p-e-w

31 ms·

541.
by p-e-w 3y ago
We don't want perfect systems but useful ones. A perfect axiom system wouldn't have true but unprovable statements either, yet, as we learned a while ago, any such "perfect" system would be unable to express even basic a
542.
by p-e-w 3y ago
> If you are only using ready-made building blocks, there is a lot of great software you just cannot write. And I think we all see that, because there isn't much great software around. I claim that the opposite is true: The reason t
543.
by p-e-w 3y ago
I wish. As you can plainly see in this thread, most "real programmers" consider such things beneath them, and the scarcity of relevant resources is a natural consequence.
544.
by p-e-w 3y ago
Is it not? I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
545.
by p-e-w 3y ago
> Literally all of the listed projects, text editors, compilers, operating systems, and ray tracers, can exercise the exact same activities. In the linked article, these projects are all explicitly described as opportunities to learn abo
546.
by p-e-w 3y ago
> This is like telling a student learning an instrument never to practice scales or études No, it's like recognizing that an orchestra conductor doesn't need to play every instrument (or even any instrument!) in order to make
547.
by p-e-w 3y ago
> And I mean, creating a search engine is the ultimate "not invented here" project. I'd just pay for and use Google, Bing, or whatever else API to do things for me. So it doesn't even make sense in the context of your
548.
by p-e-w 3y ago
And the most challenging part is making a text editor that actually works well from a usability perspective. Which has almost nothing to do with data structures and optimization. I've used dozens of text editors. I have never once thou
549.
by p-e-w 3y ago
> Gluing a few libraries together is real software engineering but unless you're really invested in the outcome it's not that engaging and it's not that educational. That's only true if complex systems don't inte
550.
by p-e-w 3y ago
There are literally performance breakthroughs being made every few weeks (most recently, PowerInfer, which can speed up LLM inference by 10x or more) where the main improvement amounts to the application of caching/preloading technique
551.
by p-e-w 3y ago
Who do you think puts systems like a web search engine together? It's certainly not people who are lost in details like string matching or how ACID is implemented in distributed databases. Of course you need all these things in order f
552.
by p-e-w 3y ago
I strongly disagree. Software engineering is simply the next higher abstraction level above programming. Just like programming is the level of abstraction above writing machine code, and writing machine code is the level above hardware mani
553.
by p-e-w 3y ago
While writing a text editor, a compiler, an operating system, or a raytracer might make you a better programmer, it won't make you a better software engineer. In fact, it might make you worse at software engineering, because it embodie
554.
by p-e-w 3y ago
Because it directly influences the daily routines and opinions of 2.5 billion people, which is almost a third of the entire global population? The idea that the same rules should apply to such entities as to "any other business" i
555.
by p-e-w 3y ago
Reading that tweet makes me cringe. "It's ok to lose your job if you post a personal opinion in your personal time on your personal blog." That sounds like something a Soviet dissident might say into the cameras, while some s
556.
by p-e-w 3y ago
Like other vague, vogue philosophical concepts, the Hacker Ethic is many things to many people. To me, "every avenue of research must be pursued at any human cost, and ethics are at best an afterthought" has nothing to do with bei
557.
by p-e-w 3y ago
Never fails to amaze me how someone who grew up in the society that has emerged over the past 15 years or so can believe that they can just make controversial political statements without having their life ripped apart by an army of moral i
558.
by p-e-w 3y ago
> Our work has important societal and ethical implications, which we outline in the Discussion as well as in Methods, Sec. 4.1, and SI: Model Card. Maybe those ethical implications should have led to the decision not to pursue this avenu
559.
by p-e-w 3y ago
> their iMessage shenanigans is classic monopolistic bully behavior. These "monopoly" accusations are pure nonsense. Apple doesn't have a monopoly in the smartphone market, they don't even have a majority market share
560.
by p-e-w 3y ago
> Because everything I have ever seen is that iOS users almost all leave on autoupdate and the move to the latest version is the overwhelming majority, very rapidly. Outside of the US, Android's market share dwarfs iOS's. And m
561.
by p-e-w 3y ago
What consequences did the Snowden Leaks have? I mean for the intelligence agencies – not for Edward Snowden. I'm of course aware his life has been destroyed. But what consequences were there for the people and institutions responsible?
562.
by p-e-w 3y ago
> A targeted attack will encounter the risk of the attacker being exposed. What "risk" is there? I'm not aware of illegal spying by intelligence or law enforcement agencies having ever had any adverse consequences for them
563.
by p-e-w 3y ago
> High value targets are highly likely to be following decent practices and at least staying up to date on software. Not even close. The vast majority of journalists, lawyers, activists, even public figures, don't have the knowled
564.
by p-e-w 3y ago
I've thought about adding RSS for a while, but have not yet settled on how this would interact with the filtering and sorting functions. I believe a feed would be especially useful if it could be constrained to events matching specific
565.
by p-e-w 3y ago
That text (I have no idea who it comes from) could have been written by a conspiracy theorist. "Nobody knows anything, it's all a bunch of lies" sounds chic in a rebellious kind of way, until you consider where that belief ul
566.
by p-e-w 3y ago
> get from the headlines to Wikipedia as fast as possible This is the way. I treat news headlines as a list of recommendations for which Wikipedia articles to read today. I have even built my own archive of Wikipedia's "Current
567.
by p-e-w 3y ago
> Their richest country is slightly richer than our poorest state, even if comparing GDP per capita. I consider such economic figures to be at best a very loose correlate to quality of life, and thus essentially irrelevant. > Then w
568.
by p-e-w 3y ago
> And for that one must be innovative, open for new things. Nonsense. Innovation has nothing to do with "safe, prosperous, and dignified lives". In fact, I'd argue that it is often an obstacle to those things. > The wor
569.
by p-e-w 3y ago
Like most articles on this topic, this one makes the implicit assumption that Europe not having grown huge tech corporations that rule over people's lives is a problem, rather than an accomplishment. Kind of like assuming that there mu
570.
by p-e-w 3y ago
Well said. It's astonishing how much the corporate/capitalist mantra "if you're not growing, you're dying" has taken hold in the world of open source and free culture. People not only fail to realize how unsust

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