6 ms·
The change makes me question the authenticity of the text. I mean, did the author actually read files from top to bottom, or did he just write that because it s
by thimabi 2y ago
The change makes me question the authenticity of the text. I mean, did the author actually read files from top to bottom, or did he just write that because it suited his narrative?
That’s a trivial change to make for a line that did not receive the feedback that the author wanted. If that’s the case, maybe the text was more about saying what people wanted to hear than honestly portraying how to make AI read code better.
- namanyayg 2y agoI forced an analogy and took the metaphor too far. I promise you'll see better from me in the future!
- autobodie 2y agoMetaphor? What metaphor? What analogy?
- tmpz22 2y ago> Remember your first day reading production code? You probably did what I did - start at line 1, read every file top to bottom, get lost in the details. Top to bottom left to right is how we read text (unless you are using Arabic or Hebrew!), the analogy was fine IMO. Don’t let one HN comment shake your confidence, while people here may be well intentioned they are not always right.
- namanyayg 2y agoHaha thank you for the kind words! I've been a lurker on HN ever since I was a kid. I've seen over and over how HN is the most brusque & brutal online community. But that's also why I love it. Taking every piece of feedback here to learn and improve in the future, and feeling grateful for the thousands of views my article is receiving!
- edanm 2y agoHebrew speakers also read top to bottom and left to right, when they're reading code, because coding is (almost always) in English languages. :)
- lolinder 2y agoDon't take this feedback too personally—remember that most HN users read and don't vote or comment, a subset of them read and vote, and only a tiny loud fraction of us actually comment. Your article has been very well received, and it wasn't because that one line deceived people into paying attention, it's because the content is good.
- iaseiadit 2y agoWhen I started out, I did read code top-to-bottom. I was mostly self-taught and didn't have a mental model yet of how code was structured, so I relied on this "brute force" method to familiarize myself. I suppose it's not safe to assume that everyone started out like this. But advael is guilty of assuming that nobody started out like this. And on top of that, conveying it in a very negative and critical way. Don't get discouraged.
- Jtsummers 2y agoThis discussion is about junior professionals, not zero experience programmers. If a junior professional programmer is still starting at the top of files instead of at the entry points to the program or the points of interest, then they had a very poor education.
- brundolf 2y agoWow, people are being very uncharitable in this comment section
- apstls 2y agoWelcome to LLM-related threads on HN.