5 ms·

But as an user, why would he/she care about how it works on the background, even if there is an issue? Surely the average Factorio player is perhaps familiar wi

But as an user, why would he/she care about how it works on the background, even if there is an issue? Surely the average Factorio player is perhaps familiar with programming, but isn't working over an abstraction exactly why solutions like these work?

madars 3y ago
At least in the past some SAT solvers were vastly better on certain kinds of problems. E.g. cryptominisat had native handling of XOR clauses which no other solver did. By referencing pertinent details of your experimental setup you could save others who want to build upon your work a lot of time.
lucideer 3y ago
> But as an user, why would he/she care about how it works I find this (extremely prevalent) perspective increasingly demoralising. Why wouldn't he/she care? There's an important distinction here between the use of the word "should" and "would". The user of course shouldn't be required to care, but making a decision on their behalf that they won't is fundamentally different. This is of course largely driven by the sorry state of UX where the responsibility to integrate rich choice & flexibility into refined simple interfaces is shirked in favour of achieving the same simplicity via the lazier approach of design minimalism.
- yareal 3y ago
  Who wrote the network transport code that shepherded the bits from your post to the hacker news backend? What Ethernet devices did it transit and who wrote that code? What tradeoffs were made between hardware performance characteristics in the interrupt handlers in your network card? What about your keyboard? Did you choose cat 5 or cat 6 cables for this post to HN? Were those cables shielded? There are many many occasions where something is below the level of abstraction that you care about. Don't assume that because you care about a particular level of abstraction that everyone else should too.
  - lucideer 3y ago
    > Who wrote the network transport code that shepherded the bits from your post to the hacker news backend? What Ethernet devices did it transit and who wrote that code? What tradeoffs were made between hardware performance characteristics in the interrupt handlers in your network card? What about your keyboard? Did you choose cat 5 or cat 6 cables for this post to HN? Were those cables shielded? Are you asking whether I know these things or whether I'd like to? Or whether I'd like the freedom to make choices about these questions -vs- each of them being chosen for me without opportunity for input or insight? I don't think it's particularly controversial to say that, for most people, independent of their level of technical knowledge, the ideal is for answers to all of your questions to be available & accessible in some way, & for there to be choice in that market. People can choose to take simple defaults without delving into the hows & whys but I can't see why those same people would object to others having choice & transparency around those defaults. In summary: I don't know what point you're trying to make.
    - lupusreal 3y ago
      Anyone can learn these things (the workings of pysat) if they want to. Sometimes the inner workings and history of things is hidden as proprietary secrets, but usually that isn't the case and somebody who's curious can dig into how things work and who invented them.
      - lucideer 3y ago
        This is very true in this case, but not in all cases, & I think the gp's point w.r.t. such things being (relatively) obscured applies universally. All systems stand to benefit from constructive feedback on things being clearer & more transparent.
    - yareal 3y ago
      You asked "why wouldn't they care?" I'd argue you don't care below some level of abstraction. I'm pointing out that we all have a limited capacity to care at different levels of depth. And people might not want to care because they have other things they want to care about. You don't care about the whole stack you use. Others don't either, you sound like you are chastising others for not caring.
- snoutie 3y ago
