9rx

22 ms·

511.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> 1. avoids confusion, no matter how unlikely it is in a context like HN Who would be confused by "Go", but not "Rust" and "Zig", which are also common English words not usually associated with programming
512.
by 9rx 9mo ago
~13% of the UK population, and growing, lives in London. Why would an unaffordable place be home to such a large portion of the population? It wouldn't. These cities become large — and continue to grow — because they are most affordabl
513.
by 9rx 9mo ago
Maybe in the simplest case. But compilers themselves often aren't even deterministic! Compiling the same code twice can produce different results depending on things like which thread finished first, how maps are initialized and iterat
514.
by 9rx 9mo ago
The good news is that, generally, the places most affordable are the places that have public transportation. Affordability is gained through density (not only in direct housing concerns, but also things like access to jobs), and density is
515.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> That's not non-determinism, is it? In the context of discussion, yes, as the only input is considered to be the source code. It is both non-deterministic in compiler output and in program function (two different builds of the sa
516.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> Like what fictional compilers when you run them on source code produce a program that may or may not run, may or may not produce desired result etc.? Oh, you are talking about program determinism. I don't know about fictional co
517.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> In which world are these compilers producing non-deterministic output if you run them again and again? The one where deterministic iteration order (think use of unordered maps/sets, parallel execution, etc.) isn't considere
518.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> It is generally considered a bug in a compiler if its output is nondeterministic. Reproducible builds are oft considered a desirable goal, but not having them is hardly a bug. Not even some of the most well known compilers out there,
519.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> no one makes their compilers deterministic Go (gc) was designed for reproducible builds by default, so clearly that's not true, but you are right that it isn't the norm. Even the most widely recognized and used compilers, l
520.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> I don't buy that engineering is not also a bottleneck. Depends. It definitely can be. When you get those people who want to spend weeks going back and forth over whether the button should be red or slightly darker red, as if the
521.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> If you ask the compiler to compile the same input, it will produce the same output. As with LLMs, unless you ask for the output to be nondeterministic. But any compiler can be made nondeterministic if you ask for it. That's not
522.
by 9rx 9mo ago
There is still some room for improvement where trying to introduce LLMs into chaotic codebases and whatnot. LLMs continue to struggle there. Although so do humans, to be fair. Chaos is plain hard. However, in a lot of cases AI is already as
523.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> However if you ask the same question in the same session, output will be different. When isn't that true? int main() { printf("Continue?\n"); } and int main() { printf("Continue?
524.
by 9rx 9mo ago
I find that I spend less time reading, writing, and debugging code. That much is true. But it has been replaced with context switch recovery time. Its like having a coworker who nags you every few minutes. I see no apparent increase in outp
525.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> make working with a test suite much more joyful than struggling with each assertion by hand There is a time and place for golden tests, but this reads more like a case for property-based testing.
526.
by 9rx 9mo ago
Since when has writing tests not been a joyful experience? I do see a lot of useless tests out in the wild. I can see writing those not bringing any joy. That is true of any useless activity. Is that what we're thinking of here?
527.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> LLMs are not deterministic They are designed to be where temperature=0. Some hardware configurations are known defy that assumption, but when running on perfect hardware they most definitely are. What you call compilers are also nond
528.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> I spent a good part of my career (nearly a decade) at Google working on getting Clang to build the linux kernel. How much of that time was spent writing the tests that they found to use in this experiment? You (or someone like you) w
529.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> The problem - and I do mean the problem, the only problem - is the threat this poses to power dynamics in the organization. And expertise, to be fair. Documentation as code is what we in the software industry call testing/type s
530.
by 9rx 9mo ago
It is obvious if viewed through an Apple lens. It wouldn't be so obvious if viewed through a Google lens. Google doesn't hesitate to throw whatever its got out there to see what sticks; quickly cancelling anything that doesn'
531.
by 9rx 9mo ago
Been using it for several years. What is going to change in six months?
532.
by 9rx 9mo ago
If it were simply an option between nuclear or gas for that, nuclear would, generally, be the obvious choice. But it would be quite atypical to build a gas plant to provide base power. Typically they are being built to back up renewables. F
533.
by 9rx 9mo ago
I've never felt more mental exhaustion than after a LLM coding session. I assume that is a result of it requiring me to think harder too.
534.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> Please stop this rust clickbait nonsense. But then new content on HN would decline to nearly nothing.
535.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> nuclear is far cheaper over its lifecycle than that That is the case for base load generation, where the plant can operate near 100% capacity all the time. But that isn't were gas is usually being deployed; it being used for res
536.
by 9rx 9mo ago
You still seem to be thinking about code in the traditional sense. A lot of the software I am using now in my non-tech business isn't rooted in code at all. It is simply asking an LLM to carry out a task. Still programming, of course,
537.
by 9rx 9mo ago
Foundational software requires that, but the foundation is pretty much completely built at this point. The workforce required to keep it running is but a tiny fraction of what was required to build it. The past has shown that innovation in
538.
by 9rx 9mo ago
Also easy. The only hard thing found around software is the people.
539.
by 9rx 9mo ago
Considerate people will be considerate at any time of the day, but there are a lot more checks and balances to keep the inconsiderate at bay at night (e.g. noise bylaws). They soon learn that they have to become considerate. Conversely, any
540.
by 9rx 9mo ago
> you’re suggesting is that you’ll let your home builder run over time and over budget. If you thought your home builder was going to run over time and budget, you wouldn't hire him in the first place. Those who can't find th

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