3 ms·

We're talking 2-3 sentences to explain what's going on. A researcher releasing work publicly on github is presumably doing so too spread the ideas.

skybrian 5y ago
Sure, they have some audience in mind, but not necessarily us. There are a lot of documents that are public but are meant for a specialized audience. If they were meant for the general public, they'd be written very differently. Sharing a link on Hacker News is effectively taking it out of context and sometimes it's up to us to add that context back in. The author doesn't owe it to us.
- fao_ 5y ago
  > The author doesn't owe it to us. There are like 6 different definitions of what a "transformer" is and none of them fall under "machine learning". If you have a README, then that implies its intended for others to read, and so it should be made with that in mind. If I happened to be interested in machine learning, this would be a project that I would bookmark for further use -- except I wouldn't know to bookmark it because they didn't bother to include a total of two words ("machine learning") that give context of how to parse the word "transformer". The fact that the owner didn't provide that context is not excused by the fact that the repository owner decided to implement a handful of research papers. It absolutely is the responsibility of the authors of projects, and the authors of README files, to provide context about what something does. The entire point of the README is to clear up ambiguity about what something is. You might as well say, why not include a README? People who are using the project know well enough how to run it!
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    This is BS. How many obscure security, devops, etc tools get posted here without so much complaint? Paid products, public releases, etc. are different and are treated differently.
    - fao_ 5y ago
      > This is BS. How many obscure security, devops, etc tools get posted here without so much complaint? From me? Or are you lumping me in with all the "nay-sayers", despite the fact that I'm trying to offer criticism of a problem that's pretty common in computer science and outside it?
  - skybrian 5y ago
    Normally people will find a Github repo in a way that gives them more context about what it’s about. For example, someone might link to this repo in an article about machine learning. There is always context and sometimes you don’t have it. Do you expect everything to be written in English for your benefit? But sure, it would be nice to clarify things for random passers-by so they know it’s not the droid they’re looking for. It’s just not required to do this in every Github repo.
    - fao_ 5y ago
      > Do you expect everything to be written in English for your benefit? I'm not even sure what you mean to say here. Is asking that the README contain a single two letter phrase reference to the subject matter, the same as expecting the entirety of the world to be written in english? Quite literally all I've stated is that if you're making something that's clearly intended to be public-facing, it's worth taking the exact ½ of a second to allow people who can't read your mind to understand what context they should read something in?
      - skybrian 5y ago
        I’m saying that “public-facing” isn’t a simple and binary. The public is diverse. Writing something so everyone can read it is actually pretty hard. Adding two lines so that a random Hacker News reader can understand the README wouldn’t be enough for a nontechnical audience to understand it. You seem not to understand that people have different comprehension levels and the one you’re in isn’t necessary the most important one to the author.
        fao_ 5y ago
        > Adding two lines so that a random Hacker News reader can understand the README wouldn’t be enough for a nontechnical audience to understand it. I disagree, it would be enough for a non-technical audience, since it would give enough information for them to do *research* and find out more information.
  - ShamelessC 5y ago
    If you had written this up on the issues for the project you would have helped your cause a bit better. I personally disagree that volunteers owe you anything at all, much less a README, and that we should be thankful for all they do to help as is. But for real, go post an issue! not trying to play devil's advocate, honestly! Your voice is not heard when complaining anywhere but the repository itself this is open source software and everyone should have a voice!
  - cmorez 5y ago
    I sympathize with not knowing about Transformers in an ML sense, but there's plenty of context in the readme. Especially considering the direct links to relevant papers. Some of lucidrains other projects include the line "This is an implementation of thing with link" which I feel you'd prefer. Like others, I too encourage you to open an issue to do the same here instead of leaving it till "after the fold".
solidasparagus 5y ago
This repo isn't confusing for people in the field who would care about the project. Transformers are ubiquitous and need no explanation.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

skybrian 5y ago

Sure, they have some audience in mind, but not necessarily us. There are a lot of documents that are public but are meant for a specialized audience. If they were meant for the general public, they'd be written very differently. Sharing a link on Hacker News is effectively taking it out of context and sometimes it's up to us to add that context back in. The author doesn't owe it to us.

fao_ 5y ago
> The author doesn't owe it to us. There are like 6 different definitions of what a "transformer" is and none of them fall under "machine learning". If you have a README, then that implies its intended for others to read, and so it should be made with that in mind. If I happened to be interested in machine learning, this would be a project that I would bookmark for further use -- except I wouldn't know to bookmark it because they didn't bother to include a total of two words ("machine learning") that give context of how to parse the word "transformer". The fact that the owner didn't provide that context is not excused by the fact that the repository owner decided to implement a handful of research papers. It absolutely is the responsibility of the authors of projects, and the authors of README files, to provide context about what something does. The entire point of the README is to clear up ambiguity about what something is. You might as well say, why not include a README? People who are using the project know well enough how to run it!
- nerdponx 5y ago
  This is BS. How many obscure security, devops, etc tools get posted here without so much complaint? Paid products, public releases, etc. are different and are treated differently.
  - fao_ 5y ago
    > This is BS. How many obscure security, devops, etc tools get posted here without so much complaint? From me? Or are you lumping me in with all the "nay-sayers", despite the fact that I'm trying to offer criticism of a problem that's pretty common in computer science and outside it?
- skybrian 5y ago
  Normally people will find a Github repo in a way that gives them more context about what it’s about. For example, someone might link to this repo in an article about machine learning. There is always context and sometimes you don’t have it. Do you expect everything to be written in English for your benefit? But sure, it would be nice to clarify things for random passers-by so they know it’s not the droid they’re looking for. It’s just not required to do this in every Github repo.
  - fao_ 5y ago
    > Do you expect everything to be written in English for your benefit? I'm not even sure what you mean to say here. Is asking that the README contain a single two letter phrase reference to the subject matter, the same as expecting the entirety of the world to be written in english? Quite literally all I've stated is that if you're making something that's clearly intended to be public-facing, it's worth taking the exact ½ of a second to allow people who can't read your mind to understand what context they should read something in?
    - skybrian 5y ago
      I’m saying that “public-facing” isn’t a simple and binary. The public is diverse. Writing something so everyone can read it is actually pretty hard. Adding two lines so that a random Hacker News reader can understand the README wouldn’t be enough for a nontechnical audience to understand it. You seem not to understand that people have different comprehension levels and the one you’re in isn’t necessary the most important one to the author.
      - fao_ 5y ago
        > Adding two lines so that a random Hacker News reader can understand the README wouldn’t be enough for a nontechnical audience to understand it. I disagree, it would be enough for a non-technical audience, since it would give enough information for them to do *research* and find out more information.
- ShamelessC 5y ago
  If you had written this up on the issues for the project you would have helped your cause a bit better. I personally disagree that volunteers owe you anything at all, much less a README, and that we should be thankful for all they do to help as is. But for real, go post an issue! not trying to play devil's advocate, honestly! Your voice is not heard when complaining anywhere but the repository itself this is open source software and everyone should have a voice!
- cmorez 5y ago
  I sympathize with not knowing about Transformers in an ML sense, but there's plenty of context in the readme. Especially considering the direct links to relevant papers. Some of lucidrains other projects include the line "This is an implementation of thing with link" which I feel you'd prefer. Like others, I too encourage you to open an issue to do the same here instead of leaving it till "after the fold".

solidasparagus 5y ago

This repo isn't confusing for people in the field who would care about the project. Transformers are ubiquitous and need no explanation.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]