3 ms·

> The issue with this is that we don't know how it works. Generally speaking, we know how the level of abstraction that we were born with works. What? Definite

by 101008 3mo ago

> The issue with this is that we don't know how it works. Generally speaking, we know how the level of abstraction that we were born with works. What? Definitely not. I went to university and my first two years were subjects where I had to understand really deep levels of abstractions. I had to build logic gates, I had to work with hardware, wires, etc. I didnt see the point back then (I never used any of that professionally). The same about algorithms, databases, and a lot of things. But now I find it valuable and thankful that my professors (and whoever designed the career) considered important topics that I had to lear.

hatefulheart 3mo ago
Exactly. Please get used to this sort of depressive, absurd and out of touch tone from HNers, it’s literally all they do now. Don’t bother calling people here hackers anymore, they have checked out emotionally and spiritually.
- esikich 3mo ago
  What's absurd is thinking because you took a logic class and made a flip flop 30 years ago that that is the ground floor and that it means you "understand how it all works". You're not building a CPU from logic gates and you don't know how it works. If I put you or OP in a room for a year I highly doubt you could build an 8 bit Atari-like CPU from scratch. I worked with wires and logic too but I'm not arrogant enough to say that I know how it all works.
  - hatefulheart 3mo ago
    This is a very cringe take. Me and OP aren’t super heroes, we can’t do what a team of talented individuals created even if that team existed many moons ago. That isn’t the point. We both questioned the tone and the conclusion of the comment.
  - vladms 3mo ago
    Don't you think there is a difference from "knowing how it works" and "reproducing every aspect of it at the level of the state of the art" ? Also, your example seems flawed if you restrict to a certain product. Can I build a compiler from scratch? Yes. Can I reproduce in a year a compiler with LLVM/GCC performance level? No. Can I build a compiler from scratch in a year from a room if I need to starting mining from metals, building transistors, then building the first assembler and then implementing the compiler? You can imagine the answer.
    - esikich 3mo ago
      Not really, at least not in this discussion. An assembly programmer gets logic gates, a C programmer gets assembly, etc etc. And each one can say to the one above "well you don't really get it if you can't bang out some meaningful work". Otherwise idk what we're even talking about here. Having a vague understanding of something isn't "knowing how it works".
      - lelanthran 3mo ago
        Yeah, but if we use your criteria, people have to invent their own atoms out of individual electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks, etc before you'd admit that "hey, they did build a compiler from scratch". I think a fair bar for "from scratch" is stopping at the point they need an expensive fab process (or how else will they reproduce the workings of semiconductors?)
      - hparadiz 3mo ago
        Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software https://www.amazon.com/dp/0137909101 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0137909101 Explains how to build an 8 bit calculator with wires, switches, and light bulbs and then keeps on going.
  - hirvi74 3mo ago
    That was one the major criticism I have of my CS degree's program. Perhaps the knowledge I wish for is not truly CS in the mathematical/theoretical perspective, but I believe it would have been absolutely valuable to learn.
  - lelanthran 3mo ago
    > If I put you or OP in a room for a year I highly doubt you could build an 8 bit Atari-like CPU from scratch. I believe I can, depending on what "from scratch" means. With nothing but transistors, resistors, inductors, coils, capacitors, I can probably do apretty poor general-purpose CPU. Maybe something like a stack-based ISA or, if I had more time, an accumulator-based processor like a 6502, but with an 8-bit bus. If you're going to ask me to create transistors themselves, well I believe that needs specialised equipment.
