4 ms·

People _really_ don't want there to be success stories for llms and they will go through all lengths to discredit and disparage folks successfully exploring the

People _really_ don't want there to be success stories for llms and they will go through all lengths to discredit and disparage folks successfully exploring the space.

dafelst 1mo ago
It is yet to be determined whether or not the bun rewrite is a success, though.
- hdjrudni 1mo ago
  Right. So let's hold our horses and wait for the release before disparaging anyone. I do have to agree with the author about Jarred's false claims about release dates though. Really not sure why he keeps doing that.
- vga1 1mo ago
  What are the standards for determining that? The most obvious benefit Rust can give them is being safe from memory leaks. This is hardly controversial: it has been a Zig design choice that memory leaks are the developer/user's responsibility. They have already demonstrated to have fixed several of those [0]. Marketing-wise, it has been an obvious success. Dunno if that matters. [0] https://bun.com/blog/bun-in-rust https://bun.com/blog/bun-in-rust
  - rcxdude 1mo ago
    Rust also doesn't prevent memory leaks: you can create memory leaks through reference cycles just fine in rust.
    - vga1 1mo ago
      Who cares?
      - zbentley 1mo ago
        People who don’t want to run out of memory?
        vga1 1mo ago
        Are the Rust programmers who suffered from memory leaks through reference cycles in the room with you right now?
        zbentley 1mo ago
        Yes? I’ve made that mistake, it’s not particularly hard to do. Stash an Arc in something that lives too long, or forget to clear its inner data structure when you should, and you have a leak. That’s not like … a design flaw or something, just a common class of error Rust can’t save you from.
  - owebmaster 1mo ago
    > Marketing-wise, it has been an obvious success. Dunno if that matters. What's interesting tho it's that it can go from apparent marketing success to a big failure as the release keeps getting postponed.
    - vga1 1mo ago
      Seems like they just released 1.4 though.
      - owebmaster 1mo ago
        Great! It's finally Monday.
  - andsoitis 1mo ago
    > What are the standards for determining that? Seems pretty simple to me: if the software works, the port has been successful. If this is unsatisfactory, another way to think about the question is to ask "what would make you conclude it has failed?" That requires a sharp choice.
ofjcihen 1mo ago
Watch this: People _really_ want there to be success stories for llms and they will go through all lengths to discredit and disparage folks questioning the space.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
- preg_match 1mo ago
  Both of these are true. I recall Anthropic's lofty claims about their C compiler. It just did not work, and they claimed all of this and that. It was clear they were driven to believe that agents alone could write a C compiler, and refused to believe they couldn't. Not that I think that AI couldn't write a C compiler. It definitely can... with a human at the helm and sufficient time. But, for people who don't like AI, they also refuse to believe that AI could be good at any particular workflow. Which is just obviously not true, there are workflows that AI is really good at. Language re-writes are one of them. They're almost mechanical in nature and trivial to check via tests. So, the perfect use-case for an LLM. I'm not saying the Bun re-write is any good, but the underlying concept is sound. If ever there was a tool to do a language re-write, it would be a high quality LLM.
bmitc 1mo ago
It isn't LLMs in general, from what I can tell. It was how this port was done and communicated.
- cheikhcheikh 1mo ago
  It was communicated fine, can you be more specific ?
  - bmitc 1mo ago
    No, it wasn't. For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48019226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48019226
    - cheikhcheikh 1mo ago
      you really went digging with that 3 months old hn comment. What's wrong with that comment btw? Are you saying he was lying and they did in fact commit to the rewrite at that point?
      - bmitc 1mo ago
        I didn't dig. It was prominent at the time this occurred, because like I said, it wasn't communicated at all until they were already in the middle of it. And yes, I think he was not genuine there and that they had indeed fully committed to the rewrite prior to that point and comment. If you're not aware of any of this, how are you arguing it was communicated clearly?
itemize123 1mo ago
but, importantly, it is not the main reason why people are skeptical of bun rewrite right