  I don't see this that critically. Joe Schmoe and Programmmer Paul live in two different worlds. Joe might be into finace where I don't care about how anything is calculated so long as the right amount is in my bank account by the end of the month. Maybe they use a fancy excel sheet or SAP-FI or whatever. I don't think that the missing interest in either topics is particulary demoralizing. But on a different note: it is demoralizing when you need to cooperate with that other world, when Paul needs to create that program in sap for the calculations and Joe does not care for the inner workings or Paul for the formulas. That makes communication so much harder.
  - lucideer 3y ago
    > Joe Schmoe and Programmmer Paul live in two different worlds This is essentially the problem: the driving of the world to extremes. Joe's & Paul's worlds are demarcated by the systems they operate in. Their knowledge is not only limited by their primary areas of interest but by what's made evident to them through their daily interactions. As an individual Paul may have zero interest in "Joe's world" & Joe may individually have less than zero interest in what solvers are operating in Factorio, but those are individual stories, not generalities. When you're generalising about people you're looking at a spectrum of interest within which you need to acknowledge that (a) programmers are humans who use tools too: DX isn't the only area that needs to cater to programmers, they also use Spotify & banking apps & play games just like everyone else. And (b), similarly there's a million Joes out there who will never write a line of code but still possess a technical interest that goes beyond wilful ignorance.
- fho 3y ago
  The question is: where do you draw the line? * The SAT wrapper? * The SAT library? * The math library the SAT library depends upon? * The LibC? * The operating system? * The processor? * The lithography machine manufacturers? * The guys that provided the raw silicone?
  - cellularmitosis 3y ago
    "...or as I've taken to calling it recently, SAT slash LAPACK slash MUSL slash GNU slash Linux"
  - lucideer 3y ago
    There's no hard line to be drawn anywhere - trying to shoehorn the argument into the metaphor of a line somewhere doesn't track. Two framings to attempt to answer your question reasonably: Framing 1: Should information on all the things you listed be available & accessible? In an ideal world, I think so. Of course that doesn't translate to all of them being pushed into users faces while they attempt to play Factorio (they don't even know how to install python & haven't even unlocked balancers yet). It just means: can I find it on the internet. Right now, thankfully, I can for most of it (sadly silicon supply chain transparency isn't quite where it could be). Framing 2: Should the above information be readily apparent: that's a question that's much more dependent on degrees of abstraction. In this case, the gp is offering feedback that the SAT libraries are at a level of abstraction that makes them relevant enough to someone running the python tool in their cli. I would tend to agree.
- beeboobaa 3y ago
  Techbros always insist on infantilizing users. I think it's a weird combination of gatekeeping and a superiority complex.
  - funcDropShadow 3y ago
    > Techbros always insist on infantilizing users. Why do you use Techbros as a derogative term here? How does it contribute to the discussion? > I think it's a weird combination of gatekeeping and a superiority complex. Why is it gatekeeping, if you ask for UIs that are not only optimized for the most novice user, but also for more advanced users? I'd say it is the other way around. People designing UIs that can only be used for the most easy tasks are gatekeeping. They are keeping out the power users or those who want to become a power user. I've often wondered whether the lack of a smooth path between tools for laymen and tools for professionals is the true reason why it is hard to use computers for more than content consumption.
    - lucideer 3y ago
      I think you might have misinterpreted the commenter you're replying to: it sounds like you're arguing for the same side of the argument?
munchbunny 3y ago
> Surely the average Factorio player is perhaps familiar with programming, but isn't working over an abstraction exactly why solutions like these work? The vast majority of Factorio players are not familiar with programming. A small but very vocal and very enthusiastic minority are though.

