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Article conflates distribution with production. Production would be a bigger cow. Deep learning benefits from scale: both in computation power and in a larger

by musesum 10y ago

Article conflates distribution with production. Production would be a bigger cow. Deep learning benefits from scale: both in computation power and in a larger corpus. From the example: is the final product the cow, the milk, or the nutrition it provides? Is a software product the lines of code, the app to download, or the service it provides?

HillaryBriss 10y ago
Yes. It seems like the article's milk analogy is applied to the wrong thing: another pint of the same exact product. Maybe it's more apt to make the analogy with a pint of a different type of milk product, a type of milk with brand new features. I'm talking about real-world products like these which have appeared in the last 10-20 years: * Almond Milk * Cashew Milk * Coconut-based Milk products (not traditional coconut milk) * Soy-based Milk products (not traditional soy milk) * Lactose Free Milk * Grass Fed Cow Milk * Organic Cow Milk * Omega 3 Enriched Milk etc. We would not expect the marginal cost of these to be less than another pint of conventional regular cow's milk, and indeed, it isn't. That said, I suspect that the article is basically going in the right direction. I mean, it seems like additional features on a complex software project really do cost much much more, on a percentage basis, than a new kind of milk beverage does.
- musesum 10y ago
  Interesting take on production. Multiple kinds of milk that use the same distribution medium of cartons and grocery stores. These products are decoupled from each other, so the development cost is comparatively linear. I agree with OP's premise that productivity diminishes with project complexity - a decades old problem addressed by Fred Brooks' Mythical Man-Month. But, a lot of the complexity is now wrapped by reusable components. It is now possible to write a component that is shared by 1000's of projects. Somewhat akin to a milk carton that can hold many kinds of milk.

by musesum 10y ago

HillaryBriss 10y ago

Yes. It seems like the article's milk analogy is applied to the wrong thing: another pint of the same exact product. Maybe it's more apt to make the analogy with a pint of a different type of milk product, a type of milk with brand new features. I'm talking about real-world products like these which have appeared in the last 10-20 years: * Almond Milk * Cashew Milk * Coconut-based Milk products (not traditional coconut milk) * Soy-based Milk products (not traditional soy milk) * Lactose Free Milk * Grass Fed Cow Milk * Organic Cow Milk * Omega 3 Enriched Milk etc. We would not expect the marginal cost of these to be less than another pint of conventional regular cow's milk, and indeed, it isn't. That said, I suspect that the article is basically going in the right direction. I mean, it seems like additional features on a complex software project really do cost much much more, on a percentage basis, than a new kind of milk beverage does.

musesum 10y ago
Interesting take on production. Multiple kinds of milk that use the same distribution medium of cartons and grocery stores. These products are decoupled from each other, so the development cost is comparatively linear. I agree with OP's premise that productivity diminishes with project complexity - a decades old problem addressed by Fred Brooks' Mythical Man-Month. But, a lot of the complexity is now wrapped by reusable components. It is now possible to write a component that is shared by 1000's of projects. Somewhat akin to a milk carton that can hold many kinds of milk.