8 ms·

Class 1 / Class 2 Problems

68 points by imartin2k 5y ago

rob_c 5y ago
Tech in it's infancy vs extremely poor/cheap implementations? Maybe I'm just being picky about the examples but I'm convinced there is a class in the middle where an implementation of a product has been refined by company a) and company b) can't get past class 1 problems but ships due to other reasons. I'd give examples as, early stabs at a smartphone before iOS or Android, or laptops that try to imitate a macbook with inferior divers and hardware components.
dsr_ 5y ago
The two hardest problems are naming, cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors. In this case, there's a naming problem. "Class 1" and "Class 2" don't give any semantic content. Is there a "Class 3" coming along? Let me suggest "Inadequacy Problems" and "Ubiquity Problems" as alternatives.
- webmaven 5y ago
  > The two hardest problems are naming, cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors. > In this case, there's a naming problem. "Class 1" and "Class 2" don't give any semantic content. To me, the names suggested a connection or analogy to Type 1 and Type 2 errors, also known as False Positives and False Negatives. I was wrong, as it turns out, but the opaqueness of the labels, while annoying and unnecessary, isn't unprecedented.
- sudhirj 5y ago
  > Is there a "Class 3" coming along? Quite possibly. There is a class of problems to deal with when technology has outlived its usefulness and must be gotten rid of. Coal power arguably has Class 3 problems now. There are also Class 0 problems, like fusion, where just getting things off the ground is difficult.
  - dsr_ 5y ago
    "[Dis-]Graceful termination" and "Theory-to-practice" are good names for those problems. They supply useful context and are not ambiguous. Class 1: medical devices, explosives, renewable energy credits, depreciable property, lasers, streetcars, UK national insurance, railroads, electronics, felonies... If you're going to coin a term, make it a good one.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  > The two hardest problems are naming, cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors. Aside: the joke I've heard was always naming, resource management, and off-by-one errors. Resource management would include cache invalidation, malloc/free, open()/close(), accept()/close(), dup()/close(), garbage collection, etc. etc.
  - qsort 5y ago
    I'm familiar with your parent's variant ("cache invalidation") as well. https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/19836/has-phil-karlton-ever-said-there-are-only-two-hard-things-in-computer-science#39178 https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/19836/has-phil-...
  - olau 5y ago
    If we're going to generalize this old saying, let me point out that naming is just a specific instance of resource management, name space management. So I guess from this perspective, there's really only one hard problem in computer science: resource management and off-by-one errors.
retrocryptid 5y ago
weirdly, when i click on the link at the top of this page, i am taken to kk's bio page. it's easy to find this content with a few exploratory clicks, but seems weird it would do that since other commenters obviously saw the content. anyway, if you have a problem finding the link, i typed this in and got there directly. https://kk.org/thetechnium/class-1-class-2-problems/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/class-1-class-2-problems/ ymmv
bmmayer1 5y ago
Working link for title: https://kk.org/thetechnium/class-1-class-2-problems/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/class-1-class-2-problems/
- dang 5y ago
  Fixed now. Thanks!
edent 5y ago
I agree with the thesis, but not the specific conclusion. > Blockchain tech could unleash collaborations of several million members working on one project in real time, or orgs that are far more leaderless than today. How? Projects like the Linux Kernel already have thousands of contributors. It's not clear what putting their work in a distributed ledger would do to encourage more users. Twitter has millions of people generating content for it. Could a magic blockchain give people micro-cents every time their post was upvoted? Maybe. But that doesn't require a blockchain. Could a global art project distribute funds via a smart contract? I guess. But with millions of users, people will gravitate towards leaders. Even if it's just following the way an paid-for "influencer" votes. I too think that most of the tech problems inherent in DLT / smart contracts can be solved. But it isn't immediately clear what use they will be.
- jerry1979 5y ago
  If everyone with an internet-connected computer has permission-less access to the same payment rails, then an entreprenurial person can do business with anyone, anywhere, anytime. That feels like science fiction to me. I hear people getting obsessed with decentralization, but a strong leader with financial access to billions of people could absolutely crush.
- qsort 5y ago
  99% of the stuff people want to use "a blockchain" for are solved more quickly, easily and reliably by a SQL database. It's not even funny anymore.
  - mmcdermott 5y ago
    Agreed. I think most people, even technologists, missed the problems that drove blockchain's design. Namely, the desire to decentralize administration of the ledger (socially as well as technically) and dealing with untrusted actors attempting to modify the blockchain. If you authenticate all users and retain central administration, then blockchain's constraints simply don't apply.
