Having set up various diffusion models I'm gonna say that the "read tutorials and tinker with manually setting up an environment" is EXTREMELY fair criticism. M

Having set up various diffusion models I'm gonna say that the "read tutorials and tinker with manually setting up an environment" is EXTREMELY fair criticism. Much of the ML ecosystem is kinda held together with duct tape and string. As I get older, I feel more and more that the initial reactions of people completely new to a software system are incredibly valuable, and the best response is to try and capture those reactions so you can find out what underlying problems (if any) that caused them. When you hire a junior engineer straight out of college, maybe they'll react with horror when they see what real production code looks like. It's EASY to just say that they'll get used to it. However, their reactions are sometimes correct and sometimes miss the mark. It takes work to sort it out, but the first step is capturing the initial reactions of people new to the system, and knee-jerk responses just get in the way. Most of the senior engineers can't see the problems. They've been surrounded by those problems for too long and the problems just turn into background noise.