madars 3y ago

At least in the past some SAT solvers were vastly better on certain kinds of problems. E.g. cryptominisat had native handling of XOR clauses which no other solver did. By referencing pertinent details of your experimental setup you could save others who want to build upon your work a lot of time.

lucideer 3y ago

> But as an user, why would he/she care about how it works I find this (extremely prevalent) perspective increasingly demoralising. Why wouldn't he/she care? There's an important distinction here between the use of the word "should" and "would". The user of course shouldn't be required to care, but making a decision on their behalf that they won't is fundamentally different. This is of course largely driven by the sorry state of UX where the responsibility to integrate rich choice & flexibility into refined simple interfaces is shirked in favour of achieving the same simplicity via the lazier approach of design minimalism.

yareal 3y ago
Who wrote the network transport code that shepherded the bits from your post to the hacker news backend? What Ethernet devices did it transit and who wrote that code? What tradeoffs were made between hardware performance characteristics in the interrupt handlers in your network card? What about your keyboard? Did you choose cat 5 or cat 6 cables for this post to HN? Were those cables shielded? There are many many occasions where something is below the level of abstraction that you care about. Don't assume that because you care about a particular level of abstraction that everyone else should too.
- lucideer 3y ago
  > Who wrote the network transport code that shepherded the bits from your post to the hacker news backend? What Ethernet devices did it transit and who wrote that code? What tradeoffs were made between hardware performance characteristics in the interrupt handlers in your network card? What about your keyboard? Did you choose cat 5 or cat 6 cables for this post to HN? Were those cables shielded? Are you asking whether I know these things or whether I'd like to? Or whether I'd like the freedom to make choices about these questions -vs- each of them being chosen for me without opportunity for input or insight? I don't think it's particularly controversial to say that, for most people, independent of their level of technical knowledge, the ideal is for answers to all of your questions to be available & accessible in some way, & for there to be choice in that market. People can choose to take simple defaults without delving into the hows & whys but I can't see why those same people would object to others having choice & transparency around those defaults. In summary: I don't know what point you're trying to make.
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    Anyone can learn these things (the workings of pysat) if they want to. Sometimes the inner workings and history of things is hidden as proprietary secrets, but usually that isn't the case and somebody who's curious can dig into how things work and who invented them.
    - lucideer 3y ago
      This is very true in this case, but not in all cases, & I think the gp's point w.r.t. such things being (relatively) obscured applies universally. All systems stand to benefit from constructive feedback on things being clearer & more transparent.
  - yareal 3y ago
    You asked "why wouldn't they care?" I'd argue you don't care below some level of abstraction. I'm pointing out that we all have a limited capacity to care at different levels of depth. And people might not want to care because they have other things they want to care about. You don't care about the whole stack you use. Others don't either, you sound like you are chastising others for not caring.
snoutie 3y ago
I don't see this that critically. Joe Schmoe and Programmmer Paul live in two different worlds. Joe might be into finace where I don't care about how anything is calculated so long as the right amount is in my bank account by the end of the month. Maybe they use a fancy excel sheet or SAP-FI or whatever. I don't think that the missing interest in either topics is particulary demoralizing. But on a different note: it is demoralizing when you need to cooperate with that other world, when Paul needs to create that program in sap for the calculations and Joe does not care for the inner workings or Paul for the formulas. That makes communication so much harder.
- lucideer 3y ago
  > Joe Schmoe and Programmmer Paul live in two different worlds This is essentially the problem: the driving of the world to extremes. Joe's & Paul's worlds are demarcated by the systems they operate in. Their knowledge is not only limited by their primary areas of interest but by what's made evident to them through their daily interactions. As an individual Paul may have zero interest in "Joe's world" & Joe may individually have less than zero interest in what solvers are operating in Factorio, but those are individual stories, not generalities. When you're generalising about people you're looking at a spectrum of interest within which you need to acknowledge that (a) programmers are humans who use tools too: DX isn't the only area that needs to cater to programmers, they also use Spotify & banking apps & play games just like everyone else. And (b), similarly there's a million Joes out there who will never write a line of code but still possess a technical interest that goes beyond wilful ignorance.
fho 3y ago
The question is: where do you draw the line? * The SAT wrapper? * The SAT library? * The math library the SAT library depends upon? * The LibC? * The operating system? * The processor? * The lithography machine manufacturers? * The guys that provided the raw silicone?
- cellularmitosis 3y ago
  "...or as I've taken to calling it recently, SAT slash LAPACK slash MUSL slash GNU slash Linux"
- lucideer 3y ago
  There's no hard line to be drawn anywhere - trying to shoehorn the argument into the metaphor of a line somewhere doesn't track. Two framings to attempt to answer your question reasonably: Framing 1: Should information on all the things you listed be available & accessible? In an ideal world, I think so. Of course that doesn't translate to all of them being pushed into users faces while they attempt to play Factorio (they don't even know how to install python & haven't even unlocked balancers yet). It just means: can I find it on the internet. Right now, thankfully, I can for most of it (sadly silicon supply chain transparency isn't quite where it could be). Framing 2: Should the above information be readily apparent: that's a question that's much more dependent on degrees of abstraction. In this case, the gp is offering feedback that the SAT libraries are at a level of abstraction that makes them relevant enough to someone running the python tool in their cli. I would tend to agree.
beeboobaa 3y ago
Techbros always insist on infantilizing users. I think it's a weird combination of gatekeeping and a superiority complex.
- funcDropShadow 3y ago
  > Techbros always insist on infantilizing users. Why do you use Techbros as a derogative term here? How does it contribute to the discussion? > I think it's a weird combination of gatekeeping and a superiority complex. Why is it gatekeeping, if you ask for UIs that are not only optimized for the most novice user, but also for more advanced users? I'd say it is the other way around. People designing UIs that can only be used for the most easy tasks are gatekeeping. They are keeping out the power users or those who want to become a power user. I've often wondered whether the lack of a smooth path between tools for laymen and tools for professionals is the true reason why it is hard to use computers for more than content consumption.
  - lucideer 3y ago
    I think you might have misinterpreted the commenter you're replying to: it sounds like you're arguing for the same side of the argument?

munchbunny 3y ago

> Surely the average Factorio player is perhaps familiar with programming, but isn't working over an abstraction exactly why solutions like these work? The vast majority of Factorio players are not familiar with programming. A small but very vocal and very enthusiastic minority are though.