  - ThrowawayR2 3mo ago
    The parent post's argument can be boiled down to "You don't know absolutely everything therefore it's fine to know little or nothing." It's the Chewbacca defense of AI boosterism.
- bix6 3mo ago
  Name checks out
- apsurd 3mo ago
  come on now. so even if you're right, checking out emotionally and spiritually just means more life lived. That ain't some kind of bad thing. life is good sometimes. hard sometimes. and it's long sometimes, so give people a break.
  - xpct 3mo ago
    > checking out emotionally and spiritually just means more life lived What exactly about checking out makes it 'more living'? I sense a false dichotomy here
    - apsurd 3mo ago
      easy: we all need breaks. breaks are not bad. living doesn't only mean "doing actions"
      - xpct 3mo ago
        I don't think OP argued for any type of relentless work.
8note 3mo ago
how did you make the transistors? made your own vacuum chambers? i had to make logic gates and so on, but i wouldnt say i really learnt it, even if back in highschool i learned all the different things a 555 timer can do
- OkayPhysicist 3mo ago
  We had a photolithography lab when I was at school. It's not that complicated to make a few npn transistors. The difficult part is doing it well.
saulpw 3mo ago
You started with logic gates. How much EE did you do, or the actual physics that makes the transistor possible? Those are the previous (deeper) levels that people had to know before they got abstracted away.
- jjk7 3mo ago
  Yes, they taught that too.
- vladms 3mo ago
  I have similar experience with the poster, and the way I read it is, "from the things I build here are some examples". I did learn about advanced physics topics that enable transistors, and even did some experiments, but for fundamental stuff you "don't build stuff". Did I do all physics or all electronic circuit design or all software stacks? Definitely not. But I spent 3 years learning (and building) about lots of stuff.
- VorpalWay 3mo ago
  When I took software focused computer engineering around 2010, we still had courses that took us all the way down to transistors and even the physics of P and N junctions and how that applies to CMOS. (And even some basic analog electronics.) Did I end up an expert at those layers? Of course not, but I know the basics and I know enough that if I need to I know where to start learning more. Just like I wasn't a C++ or hard realtime expert after university either, but now a decade and a half later I am pretty good at those (and a bunch of other skills that ended up relevant to my line of work). Basically, none of the layers are "magic" to me. Even if I don't know the details of it, I know the general principle and I know I could learn more if I need it. (I think you naturally end up an expert at the layer(s) you work in, and the knowledge tapers off as you go down (or up) the stack. For example, I know a fair bit about how the CPU works (cache coherency, pipeline stalls etc), I can passably read x86 assembly, etc. Because they affect the layer I work at (hard realtime systems C++ and now also Rust). I know far less about web dev than hardware.)
  - rapidaneurism 3mo ago
everyone 3mo ago
Yes, thats exactly what uni is for.. To learn all those previous centuries of stuff before you can either start contributing to the corpus yourself, or go get a job (Where you will pick up more immediately useful stuff) We really dont understand how AI is working, even the earliest "genetic algorithms" could be incomprehensible, but computer systems in general, they're not really that complicated.. its like an audio mixing desk..it looks insanely complicated until you realise it's just the same few knobs repeated many times for many channels. High level languages, compilers, assembly, machine code, nand, mosfets. A single person really can understand it all.

