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Ask HN: What are some poorly written but very successful open source software?

by eigenbom on 2/11/17, 11:32 PM with 32 comments

• by stevekemp on 2/12/17, 3:53 AM

  Have you ever read the man-page for telnet? On my Debian system the last two lines read:

     BUGS
       The source code is not comprehensible.
  

  That's probably one of the dividing lines. There are many programs that have "bad" source code, but which are still essential.

  Another measure of "badness" could be how extensible, or not a program might be. Or even how many security-holes. With regard to security holes some projects such as Wordpress or Wireshark crop up too often.

  But honestly? Most of the badly written programs aren't so bad, if you ignore a couple of outliers. If the benefits outweigh the drawbacks then the software leaves the world a better place.

• by larrykubin on 2/12/17, 5:48 AM

  WordPress, phpNuke, phpBB, most of the old PHP CMSes and E-Commerce systems. The code is dirty and hacky, but the software is useful for millions of people.

• by eigenbom on 2/11/17, 11:48 PM

  Browsing the source of games like Nethack and Battle for Wesnoth (around a decade ago) opened my eyes - sometimes code quality can seem poor but the product can be great.

  Blender is another one that seems very ramshackle and complex. I won't go as far as saying it's poorly written, but it's a product of many contributors, including students, and yet it's an amazing piece of software.

  This thread is not meant to be a criticism of projects, but a celebration that code quality is not the be all and end all.

• by danielvf on 2/11/17, 11:35 PM

  Joomla - both code and UI were beyond horrible, but I still turn down random Joomla projects on a yearly basis.

• by mondoshawan on 2/12/17, 4:41 AM

  Though I live and breathe it, emacs C source base is amazingly nasty. The fact that it still uses redisplay and memory dumps after integrating so many improvements over the years...

• by leovonl on 2/13/17, 9:24 PM

  If you consider:

  1) Most of Linux source code is composed of drivers;

  2) Most drivers for Linux have really bad quality code, with very few exceptions;

  Then Linux is a perfect example.

• by logronoide on 2/12/17, 12:19 AM

  Any Java plugin for Minecraft written by teenagers looks like a heresy for Enterprise Java developers...

• by tuananh on 2/12/17, 7:45 AM

  I don't know the details but i've read sth similar regarding Calibre.

• by randombit on 2/12/17, 9:51 PM

  The source code of procmail is terrifying

• by sayelt on 2/12/17, 4:02 AM

  Vim.

• by splitbrain on 2/12/17, 7:22 AM

  vTiger CRM. The worst code I have ever seen but still used by lots of businesses.

• by LarryMade2 on 2/12/17, 5:52 PM

  I heard OpenOffice was a mess years back though I don't know about now.

• by nunez on 2/12/17, 4:07 PM

  I wouldn't touch OpenSSL with a ten foot pole.

• by Animats on 2/12/17, 5:53 AM

  Sendmail.

• by smilesnd on 2/14/17, 11:03 AM

  Drupal, wordpress, docker, xamarin, unity. and mono

• by informatimago on 2/12/17, 2:37 AM

  openssl!

• by runT1ME on 2/14/17, 3:40 AM

  Docker.