this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2026
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POV: You maintain a JS library that 80% of modern web infrastructure uses as a dependency. (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 3 weeks ago by not_IO@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
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[–] bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 149 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

One way in which this could have come about is that Math.random wasn’t supported in all relevant browsers when the library author wrote the library. So they had to roll their own randomness with blackjack and hookers. Later the web standards evolved and the author was able to remove the custom code, but now had people relying on his library’s exposing a getRandom function.

[–] Billygoat@piefed.social 52 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You see this kind of stuff in C all the time when a code base supports multiple OSs by using macros.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 30 points 3 weeks ago

Yes, though at least with C you have the compiler to optimize the cruft out of your binary and end up with a nice, clean program.

With JavaScript this is going to incur some runtime cost everywhere this library is used, even if it only happens once when getting optimized out by the JIT compiler.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Pretty sure that math.random is decades old.

[–] bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 34 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Pretty sure OP’s image is hyperbole.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

Right. I'd agree this is a thing that happens, I just thought you were addressing this one in particular

[–] meekah@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Pretty sure many codebases running today (even JS ones) are older

[–] Sv443@sh.itjust.works 10 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] sparky@lemmy.federate.cc 2 points 3 weeks ago

Remember IE? Yeah. Probably responsible for a lot of now-superfluous things like this theory suggests.

[–] meekah@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 weeks ago

Gotta admit, didn't think it was that old

[–] Ajen@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 weeks ago

How many JS codebases are over 30 years old? Can you name even one?

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

And? I don't know how to check but I'd guess math.random was included from the beginning.