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Some people reading Hacker News are interested in basic optimizations.

by powera 11y ago

analognoise 11y ago
Everyone wants everything pre-chewed for them. This is SO basic it's Sophomore CS. This guy is doing "machine learning" but WOW A TABLE LOOKUP IS FAST?! This sounds like "code bootcamp" level trash. Nevermind that optimizations as a whole have a rich history and there are fascinating examples aplenty that can actually teach you something. Like, for example, this: http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simulator.html?m=1 http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simul... About getting a scientific calculator to run on a $100 chip, when the chip's creator (TI) said it was impossible. Or how the genesis of some of our optimizations (and architectural improvements) date back to parallelizing work...with different colored punch cards at Los Alamos by Feynman: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/msr_er/archive/2011/02/04/celebrating-richard-feynman-at-tedxcaltech.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/msr_er/archive/2011/02/04/celebratin... If you're a hacker, but everything has to be pre-chewed for you and this garbage rates as "interesting", what the fuck are you doing with your time? Buying "geeky" TShirts and playing ping pong? Jesus wept, what next, amazing Excel spreadsheet calculations? If this person is doing "machine learning", the machine doesn't stand a chance. Sorry. I use HN as my 'smart things' filter - if I wanted 'for Dummies' I'd be on Reddit (and I have tons of stupid shit questions, and I ask them elsewhere). It makes me irrationally angry for some reason. Like, THIS is now the level of achievement that requires a blog post - and it gets to the front page!? The 'everybody gets a trophy!' level shit is here to stay. I have to do some serious thinking about why this pisses me off so much. Everybody is now a hacker, hackers are now at the level of blog posts over table lookups. I guess I'm angry over the dilution, commercialization and sanitation of the whole thing. Like the pool is now so shallow and full of piss, what the fuck happened? Everybody is a maker, a hacker, a tech-tropeneur, but subversive, active, hard-working, horizon seeking is largely gone. People want to reinvent the wheel in Javascript for the distributed machine learning {buzzword} cloud with great UI, blog about it, and cash out. It isn't about enlightenment anymore - personal or otherwise, unless it's dropping out to "find yourself" making artisinal bread and birdhouses. How did we get so lost? Maybe it's an existential crisis. Sorry again. Table lookups are great. Go team.
- mobiuscog 11y ago
  I'd agree, wholeheartedly. However, it's Friday. Take a nice deep breath. Relax. Be happy that at least they are investigating the code and trying to find solutions (no matter how 'obvious' they may be) instead of just replacing it with another open-source library from somewhere else that happens to be faster in this case. Everyone has to learn through their own experience, and I'm always happy when people realise how things can be better - even if it doesn't happen nearly enough these days. Time for coffee :D
zamalek 11y ago
... or some people reading Hacker News who knew nothing about basic optimizations now do; which is something that that the industry desperately needs. Everyone has been incorrectly quoting Knuth to the point where optimization is widely regarded as a worthless exercise (very evident on e.g. StackOverflow) and I think it's absolutely great that someone new has learned to appreciate the art of it. Lookup tables today, cache lines tomorrow.

Some people reading Hacker News are interested in basic optimizations.

by powera 11y ago

Some people reading Hacker News are interested in basic optimizations.

Everyone wants everything pre-chewed for them. This is SO basic it's Sophomore CS. This guy is doing "machine learning" but WOW A TABLE LOOKUP IS FAST?! This sounds like "code bootcamp" level trash. Nevermind that optimizations as a whole have a rich history and there are fascinating examples aplenty that can actually teach you something. Like, for example, this: http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simulator.html?m=1 http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simul... About getting a scientific calculator to run on a $100 chip, when the chip's creator (TI) said it was impossible. Or how the genesis of some of our optimizations (and architectural improvements) date back to parallelizing work...with different colored punch cards at Los Alamos by Feynman: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/msr_er/archive/2011/02/04/celebrating-richard-feynman-at-tedxcaltech.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/msr_er/archive/2011/02/04/celebratin... If you're a hacker, but everything has to be pre-chewed for you and this garbage rates as "interesting", what the fuck are you doing with your time? Buying "geeky" TShirts and playing ping pong? Jesus wept, what next, amazing Excel spreadsheet calculations? If this person is doing "machine learning", the machine doesn't stand a chance. Sorry. I use HN as my 'smart things' filter - if I wanted 'for Dummies' I'd be on Reddit (and I have tons of stupid shit questions, and I ask them elsewhere). It makes me irrationally angry for some reason. Like, THIS is now the level of achievement that requires a blog post - and it gets to the front page!? The 'everybody gets a trophy!' level shit is here to stay. I have to do some serious thinking about why this pisses me off so much. Everybody is now a hacker, hackers are now at the level of blog posts over table lookups. I guess I'm angry over the dilution, commercialization and sanitation of the whole thing. Like the pool is now so shallow and full of piss, what the fuck happened? Everybody is a maker, a hacker, a tech-tropeneur, but subversive, active, hard-working, horizon seeking is largely gone. People want to reinvent the wheel in Javascript for the distributed machine learning {buzzword} cloud with great UI, blog about it, and cash out. It isn't about enlightenment anymore - personal or otherwise, unless it's dropping out to "find yourself" making artisinal bread and birdhouses. How did we get so lost? Maybe it's an existential crisis. Sorry again. Table lookups are great. Go team.

mobiuscog 11y ago
I'd agree, wholeheartedly. However, it's Friday. Take a nice deep breath. Relax. Be happy that at least they are investigating the code and trying to find solutions (no matter how 'obvious' they may be) instead of just replacing it with another open-source library from somewhere else that happens to be faster in this case. Everyone has to learn through their own experience, and I'm always happy when people realise how things can be better - even if it doesn't happen nearly enough these days. Time for coffee :D

zamalek 11y ago

... or some people reading Hacker News who knew nothing about basic optimizations now do; which is something that that the industry desperately needs. Everyone has been incorrectly quoting Knuth to the point where optimization is widely regarded as a worthless exercise (very evident on e.g. StackOverflow) and I think it's absolutely great that someone new has learned to appreciate the art of it. Lookup tables today, cache lines tomorrow.