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Networking and the Internet, from First Principles
- matt_daemon 3mo agoIt’s become somewhat of a HN “flex” to call something out as AI slop, and it almost always comes across as preachy and just plain wrong
- blooalien 3mo ago> and it almost always comes across as preachy and just plain wrong This is the half of that sentence that gets you an upvote from me. I'm not as sure about the first part of your comment though, because it's really only a certain subset of users here doin' it. Most of the rest of us don't really seem to care nearly as much about such petty things as hunting down users of "AI" to publicly shame them for it as that small group does. Now actual "slop" (often obvious) is maybe a bit more universally hated here (and elsewhere, I'm sure), but that's a whole different phenomenon from the AI "witch hunters".
- wojciii 3mo agoI hate everything that uses ".. from first principles" with a passion. Almost as much as "technically true".
- blooalien 3mo agoMy own personal "pet peeve" cliche phrase is anything that is "literally" (except it's really figurative) something. So many people for so very long have used "literally" to mean the literal opposite of it's actual meaning. Even when they don't use it to mean it's actual opposite meaning, they'll still often use "literal" to describe a thing that is in no way actually literal. It just "grinds my gears" to hear it.
- giardini 3mo agoblooalien says "My own personal "pet peeve" cliche phrase is anything that is "literally" (except it's really figurative) something. So many people for so very long have used "literally" to mean the literal opposite of it's actual meaning. " That is called "illiteracy". Unfortunately it can be eliminated only by the tedious but necessary process of someone literate (you) politely instructing the illiterate about the proper use of each misused word, e.g., "literally". Takes time, human speed, worthwhile.
- 5701652400 3mo ago+1 usually a sign of midwit and mediocrity. not once I seen "first principles" blogs have any value.
- wojciii 3mo agoI skimmed the article after I realized that I was being negative. It has some nice explanations so my comment wasn't about the content but just about the wording of the title. :D
- pennomi 3mo agoWhich is really sad, because actually working from first principles is a valid methodology to build efficient products that bypass layers of unnecessary abstraction. The term itself seems to have lost its real meaning however.
- 5701652400 3mo agoon the other hand, you start distinguishing the pipe from the image of a "the pipe".
- NoboruWataya 3mo agoTo me it just suggests that the blog is going to explore the topic at a low level, ie, discuss the transmission of bits of data via cables or radio waves, rather than discussing HTTP or TLS or whatever. Which in general is something I find quite interesting. (I haven't read this article yet so don't know if it's actually good, and the other comments don't give me much hope.)
- faza 3mo agoHi, author here. I did explain all the fundamentals without leaving any gaps. Please do give it a read and I hope you like it.
- NikxDa 3mo ago[flagged]
- faza 3mo agoHi, author here. I have put a considerable amount of effort in explaining the ideas as clearly as possible, and I used Claude only for helping me with the animations. My aim is just to explain the concept. I'm mainly a backend engineer, i'll take your feedback and put more effort on the design and presentation.
- WhrRTheBaboons 3mo agoi hope this was vibe coded, because I'd hate to think that tiny dark-gray text on a black background was a conscious choice
- sixtyj 3mo agoIt seems that author didn’t check vibe coded result. Mobile version has tiny text even even smaller… :) At HN, there should be some tag explaining the project is vibe coded.
- faza 3mo agoHi, author here. Sorry for the bad experience. I'll put more effort on the design and reading experience
- sixtyj 3mo agoIssue is LLM itself. For design and typography it needs precise instructions otherwise you get output that it is information-heavy but churn rate is high as ppl can’t use (read) it. I have to control output everytime but after 25 years in magazine layout I know what has to be controlled. Tailwindcss has typography plugin named prose. And shadcn/ui recently published typeset package as well. Emilkowalski/skills is good too. Just add something more specific into prompt and the result will be much better. Cheers.
- faza 3mo agoHi, thanks a lot for your suggestions. Design is one area where i would like to improve.
- zerobees 3mo agoThe text is also pretty clearly AI-generated. I guess there's now a market for "I asked an LLM so that you don't have to", but the funny thing is that it's such a wall of text that no one upvoting it will have actually read it. So it's vibe-writing, vibe-coding, and vibe-reading. Full end-to-end synergy.