People _really_ don't want there to be success stories for llms and they will go through all lengths to discredit and disparage folks successfully exploring the space.

dafelst 1mo ago

It is yet to be determined whether or not the bun rewrite is a success, though.

hdjrudni 1mo ago
Right. So let's hold our horses and wait for the release before disparaging anyone. I do have to agree with the author about Jarred's false claims about release dates though. Really not sure why he keeps doing that.
vga1 1mo ago
What are the standards for determining that? The most obvious benefit Rust can give them is being safe from memory leaks. This is hardly controversial: it has been a Zig design choice that memory leaks are the developer/user's responsibility. They have already demonstrated to have fixed several of those [0]. Marketing-wise, it has been an obvious success. Dunno if that matters. [0] https://bun.com/blog/bun-in-rust https://bun.com/blog/bun-in-rust
- rcxdude 1mo ago
  Rust also doesn't prevent memory leaks: you can create memory leaks through reference cycles just fine in rust.
  - vga1 1mo ago
    Who cares?
    - zbentley 1mo ago
      People who don’t want to run out of memory?
      - vga1 1mo ago
        Are the Rust programmers who suffered from memory leaks through reference cycles in the room with you right now?
        zbentley 1mo ago
        Yes? I’ve made that mistake, it’s not particularly hard to do. Stash an Arc in something that lives too long, or forget to clear its inner data structure when you should, and you have a leak. That’s not like … a design flaw or something, just a common class of error Rust can’t save you from.
- owebmaster 1mo ago
  > Marketing-wise, it has been an obvious success. Dunno if that matters. What's interesting tho it's that it can go from apparent marketing success to a big failure as the release keeps getting postponed.
  - vga1 1mo ago
    Seems like they just released 1.4 though.
    - owebmaster 1mo ago
      Great! It's finally Monday.
- andsoitis 1mo ago
  > What are the standards for determining that? Seems pretty simple to me: if the software works, the port has been successful. If this is unsatisfactory, another way to think about the question is to ask "what would make you conclude it has failed?" That requires a sharp choice.

ofjcihen 1mo ago

Watch this: People _really_ want there to be success stories for llms and they will go through all lengths to discredit and disparage folks questioning the space.

deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
preg_match 1mo ago
Both of these are true. I recall Anthropic's lofty claims about their C compiler. It just did not work, and they claimed all of this and that. It was clear they were driven to believe that agents alone could write a C compiler, and refused to believe they couldn't. Not that I think that AI couldn't write a C compiler. It definitely can... with a human at the helm and sufficient time. But, for people who don't like AI, they also refuse to believe that AI could be good at any particular workflow. Which is just obviously not true, there are workflows that AI is really good at. Language re-writes are one of them. They're almost mechanical in nature and trivial to check via tests. So, the perfect use-case for an LLM. I'm not saying the Bun re-write is any good, but the underlying concept is sound. If ever there was a tool to do a language re-write, it would be a high quality LLM.

bmitc 1mo ago

It isn't LLMs in general, from what I can tell. It was how this port was done and communicated.

cheikhcheikh 1mo ago
It was communicated fine, can you be more specific ?
- bmitc 1mo ago
  No, it wasn't. For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48019226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48019226
  - cheikhcheikh 1mo ago
    you really went digging with that 3 months old hn comment. What's wrong with that comment btw? Are you saying he was lying and they did in fact commit to the rewrite at that point?
    - bmitc 1mo ago
      I didn't dig. It was prominent at the time this occurred, because like I said, it wasn't communicated at all until they were already in the middle of it. And yes, I think he was not genuine there and that they had indeed fully committed to the rewrite prior to that point and comment. If you're not aware of any of this, how are you arguing it was communicated clearly?

itemize123 1mo ago

but, importantly, it is not the main reason why people are skeptical of bun rewrite right