    - 5y ago
wly_cdgr 5y ago
Re: the facial recognition example: no shit
golemotron 5y ago
The salient point is that technological innovation drives culture. Without the precautionary principle ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle ), norms and law continually play "catch up." The trick for technologists is to make their technology ubiquitous before anyone sees the consequences. It's done over and over again and it is hard to see a way out that does not stifle innovation.
pjdorrell 5y ago
Nuclear fusion. It's been such a struggle to get anywhere near to making it do something useful. But what if, one day, it actually works? What could happen if we all had access to enormous amounts of very cheap energy? Have we thought even a little bit about all the bad things that might happen as a result?
- effie 5y ago
  It won't be cheap, for the exact same reason nuclear energy isn't cheap. Once upon a time, people thought nuclear fission energy would bring "power too cheap to meter". They did not realize all the associated costs. If fusion ever comes, it will be expensive, even more than fission is now. It can still happen, if big gov and big corp put their money into it, but it's kind of unlikely. Solar plus fission is the more conservative (less risky) way to go.
  - jimmaswell 5y ago
    We'd have "power too cheap to meter" from fission if it wasn't sabotaged by politicians, fossil fuel lobbies, and an ignorant, easily frightened public.
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      The Green movement needs to be called out specifically here.
    - donmaq 5y ago
      ...or that pesky problem of nuclear waste. Which nobody has solved. Every 'solution' today leaks. Websearch Yucca Valley; do you want your aquifer to be downstream of that?
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      No, we wouldn't. Fission has massive public subsidies, and the industry is still crying for more before they will even build more capacity. I mean, sure, if the public subsidy was high enough there'd be no consumer cost, but that's not what “too cheap to meter” is supposed to refer to.
justicezyx 5y ago
Is there a real world class 2 problem as the author defined? I couldn't image one in the history.
- effie 5y ago
  Perfectly working technology can make society more like a soulless machine, less like a healthy living organism. It trivializes and fixates execution of important processes which should rather have the possibility to be evolved. For example, we can make an algorithm that ranks (and decides fate of) webpages or pandemic data, or applicants for special training programs, or for higher learning - all this via ranking members via some utility function. Take the last example of applicants. We can make that tech perfect with respect to the given utility function (IQ, expected profit from individual's life's work). But putting that perfect math decision process into universal practice, we will cause various unknown unhealthy biases to maintain or develop themselves and prevent the outsiders not captured by the utility function from getting a chance. See the movie G.A.T.T.A.C.A. for compelling depiction of society like that. One way to prevent this dystopic stagnation via perfection is to apply the "perfect technology" less strictly and allow for some randomization. Put some humanity into practice. We can make a technology perfect for some purpose, but we can't seem to agree on the purposes. So maybe don't put perfect technology everywhere. "Wanna perfect technology? Be careful what you wish for".
- jerry1979 5y ago
  The author mentioned cell phones which presumably cause the class 2 problem of texting while driving. Maybe these are others: - Printing press -> Uppity peasants - Electric light -> Sleep problems - Air conditioning -> Weight gain
ssss11 5y ago
Title doesn’t match the article
- slingnow 5y ago
  Which begs the question: if the link isn't even to the original article, why is this being upvoted to the front page?
- imartin2k 5y ago
  True, thanks. Will repost with the correct URL
  - imartin2k 5y ago
    Strange. HN seems to automatically change the URL when I post it. This is the correct one https://kk.org/thetechnium/class-1-class-2-problems/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/class-1-class-2-problems/ But every time I try to post it, it changes automatically to kk.org once posted.
    - peey 5y ago
      looks like a class 1 problem
    - peey 5y ago
      You're right! Even I tried to post it. This is what I observed: 1. After posting, I'm redirect to https://news.ycombinator.com/newest https://news.ycombinator.com/newest where the link works 2. I click to open the discussion, now on this page link no longer works 3. Going back to /newest, the link no longer works!
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - Jtsummers 5y ago
      HN tries to use canonical addresses. In the page source two canonical addresses are provided, the first is: <link itemprop="url" rel="canonical" href="http://kk.org"> And the second is the correct one: <link rel='canonical' href='https://kk.org/thetechnium/class-1-class-2-problems/' /> I'm imagining HN takes the first, always, and doesn't use any extra logic to try and discern (when there are multiple) which should be used.