by 101008 3mo ago

hatefulheart 3mo ago

Exactly. Please get used to this sort of depressive, absurd and out of touch tone from HNers, it’s literally all they do now. Don’t bother calling people here hackers anymore, they have checked out emotionally and spiritually.

esikich 3mo ago
What's absurd is thinking because you took a logic class and made a flip flop 30 years ago that that is the ground floor and that it means you "understand how it all works". You're not building a CPU from logic gates and you don't know how it works. If I put you or OP in a room for a year I highly doubt you could build an 8 bit Atari-like CPU from scratch. I worked with wires and logic too but I'm not arrogant enough to say that I know how it all works.
- hatefulheart 3mo ago
  This is a very cringe take. Me and OP aren’t super heroes, we can’t do what a team of talented individuals created even if that team existed many moons ago. That isn’t the point. We both questioned the tone and the conclusion of the comment.
- vladms 3mo ago
  Don't you think there is a difference from "knowing how it works" and "reproducing every aspect of it at the level of the state of the art" ? Also, your example seems flawed if you restrict to a certain product. Can I build a compiler from scratch? Yes. Can I reproduce in a year a compiler with LLVM/GCC performance level? No. Can I build a compiler from scratch in a year from a room if I need to starting mining from metals, building transistors, then building the first assembler and then implementing the compiler? You can imagine the answer.
  - esikich 3mo ago
    Not really, at least not in this discussion. An assembly programmer gets logic gates, a C programmer gets assembly, etc etc. And each one can say to the one above "well you don't really get it if you can't bang out some meaningful work". Otherwise idk what we're even talking about here. Having a vague understanding of something isn't "knowing how it works".
    - lelanthran 3mo ago
      Yeah, but if we use your criteria, people have to invent their own atoms out of individual electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks, etc before you'd admit that "hey, they did build a compiler from scratch". I think a fair bar for "from scratch" is stopping at the point they need an expensive fab process (or how else will they reproduce the workings of semiconductors?)
    - hparadiz 3mo ago
      Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software https://www.amazon.com/dp/0137909101 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0137909101 Explains how to build an 8 bit calculator with wires, switches, and light bulbs and then keeps on going.
- hirvi74 3mo ago
  That was one the major criticism I have of my CS degree's program. Perhaps the knowledge I wish for is not truly CS in the mathematical/theoretical perspective, but I believe it would have been absolutely valuable to learn.
- lelanthran 3mo ago
  > If I put you or OP in a room for a year I highly doubt you could build an 8 bit Atari-like CPU from scratch. I believe I can, depending on what "from scratch" means. With nothing but transistors, resistors, inductors, coils, capacitors, I can probably do apretty poor general-purpose CPU. Maybe something like a stack-based ISA or, if I had more time, an accumulator-based processor like a 6502, but with an 8-bit bus. If you're going to ask me to create transistors themselves, well I believe that needs specialised equipment.
- ThrowawayR2 3mo ago
  The parent post's argument can be boiled down to "You don't know absolutely everything therefore it's fine to know little or nothing." It's the Chewbacca defense of AI boosterism.
bix6 3mo ago
Name checks out
apsurd 3mo ago
come on now. so even if you're right, checking out emotionally and spiritually just means more life lived. That ain't some kind of bad thing. life is good sometimes. hard sometimes. and it's long sometimes, so give people a break.
- xpct 3mo ago
  > checking out emotionally and spiritually just means more life lived What exactly about checking out makes it 'more living'? I sense a false dichotomy here
  - apsurd 3mo ago
    easy: we all need breaks. breaks are not bad. living doesn't only mean "doing actions"
    - xpct 3mo ago
      I don't think OP argued for any type of relentless work.

8note 3mo ago

how did you make the transistors? made your own vacuum chambers? i had to make logic gates and so on, but i wouldnt say i really learnt it, even if back in highschool i learned all the different things a 555 timer can do

OkayPhysicist 3mo ago
We had a photolithography lab when I was at school. It's not that complicated to make a few npn transistors. The difficult part is doing it well.

saulpw 3mo ago

You started with logic gates. How much EE did you do, or the actual physics that makes the transistor possible? Those are the previous (deeper) levels that people had to know before they got abstracted away.

jjk7 3mo ago
Yes, they taught that too.
vladms 3mo ago
I have similar experience with the poster, and the way I read it is, "from the things I build here are some examples". I did learn about advanced physics topics that enable transistors, and even did some experiments, but for fundamental stuff you "don't build stuff". Did I do all physics or all electronic circuit design or all software stacks? Definitely not. But I spent 3 years learning (and building) about lots of stuff.
VorpalWay 3mo ago
When I took software focused computer engineering around 2010, we still had courses that took us all the way down to transistors and even the physics of P and N junctions and how that applies to CMOS. (And even some basic analog electronics.) Did I end up an expert at those layers? Of course not, but I know the basics and I know enough that if I need to I know where to start learning more. Just like I wasn't a C++ or hard realtime expert after university either, but now a decade and a half later I am pretty good at those (and a bunch of other skills that ended up relevant to my line of work). Basically, none of the layers are "magic" to me. Even if I don't know the details of it, I know the general principle and I know I could learn more if I need it. (I think you naturally end up an expert at the layer(s) you work in, and the knowledge tapers off as you go down (or up) the stack. For example, I know a fair bit about how the CPU works (cache coherency, pipeline stalls etc), I can passably read x86 assembly, etc. Because they affect the layer I work at (hard realtime systems C++ and now also Rust). I know far less about web dev than hardware.)
- rapidaneurism 3mo ago

everyone 3mo ago

Yes, thats exactly what uni is for.. To learn all those previous centuries of stuff before you can either start contributing to the corpus yourself, or go get a job (Where you will pick up more immediately useful stuff) We really dont understand how AI is working, even the earliest "genetic algorithms" could be incomprehensible, but computer systems in general, they're not really that complicated.. its like an audio mixing desk..it looks insanely complicated until you realise it's just the same few knobs repeated many times for many channels. High level languages, compilers, assembly, machine code, nand, mosfets. A single person really can understand it all.