- ronn00 3mo ago[flagged]
- seobot_dk1289 3mo ago[flagged]
- leoc 3mo agoThe very first substantial order for the Digital PDP-1 was for use in ITT’s torn-tape messaging operation! https://www.eejournal.com/article/gordon-bell-1934-2024-grandmaster-of-computer-architecture-wizard-of-vax-inventor-of-the-uart-founder-of-the-computer-history-museum/ https://www.eejournal.com/article/gordon-bell-1934-2024-gran...
- faza 3mo agoThanks for sharing. I hadn't read about this.
- Fraterkes 3mo agoThere's 2 [dead] fairly anodyne comments here. Are they bots? And if so, how can people tell?
- Douwekramer 3mo agoI have a feeling that on HN in general most if not all of the blog posts are mostly AI, and quite a bunch of comments as well. But that has always been an element of anon internet usage :-)
- fridayblunt 3mo ago[flagged]
- mercutio2 3mo agoWow. The reactions here. So negative! I skimmed various sections. I found the animations pleasant, the text readable, and the content clearly not slop. The historical context of the telegraph was interesting, and the treatment of bandwidth vs. latency was thoughtful. I think it’s too long; I don’t think many people who don’t already know most of this material will read it, but I enjoyed the parts I read. Nice work!
- faza 3mo agoThanks. I am glad you liked it. I just wanted to help everyone understand the concepts in detail. I felt the existing materials were either way too textbook like or very high level. This is just my attempt at explaining things in a more interesting way.
- mekoka 3mo agoBeing dismissive is one way to think yourself "better" than others. But on HN hastier reactions tend to be outright negative or out of context with long articles, as eyeballs actually evaluating the content will take some time before providing constructive criticism.
- sarchertech 3mo agoI started something similar in 2021 while on paternity leave with my first kid. I got about half way through, then I had 2 more kids. Then AI happened, and I started questioning the whether there was too much slop out there to bother writing a book. I’ll still probably finish it when the new baby is a little older. https://www.networksfromscratch.com/ https://www.networksfromscratch.com/
- sudb 3mo agoI found this article very well written, as a comparison https://explained-from-first-principles.com/internet/ https://explained-from-first-principles.com/internet/
- jdw64 3mo agoI don't understand. Even if this post is long and has some repetitive parts, isn't it still written by a human? There are way too many comments acting like everything is bad just because one animation widget was made with AI. I actually like this post. It looks good, the explanations are clear, and the AI-generated animation widget actually helps me understand things. What's the problem exactly? Is using AI for visualization considered a bad practice?
- blooalien 3mo ago> What's the problem exactly? Is using AI for visualization considered a bad practice? Some people just assume that anything "AI" has touched is automatically "slop" because ... AI! Probably at least partly due to how much actual "AI slop" is out there produced by people "holding the tool wrong". When used judiciously and properly, some of these language models can really be a useful tool and help create some quality stuff, but they're no substitute for a knowledgable human using the tool correctly to achieve the desired result (which is why so many people who misuse it to do all their thinking and work for them (without doing any of their part) inevitably produce the typical "slop" result).
- gib444 3mo agoYes, when someone takes advice from a tool with a proven reputation of outputting lies and embellishments, with zero fact checking of its training data, and encourages people to use it almost no matter what, the sane and rational thing is to assume it is slop.
- jdw64 3mo agoAren't you just treating people like they're too stupid? You can't catch every hallucination from AI, but there are still things you can spot. I'm a programmer too—I can tell the difference to some extent. Honestly, I think formalism is strange. People also exaggerate and spread false information. Even famous programmers on Hacker News sometimes give incorrect programming advice. In the end, there's always some amount of misinformation in any source. You read it while cross-checking with your own knowledge. Saying that all of it is useless is just an emotional response. Is 'rational' really about insulting others? Reason seems pretty cheap these days. Then I'll just be an emotional person
- Vivek-KY 3mo agoso well written ,appreciate it
- faza 3mo agoThanks. Glad it was useful.
