5 ms·

>- Did I mention read papers? Seriously, the research of the smartest people on planet earth are on the internet, available for your consumption, for free. Take

>- Did I mention read papers? Seriously, the research of the smartest people on planet earth are on the internet, available for your consumption, for free. Take a moment to reflect in how incredible that is. Anyone anywhere on planet earth can git gud if they apply themselves. There is a flood of papers out there with unrepeatable processes. Where can you find quality papers to read?

bilalq 3y ago
This is a great point. It's true that there's a wealth of good information out there. But there's so much bad information that we now struggle with a signal vs noise problem. If you don't have enough context and knowledge yet to make the distinction, it's very easy to go down a wild goose chase. Having access to an expert in the field who can mentor and direct you is invaluable.
LAC-Tech 3y ago
Can you explain what you mean by an un-repeatable process? This isn't a physical science, you don't need your own reactor or chemical lab or anything to repeat what they've done.
- autotune 3y ago
  "But, you are not Google" - https://medium.com/humans-of-devops/you-dont-need-sre-what-you-need-is-sre-bd420ad2b53b https://medium.com/humans-of-devops/you-dont-need-sre-what-y.... Just an example of what I'm talking about. Practices that work at one org may not easily transfer over to another, be that taking on kubernetes vs standard ec2 instances, on-prem vs cloud, etc. etc. Maybe un-repeatable isn't the best word so much as non-portable?
  - LAC-Tech 3y ago
    Ah I think I see what you're getting at. Most of the stuff I read isn't "your SAAS app should have atomic clocks" and more "here's some maths on why it works, here's some explanation of what we were going for, here's some pseudocode".
tekla 3y ago
If a Com Sci paper is unrepeatable, all of this has been a freaking waste of everyones time.
- autotune 3y ago
  Idempotency, testing, readability, and longevity are all too often ignored in CS and tech in the name of speed and simplicity.
  - l33t7332273 3y ago
    Can you elaborate on idempotency in the context os CS papers? I’m familiar with the concept wrt mathematics(in particular in the context of ulter-a-filters as my favorite professor would say it), but I don’t see the necessity in most CS research.
    - LAC-Tech 3y ago
      Idempotency (as I understand it, what maths people might call an 'idempotent function') is a very core idea in distributed systems - networks are unreliable, stuff may get lost, or you might not get an acknowledgment back, so the ability to send the same thing 1 0r a million times and end up with the same state is useful. Or have I completely missed the point of your question..?
      - NortySpock 3y ago
        It is also super useful in ye olde batch process / etl process. Designing an ingest-analyze-report process to checkpoint its work and recover gracefully even when started at an unexpected time or place means you can retry safely rather than have to manually clear out the detritus of a partial job run.
    - kbutler 3y ago
      I think autotune was saying that software often does shortcut hacks violating some of those principles as an optimization. This can be a topic for research into the tradeoffs (e.g., CAP theorem), but may be more common in non-research-based implementations (e.g., NoSQL databases because ACID is slow/constraining/etc.)

bilalq 3y ago

This is a great point. It's true that there's a wealth of good information out there. But there's so much bad information that we now struggle with a signal vs noise problem. If you don't have enough context and knowledge yet to make the distinction, it's very easy to go down a wild goose chase. Having access to an expert in the field who can mentor and direct you is invaluable.

LAC-Tech 3y ago

Can you explain what you mean by an un-repeatable process? This isn't a physical science, you don't need your own reactor or chemical lab or anything to repeat what they've done.

autotune 3y ago
"But, you are not Google" - https://medium.com/humans-of-devops/you-dont-need-sre-what-you-need-is-sre-bd420ad2b53b https://medium.com/humans-of-devops/you-dont-need-sre-what-y.... Just an example of what I'm talking about. Practices that work at one org may not easily transfer over to another, be that taking on kubernetes vs standard ec2 instances, on-prem vs cloud, etc. etc. Maybe un-repeatable isn't the best word so much as non-portable?
- LAC-Tech 3y ago
  Ah I think I see what you're getting at. Most of the stuff I read isn't "your SAAS app should have atomic clocks" and more "here's some maths on why it works, here's some explanation of what we were going for, here's some pseudocode".

tekla 3y ago

If a Com Sci paper is unrepeatable, all of this has been a freaking waste of everyones time.

autotune 3y ago
Idempotency, testing, readability, and longevity are all too often ignored in CS and tech in the name of speed and simplicity.
- l33t7332273 3y ago
  Can you elaborate on idempotency in the context os CS papers? I’m familiar with the concept wrt mathematics(in particular in the context of ulter-a-filters as my favorite professor would say it), but I don’t see the necessity in most CS research.
  - LAC-Tech 3y ago
    Idempotency (as I understand it, what maths people might call an 'idempotent function') is a very core idea in distributed systems - networks are unreliable, stuff may get lost, or you might not get an acknowledgment back, so the ability to send the same thing 1 0r a million times and end up with the same state is useful. Or have I completely missed the point of your question..?
    - NortySpock 3y ago
      It is also super useful in ye olde batch process / etl process. Designing an ingest-analyze-report process to checkpoint its work and recover gracefully even when started at an unexpected time or place means you can retry safely rather than have to manually clear out the detritus of a partial job run.
  - kbutler 3y ago
    I think autotune was saying that software often does shortcut hacks violating some of those principles as an optimization. This can be a topic for research into the tradeoffs (e.g., CAP theorem), but may be more common in non-research-based implementations (e.g., NoSQL databases because ACID is slow/constraining/etc.)