3 ms·

I do wish that when people write about optimization that they would then multiply by usage, or something similar. Another way is to show CPU usage over a fleet

I do wish that when people write about optimization that they would then multiply by usage, or something similar. Another way is to show CPU usage over a fleet of servers before and after. And then reshuffle the servers and use fewer and use the number of servers no longer needed as the metric. Number of servers have direct costs, as well as indirect costs, so you can even derive a dollar value. More so if you have a growth rate.

godelski 2y ago
> I do wish that when people write about optimization that they would then multiply by usage, or something similar. How? You can give specific examples and then people make the same complaints because it isn't relevant to their use case. It's fairly easy to extrapolate the numbers to specific cases. We are humans, and we can fucking generalize. I'll agree there isn't much to the article, but I find this ask a bit odd. Do you not have all the information to make that calculation yourself? They should have done that if they're addressing their manager, but it looks like a technical blog where I think it is fair to assume the reader is technical and can make these extrapolations themselves.
- sroussey 2y ago
  I hear you. However, I have one rule of writing: assume the reader is lazy. It is not that they are, but the assumption goes a long way in making content digestible. Also, I think knowing the combined effect is super interesting. For example, micro-benchmarks are fun to use and see improvements, but I also want to know the effect on the whole program.
  - godelski 2y ago
    I do wonder though if assuming the reader is lazy is the best. Especially in technical posts. I think there is a difficulty in balancing forcing the person to digest what you say and making it approachable (especially when you consider a noisy audience). It is a natural filter, is that good or bad? Guess depends. Agreed about the microbenchmarks and scale. Things don't always scale as expected. But I think there are a lot of variables here so it might be difficult to portray an accurate expected result. Though I can see this being worthwhile for anyone wanting to build RAGs or process lots of text into some embeddings. Also looks like the project is still under active development and started 6 months ago (single dev?) so I'm not sure we should expect to see too big of scale: https://github.com/bosun-ai/swiftide https://github.com/bosun-ai/swiftide So idk, that seems like exactly the kinda thing HN should be well suited for: new projects where people are hacking together useful frameworks. But idk, I guess if YC is funding companies who's business model is to fork an OSS then the bar might be lower than I think. But I thought we were supposed to be hackers (not necessarily crackers) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

godelski 2y ago

> I do wish that when people write about optimization that they would then multiply by usage, or something similar. How? You can give specific examples and then people make the same complaints because it isn't relevant to their use case. It's fairly easy to extrapolate the numbers to specific cases. We are humans, and we can fucking generalize. I'll agree there isn't much to the article, but I find this ask a bit odd. Do you not have all the information to make that calculation yourself? They should have done that if they're addressing their manager, but it looks like a technical blog where I think it is fair to assume the reader is technical and can make these extrapolations themselves.

sroussey 2y ago
I hear you. However, I have one rule of writing: assume the reader is lazy. It is not that they are, but the assumption goes a long way in making content digestible. Also, I think knowing the combined effect is super interesting. For example, micro-benchmarks are fun to use and see improvements, but I also want to know the effect on the whole program.
- godelski 2y ago
  I do wonder though if assuming the reader is lazy is the best. Especially in technical posts. I think there is a difficulty in balancing forcing the person to digest what you say and making it approachable (especially when you consider a noisy audience). It is a natural filter, is that good or bad? Guess depends. Agreed about the microbenchmarks and scale. Things don't always scale as expected. But I think there are a lot of variables here so it might be difficult to portray an accurate expected result. Though I can see this being worthwhile for anyone wanting to build RAGs or process lots of text into some embeddings. Also looks like the project is still under active development and started 6 months ago (single dev?) so I'm not sure we should expect to see too big of scale: https://github.com/bosun-ai/swiftide https://github.com/bosun-ai/swiftide So idk, that seems like exactly the kinda thing HN should be well suited for: new projects where people are hacking together useful frameworks. But idk, I guess if YC is funding companies who's business model is to fork an OSS then the bar might be lower than I think. But I thought we were supposed to be hackers (not necessarily crackers) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