68 points by imartin2k 5y ago

Tech in it's infancy vs extremely poor/cheap implementations? Maybe I'm just being picky about the examples but I'm convinced there is a class in the middle where an implementation of a product has been refined by company a) and company b) can't get past class 1 problems but ships due to other reasons. I'd give examples as, early stabs at a smartphone before iOS or Android, or laptops that try to imitate a macbook with inferior divers and hardware components.

dsr_ 5y ago

The two hardest problems are naming, cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors. In this case, there's a naming problem. "Class 1" and "Class 2" don't give any semantic content. Is there a "Class 3" coming along? Let me suggest "Inadequacy Problems" and "Ubiquity Problems" as alternatives.

webmaven 5y ago
> The two hardest problems are naming, cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors. > In this case, there's a naming problem. "Class 1" and "Class 2" don't give any semantic content. To me, the names suggested a connection or analogy to Type 1 and Type 2 errors, also known as False Positives and False Negatives. I was wrong, as it turns out, but the opaqueness of the labels, while annoying and unnecessary, isn't unprecedented.
sudhirj 5y ago
> Is there a "Class 3" coming along? Quite possibly. There is a class of problems to deal with when technology has outlived its usefulness and must be gotten rid of. Coal power arguably has Class 3 problems now. There are also Class 0 problems, like fusion, where just getting things off the ground is difficult.
- dsr_ 5y ago
  "[Dis-]Graceful termination" and "Theory-to-practice" are good names for those problems. They supply useful context and are not ambiguous. Class 1: medical devices, explosives, renewable energy credits, depreciable property, lasers, streetcars, UK national insurance, railroads, electronics, felonies... If you're going to coin a term, make it a good one.
dragontamer 5y ago
> The two hardest problems are naming, cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors. Aside: the joke I've heard was always naming, resource management, and off-by-one errors. Resource management would include cache invalidation, malloc/free, open()/close(), accept()/close(), dup()/close(), garbage collection, etc. etc.
- qsort 5y ago
  I'm familiar with your parent's variant ("cache invalidation") as well. https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/19836/has-phil-karlton-ever-said-there-are-only-two-hard-things-in-computer-science#39178 https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/19836/has-phil-...
- olau 5y ago
  If we're going to generalize this old saying, let me point out that naming is just a specific instance of resource management, name space management. So I guess from this perspective, there's really only one hard problem in computer science: resource management and off-by-one errors.

retrocryptid 5y ago

weirdly, when i click on the link at the top of this page, i am taken to kk's bio page. it's easy to find this content with a few exploratory clicks, but seems weird it would do that since other commenters obviously saw the content. anyway, if you have a problem finding the link, i typed this in and got there directly. https://kk.org/thetechnium/class-1-class-2-problems/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/class-1-class-2-problems/ ymmv

bmmayer1 5y ago

Working link for title: https://kk.org/thetechnium/class-1-class-2-problems/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/class-1-class-2-problems/

dang 5y ago
Fixed now. Thanks!

edent 5y ago

I agree with the thesis, but not the specific conclusion. > Blockchain tech could unleash collaborations of several million members working on one project in real time, or orgs that are far more leaderless than today. How? Projects like the Linux Kernel already have thousands of contributors. It's not clear what putting their work in a distributed ledger would do to encourage more users. Twitter has millions of people generating content for it. Could a magic blockchain give people micro-cents every time their post was upvoted? Maybe. But that doesn't require a blockchain. Could a global art project distribute funds via a smart contract? I guess. But with millions of users, people will gravitate towards leaders. Even if it's just following the way an paid-for "influencer" votes. I too think that most of the tech problems inherent in DLT / smart contracts can be solved. But it isn't immediately clear what use they will be.

jerry1979 5y ago
If everyone with an internet-connected computer has permission-less access to the same payment rails, then an entreprenurial person can do business with anyone, anywhere, anytime. That feels like science fiction to me. I hear people getting obsessed with decentralization, but a strong leader with financial access to billions of people could absolutely crush.
qsort 5y ago
99% of the stuff people want to use "a blockchain" for are solved more quickly, easily and reliably by a SQL database. It's not even funny anymore.
- mmcdermott 5y ago
  Agreed. I think most people, even technologists, missed the problems that drove blockchain's design. Namely, the desire to decentralize administration of the ledger (socially as well as technically) and dealing with untrusted actors attempting to modify the blockchain. If you authenticate all users and retain central administration, then blockchain's constraints simply don't apply.
  - 5y ago

wly_cdgr 5y ago

Re: the facial recognition example: no shit

golemotron 5y ago

The salient point is that technological innovation drives culture. Without the precautionary principle ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle ), norms and law continually play "catch up." The trick for technologists is to make their technology ubiquitous before anyone sees the consequences. It's done over and over again and it is hard to see a way out that does not stifle innovation.

