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Sublinks Aims to Be a Drop-In Replacement for Lemmy (wedistribute.org)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
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Seems like an interesting effort. A developer is building an alternative Java-based backend to Lemmy's Rust-based one, with the goal of building in a handful of different features. The dev is looking at using this compatibility to migrate their instance over to the new platform, while allowing the community to use their apps of choice.

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[–] 86 points 2 years ago (16 children)

I have a hard time believing that rewriting the backend from scratch would be faster than getting PRs approved on the main project.

Forks like this with one guy who "knows best" usually die a slow quiet death as they get left behind by the main project.

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  • [–] 57 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    I think how quickly this project has gotten to near feature parity is a testament to how slow Lemmy development has been. Think about scaled sort (a feature that has been hotly requested since the migration) and how long that took to get merged in. A sort should not by any means be slow to implement.

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  • [+] 31 points 2 years ago (3 children)
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  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    IMO slow development isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

    Sure but even just recently there was the example of breaking federation over Christmas. Some of those issues persist through 0.19.3 which came out today

    Similarly scaled sort would have made a huge difference for small communities in the period directly after the migration.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    IMO slow development isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

    Quite the opposite, often it's a benefit as you don't end up wasting time and changing code for features where you don't actually know yet whether your current usage demands or supports them. There's a lot of genefit in not moving fast and not breaking things. Mostly that, well, you don't constantly break things.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    A sort should not by any means be slow to implement.

    Sure, if the sort key is something readily available. But for scaled sort they have to compute relative size/activity of the communities the specific user is in. The cost isn't the sort, it's computing the metric.

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  • [+] 23 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (7 children)
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  • [–] 20 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    I’m a Java developer and I would much rather pick up Rust to join an active project than try to rebuild something that already works using a less-marketable language.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Sure, but it’s a lot more work for you to get to a point where you can be an active contributor.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    Is it really a lot of work for an experienced dev? I can pick up most new languages in a day or 2 unless it's a total paradigm shift.

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  • [–] 20 points 2 years ago

    1-2 days is enough to learn the basics, but I doubt you’ll be as nearly as productive as with something you’ve been using for years. Keep in mind that new languages also mean new frameworks, etc, some which take years to actually master, but at least months to get a good handle on them.

    Also, from my understanding, Rust is a bit of a paradigm shift.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago

    Yeah but there's a big difference between having "picked up" a new language and being on the level where you can viably add useful code to a distributed federated deployed platform.

    I have 12 years in Java by now, I'm fairly confident with it. Rust, yeah no, not for production code.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Yeah I agree. Rust is an excellent language when you absolutely must be as safe as possible but don't want garbage collection. But there is a level of precision required of developers which makes it slower to development in. Other languages like Java, Python and Go are all quicker to develop in. Java is much easier to refactor IMO

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