<antirez>
6 hours ago
- Maintaining a popular open source project is psychologically taxing due to the overwhelming volume of messages, issues, and pull requests—a phenomenon called the 'flood effect'.
- Attempts to manage the flood with 'inbox zero' tactics often fail because they don't allow for the thoughtful processing that community feedback deserves.
- The maintainer's role shifts from designing and coding to mostly reviewing contributions, which reduces time for creative work and leads to fewer organic new features.
- Working continuously on the same project for years is mentally draining; the author used to work in bursts and found that forced daily schedules reduce productivity.
- There is constant fear of losing technological leadership due to misalignment between the maintainer's vision and user expectations.
- Dealing with difficult people (assholes) in the community adds significant stress.
- A sense of futility can arise from the belief that software is ephemeral and will be replaced, contrasting with the desire to work on 'big ideas'.