pjdorrell 5y ago

Nuclear fusion. It's been such a struggle to get anywhere near to making it do something useful. But what if, one day, it actually works? What could happen if we all had access to enormous amounts of very cheap energy? Have we thought even a little bit about all the bad things that might happen as a result?

effie 5y ago
It won't be cheap, for the exact same reason nuclear energy isn't cheap. Once upon a time, people thought nuclear fission energy would bring "power too cheap to meter". They did not realize all the associated costs. If fusion ever comes, it will be expensive, even more than fission is now. It can still happen, if big gov and big corp put their money into it, but it's kind of unlikely. Solar plus fission is the more conservative (less risky) way to go.
- jimmaswell 5y ago
  We'd have "power too cheap to meter" from fission if it wasn't sabotaged by politicians, fossil fuel lobbies, and an ignorant, easily frightened public.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    The Green movement needs to be called out specifically here.
  - donmaq 5y ago
    ...or that pesky problem of nuclear waste. Which nobody has solved. Every 'solution' today leaks. Websearch Yucca Valley; do you want your aquifer to be downstream of that?
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    No, we wouldn't. Fission has massive public subsidies, and the industry is still crying for more before they will even build more capacity. I mean, sure, if the public subsidy was high enough there'd be no consumer cost, but that's not what “too cheap to meter” is supposed to refer to.

justicezyx 5y ago

Is there a real world class 2 problem as the author defined? I couldn't image one in the history.

effie 5y ago
Perfectly working technology can make society more like a soulless machine, less like a healthy living organism. It trivializes and fixates execution of important processes which should rather have the possibility to be evolved. For example, we can make an algorithm that ranks (and decides fate of) webpages or pandemic data, or applicants for special training programs, or for higher learning - all this via ranking members via some utility function. Take the last example of applicants. We can make that tech perfect with respect to the given utility function (IQ, expected profit from individual's life's work). But putting that perfect math decision process into universal practice, we will cause various unknown unhealthy biases to maintain or develop themselves and prevent the outsiders not captured by the utility function from getting a chance. See the movie G.A.T.T.A.C.A. for compelling depiction of society like that. One way to prevent this dystopic stagnation via perfection is to apply the "perfect technology" less strictly and allow for some randomization. Put some humanity into practice. We can make a technology perfect for some purpose, but we can't seem to agree on the purposes. So maybe don't put perfect technology everywhere. "Wanna perfect technology? Be careful what you wish for".
jerry1979 5y ago
The author mentioned cell phones which presumably cause the class 2 problem of texting while driving. Maybe these are others: - Printing press -> Uppity peasants - Electric light -> Sleep problems - Air conditioning -> Weight gain

ssss11 5y ago

Title doesn’t match the article

slingnow 5y ago
Which begs the question: if the link isn't even to the original article, why is this being upvoted to the front page?
imartin2k 5y ago
True, thanks. Will repost with the correct URL
- imartin2k 5y ago
  Strange. HN seems to automatically change the URL when I post it. This is the correct one https://kk.org/thetechnium/class-1-class-2-problems/ https://kk.org/thetechnium/class-1-class-2-problems/ But every time I try to post it, it changes automatically to kk.org once posted.
  - peey 5y ago
    looks like a class 1 problem
  - peey 5y ago
    You're right! Even I tried to post it. This is what I observed: 1. After posting, I'm redirect to https://news.ycombinator.com/newest https://news.ycombinator.com/newest where the link works 2. I click to open the discussion, now on this page link no longer works 3. Going back to /newest, the link no longer works!
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    HN tries to use canonical addresses. In the page source two canonical addresses are provided, the first is: <link itemprop="url" rel="canonical" href="http://kk.org"> And the second is the correct one: <link rel='canonical' href='https://kk.org/thetechnium/class-1-class-2-problems/' /> I'm imagining HN takes the first, always, and doesn't use any extra logic to try and discern (when there are multiple) which should be used.