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But not necessarily true for software engineers. The so-called three romances of CS can all be attempted by anyone: compiler, operating systems, and computer gr

But not necessarily true for software engineers. The so-called three romances of CS can all be attempted by anyone: compiler, operating systems, and computer graphics. And in the recent years, databases, distributed systems, and machine learning algorithms can also be attempted by anyone at home. Only the large models and the associated optimizations are really beyond most people's reach.

gleenn 3y ago
I'm a CS grad and software engineer and have never in my time heard anyone describe the "three romances". Where did you hear that term and can you give me a TL;DR on why you actually think those fields are the 3?
- Joel_Mckay 3y ago
  More like the holy trinity 99.998% of CS majors couldn't code if their career depended on completing. https://youtu.be/TRZAJY23xio?feature=shared&t=2346 https://youtu.be/TRZAJY23xio?feature=shared&t=2346 I don't agree with a lot of what Steve stood for, but he was right about this dynamic range observation. Cheers =)
  - eropple 3y ago
    I don't think that's true at all. I think most "CS majors" would need to study how to do those things, but none of them are conceptually difficult and build on the same algorithmic and data structures knowledge you learn for other tasks. I never built a compiler until I did. I never built an operating system until I did. (I don't remember when I started doing computer graphics, though, because that was a long time ago.)
    - Joel_Mckay 3y ago
      Sure, one could spend a semester learning to build a rudimentary compiler, or watch your prof build a better solution in under 37 lines of Prolog. Wish I was joking here... =)
      - gleenn 3y ago
        Do you have a link to their project? Rich Hickey also always reiterates that Simple isn't Easy. Knowing exactly how something works means you can express it in as concise a way as possible.
hashtag-til 3y ago
I didn't now about "three romances of CS" terminology. #TIL
dartos 3y ago
I don’t think anyone who would/could get into low level computer graphics wouldn’t be able to do so in LLM optimization land. The only barrier to both areas is just the amount of math and gpu knowledge
molticrystal 3y ago
I don't think they are denying being able to do any of those things, it just often won't be in the same league. You aren't going to be producing linux, llvm, or unreal, but instead very specific projects which may be remarkable or just a toy, templeos, tinyc, 64k demos. Not ChatGPT, but maybe autocomplete or an inferior llm using the same methods. For the hardware example they gave, while 3nm might be inaccessible, you can fabricate at 180nm, 130nm and 90nm process nodes [0] [1]. Even chemistry and nuclear science isn't beyond the home tinkerers grasp, but as complexity rises, the ability to acquire, control and synthesize diminishes rapidly. [0] https://developers.google.com/silicon https://developers.google.com/silicon [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Silicon_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Silicon_Initiative

gleenn 3y ago

I'm a CS grad and software engineer and have never in my time heard anyone describe the "three romances". Where did you hear that term and can you give me a TL;DR on why you actually think those fields are the 3?

Joel_Mckay 3y ago
More like the holy trinity 99.998% of CS majors couldn't code if their career depended on completing. https://youtu.be/TRZAJY23xio?feature=shared&t=2346 https://youtu.be/TRZAJY23xio?feature=shared&t=2346 I don't agree with a lot of what Steve stood for, but he was right about this dynamic range observation. Cheers =)
- eropple 3y ago
  I don't think that's true at all. I think most "CS majors" would need to study how to do those things, but none of them are conceptually difficult and build on the same algorithmic and data structures knowledge you learn for other tasks. I never built a compiler until I did. I never built an operating system until I did. (I don't remember when I started doing computer graphics, though, because that was a long time ago.)
  - Joel_Mckay 3y ago
    Sure, one could spend a semester learning to build a rudimentary compiler, or watch your prof build a better solution in under 37 lines of Prolog. Wish I was joking here... =)
    - gleenn 3y ago
      Do you have a link to their project? Rich Hickey also always reiterates that Simple isn't Easy. Knowing exactly how something works means you can express it in as concise a way as possible.

hashtag-til 3y ago

I didn't now about "three romances of CS" terminology. #TIL

dartos 3y ago

I don’t think anyone who would/could get into low level computer graphics wouldn’t be able to do so in LLM optimization land. The only barrier to both areas is just the amount of math and gpu knowledge

molticrystal 3y ago

I don't think they are denying being able to do any of those things, it just often won't be in the same league. You aren't going to be producing linux, llvm, or unreal, but instead very specific projects which may be remarkable or just a toy, templeos, tinyc, 64k demos. Not ChatGPT, but maybe autocomplete or an inferior llm using the same methods. For the hardware example they gave, while 3nm might be inaccessible, you can fabricate at 180nm, 130nm and 90nm process nodes [0] [1]. Even chemistry and nuclear science isn't beyond the home tinkerers grasp, but as complexity rises, the ability to acquire, control and synthesize diminishes rapidly. [0] https://developers.google.com/silicon https://developers.google.com/silicon [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Silicon_Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Silicon_Initiative