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Learn a little bayesian decision theory. Not because you need it for the solution of your problem, but because of what it tells you about the process of doing s
by ajb 7y ago
Learn a little bayesian decision theory. Not because you need it for the solution of your problem, but because of what it tells you about the process of doing so.
I've got a tongue-in-cheek presentation entitled 'How to seem a Genius at Debugging with this 1 Weird Trick' based on decision theory. One day I must write it up properly as a blog post.
- mpfundstein 7y agoSo what is this 1 weird trick?
- ajb 7y agoOops, forgot this thread. The short answer is: - In bayesian search theory a good (sometimes optimal) approach is to maximise information gathered per unit effort - In debugging, a step can vary by several orders of magnitude in amount of effort required to check a theory (eg, from 'type ls' to 'spend several hours implementing a theorised fix/tracking framework/etc) - Consequently, the probability of a hypothesis can be quite low and still be the optimal thing to check first, if the effort to test it is also low. So, the 'one weird trick' is to look at all the evidence you can look at very quickly, even if the connection to the problem is tenuous. 95% of the time the tenuous ones don't pay off, but when it does, you're colleagues are like 'WTF? how did you think of that?' and as advertised, you look like a genius.