I guess I don’t feel that strongly about whether there should be fewer actors to trust or not. I do feel strongly that projects shouldn’t rewrite code just to avoid dependencies.
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For example, a *lot* of the reason software is so unfriendly to non-Latin language speakers is because people who speak those languages just homebrew their text handling instead of using libraries. This is manifestly unfair to most of the world.
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there is an important third category of options, which is to reproduce the desired functionality of a library. good text handling is important to users, so it is equally important that more programmers practice the implementation of good text-handling libraries (from scratch).
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With all due respect, this is implying that English speakers can write, say, Arabic text handling just as well as Arabic speakers can. Not only is this false, this sentiment has ugly cultural implications.
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Replying to @pcwalton @JamesWidman and
Expecting everyone to contribute to one monolithic culture has its own problems. Would building a software ecosystem for Arabic speakers be easier if it didn't need to fit in Latin-centric infrastructure?
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I think this is key to argument: _small_ deps are the concern, and the putative "harm done" by rewriting a dep (because you don't trust it or simply don't _like_ it -- deps are always a bit of an imperfect fit) is proportional to the dep's size. Big deps matter, but are accepted.
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Replying to @graydon_pub @jckarter and
I dunno. libsodium is a small dependency. But rewriting that puts users at risk.
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Replying to @_moonstorms @sunshowers6 and
Crypto is no less dangerous to rewrite if it’s 20 lines or 200.
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I’m not talking about writing a competitor to libsodium! People can feel free to do that. I’m talking about programmers writing home-brew implementations of crypto into their random apps because they don’t want to take dependencies.
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