- nikeshsundar 3mo agosuper
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- rkoten 3mo agoVery well written and presented, thank you! Reminds me of Bartosz Ciechanowski's works: https://ciechanow.ski https://ciechanow.ski If I may ask, what stack do you use for the inline interactive elements and would you choose anything different after having done it this way?
- faza 3mo agoThanks. Glad you liked it. I had no plans for inline interactive elements when I started out. It was just a plain static site using Astro, with my content in markdown files. When I thought of including interactive elements, I saw that Astro supported MDX, which lets you embed custom JavaScript components. At the start I was just using plain JavaScript, SVG, and CSS transitions to do the animations, but as the simulations became more complex, I started using React to manage state better.
- nicpottier 3mo agoWeird comments on this. I found the writing to be excellent. The animations are a bit small and associated text even smaller on mobile but this doesn't read as AI slop to me at all. Anything that makes technology more accessible and understandable is a win in my book so kudos for doing it.
- faza 3mo agoThanks, glad you liked it. I have deployed few fixes in the mobile view. Added a horizontal scroll for simulations without reducing the size
- mlhpdx 3mo agoI know the guidelines make this a faux pas but I’m just here to say that was a great read. Very informative, well structured and compelling story of how we have networks and how they work. To those saying it’s the work of an LLM: if it is I don’t care. It’s good.
- itsamario 3mo agoThat first animation should include the servers hosting the messaging platform. Or use a peer to peer application for that example.
- faza 3mo agoIt does include the app's data center
- TacticalCoder 3mo ago> To those saying it’s the work of an LLM: if it is I don’t care. It’s good. It hit me when I woke up and I made a (human) haiku (well, sorta) about it: "We already had Klingon and Elvish. Now we have LLMish."
- vivzkestrel 3mo ago- added to my list of stier blogs - for a blog to qualify as stier, it must animations and visualizations to explain the idea in a way that even a 5 yr old can understand - a tier is information heavy like authentic guides from betterstack - everything else goes below b tier - one day i ll share my list of 10000 blogs on hackernews, it ll blow the people s mind as i have been doing this for a while now
- Denzel 3mo agoWriting out my nod of appreciation to counterbalance some of the negativity. I do enjoy the effort and thought you into this essay. I didn’t read the whole thing, just a few sections from the beginning, and I think you do a great job explaining how these concepts evolved from simple beginnings. You’ve condensed down a lot of concepts I learned through research and trial-and-error over my career as a SWE. Thank you for sharing Faza. Please continue putting in the effort and sharing these essays!
- faza 3mo agoThanks. Glad you liked it. That was my intention with these articles. To explain how most of the things which we take for granted evolved. Even I was able to learn so many new things and find gaps in my own understanding while writing it. I am only doing it because I felt other content on these concepts either just focused on the technicals completely or dumbed down the concepts too much so everyone could follow easily. This is just my attempt at explaining things in detail without making it hard to follow. Initially I had no plans of using any simulations, i was just thinking explaining things with just my writing and some diagrams, but I saw how I can explain things much better with a simulation.
- Fraterkes 3mo agoI think it's perfectly possible that substance-wise this article was entirely written by the author, but comparing the style of the article to the style of the author's comments, I'm personally pretty sure the text has been significantly edited (cleaned up if you like) by ai. Is that bad? Maybe not! But it's unfair to tar the people here pointing it out as paranoid.
- dtj1123 3mo agoActivating aeroplane mode after loading the page prevents any animations that weren't in view beforehand from playing... Weird
- faza 3mo agoHi, author here. Thanks for reporting this. Simulations were only downloaded when it scrolled into view. I deployed the change to download all simulations on page load and only play them when it scrolled into view.
- dtj1123 3mo agoThanks, my next short-haul flight will be considerably improved
- smalltorch 3mo agoNot sure what all the hate is about. Very informative, interesting, and enjoyable to read and learn.
- faza 3mo agoThanks. Glad you liked it. This was my intention. Just trying my best to explain things I understand in a very clear and interesting way.