log4j: between a rock and a hard place

David Crawshaw · 11 Dec 2021 · crawshaw.io ↗

3 korrents from this piece

David Crawshaw did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Software projects should break downstream users as little as possible, and make any breakage they do cause obvious and easy to fix.

Their wordsa good software project tries to break downstream as little as possible, and when we do break downstream, we should do our best to make the breakage obvious and easy to fix.
Our reading
Software upgrades that invalidate previously learned knowledge make programmers worse at their craft.

Their wordsWhen software "upgrades" invalidate my old knowledge, it makes me a worse programmer.
Our reading
The software industry misunderstands backwards compatibility by focusing on narrow legalistic definitions rather than outcomes.

Their wordsWe as a profession misunderstand and misuse the concept of backwards compatibility, both upstream and downstream, by focusing on narrow legalistic definitions instead of outcomes.