing money. And
| those engineers are completely unfamiliar with B's
| codebase, so they won't work as efficiently. Might as well
| just pay company B directly for the feature work.
| 11Spades wrote:
| It's hilarious to see the old joke actually playing out in real
| life. Kudos!
|
| On a meta note; would you consider adding a left margin to your
| site? Reading from the very edge of my screen feels somewhat
| strange.
| kulahan wrote:
| Clicking through the links in his article, I came across a guy
| who apparently did the same thing at Apple - he introduced the
| "auto remove" feature for expired passes added to your wallet,
| then promptly quit. I had no idea that's how that feature came
| about, but now I'm going to send a little mental thank you to
| him every time I get off a plane. That shit was FRUSTRATING.
| skeptrune wrote:
| Hotz said this, but I couldn't find any actual evidence so
| didn't include it.
| chatmasta wrote:
| That reminds me, I need to apply for a job on whichever team
| hasn't added a toggle to remove contact names from the
| autocorrect dictionary...
| Carrok wrote:
| Oh wow. Guess I need to get a job at Apple just to add a
| `Mark all as read` button to voicemails.
| latchkey wrote:
| Another good Apple "employee" story:
| https://www.pacifict.com/story/
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMyg5ohTsVY
| troupo wrote:
| > he introduced the "auto remove" feature for expired passes
| added to your wallet, then promptly quit
|
| This still didn't work reliably, unfortunately. I still have
| expired passes, tickets etc. in my wallet
| Rendello wrote:
| Well, now you know the drill!
| firesteelrain wrote:
| BRB polishing my CV
| nixpulvis wrote:
| Maybe you should get hired by OP and fix it yourself ;)
| skeptrune wrote:
| Site is actually open source lol -
| https://github.com/skeptrunedev/personal-site
| Vilian wrote:
| >Get hired by github > force push the pr > get fired >
| profit
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > On a meta note; would you consider adding a left margin to
| your site? Reading from the very edge of my screen feels
| somewhat strange.
|
| What!? I love the fact that it's left-aligned. That's the way
| text _should_ be!
| Crespyl wrote:
| Alignment and margin are different concepts. You can be left-
| aligned and still have a comfortable margin.
| inopinatus wrote:
| I am not a fan of sites that waste screen real estate.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > I added an AbortController to the debounced search function, so
| that it aborts any previous queries when a new one is made. This
| means that the search results are always relevant to what the
| user is currently typing.
|
| To me one of the most annoying things an application can do is go
| off and do something before I'm done telling it what to do.
| Filters that apply themselves without an explicit indication that
| I'm done setting them up, or searches that are constantly re-
| executing as I'm typing. Wait for me to stop.
| tom1337 wrote:
| I hate this on booking websites. Especially if the filters are
| in a sidebar on the left and do not fit your viewport and every
| god damn time you change something it scrolls up, starts
| loading, puts filters into read only mode until it's done just
| so you can add the next filter...
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| When I implemented search-as-you-type on my blog, I decided to
| wait for the current search suggestion request to complete
| before doing a new one. Seemed like a reasonable balance
| between responsiveness and not overloading the server.
| stavros wrote:
| The article says nothing about the hiring, which is kind of the
| most important part of the whole escapade. Right now, it's a bit
| "something was bugging me, and when the company hired me, I fixed
| it", which, great?
| bayindirh wrote:
| I think his company is acquired by the currently he's working
| in, so he's acquihired.
| skeptrune wrote:
| exactly
| bayindirh wrote:
| Congrats!
| willmadden wrote:
| That's one way to do it.
| stevesimmons wrote:
| If Google Maps would like to hire me so the km/miles switch can
| remember I only ever want to see distances in km, my contact
| details are in my HN profile.
|
| I must have changed that back from miles once a fortnight since
| Google Maps launched 20 years ago. That's 500 times. Totally
| ridiculous for a company who core goal is profiling their
| users...
| jldugger wrote:
| > That's 500 times. Totally ridiculous for a company who core
| goal is profiling their users
|
| Seven interviews later and 1 PR later: Fails in A/B due to
| declining user engagement
| kirubakaran wrote:
| When I was traveling in Mexico, it drove me nuts that even
| though I was signed in, Google Flights switched my currency
| from dollars to pesos every single time I opened a new tab! I
| think they really don't care.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| I think they rely on ip for a lot of stuff they shouldn't.
| Getting a local esim switches me to km until I switch back to
| my old one. Have no idea about Australia.
|
| Edit: after typing this realized this isn't ip, its provider.
| That maybe does make sense to cue off of.
| EspadaV9 wrote:
| Wait, there's a setting for this? I've lived in Australia for
| over 16 years now but everything is still in miles instead of
| Kms and I have never been able to find a setting to change it
| (although it sounds like even if I did find itz it would be
| mostly useless).
| thehours wrote:
| FYI this autoplays full screen video when I visit on iOS +
| Firefox.
|
| Edit: then switches into dark mode after a lag of a few seconds
| skeptrune wrote:
| autoplay my fault and will fix
|
| dark mode idk, that is a very tiny piece of JS which should run
| near instantaneously
| b8 wrote:
| Reminds me when I got banned from Amazon for suspected fraud (had
| an old account, but deleted my email and number since it was in a
| lot of DB dumps). After I got hired, I reached out to the guy in
| charge of the anti-fraud team at Amazon, and got unbanned. Emails
| to support etc. did nothing before I reached out internally
| (unbanned by 1am the next day).
| rmonvfer wrote:
| This is the level of epic I aspire to in life
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Except they're working at Amazon now.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| seems like they could turn this into a lucrative side
| hustle "super premium secret support" embrace the
| technofascist feudalism!
| danillonunes wrote:
| Next level epic is hand your resignation letter right after
| you get unbanned. "My job here is done."
| zac23or wrote:
| The software quality is so low that if a bug bothers you, it's
| easier to get hired to fix it than for the company to fix it!
| Wow.
|
| It reminds me of the programmer who mitigated the GTA 5 loading
| time problem. If even with a lot of money of GTA 5 the quality
| doesn't improve...
| syntaxing wrote:
| There was an old legend for an Apple bug (but I can't exactly
| remember what). He complained about this macOS bugs for years.
| Worked for Apple for a couple months, fixed the issue, then quit.
| PantaloonFlames wrote:
| The cancellation in the denouncing seems ... sort of obvious.
| skeptrune wrote:
| yes, i was very annoyed
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-08-01 23:00 UTC)