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What I Worked On

paulgraham.com

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Re: What I Worked On

#31

Post by sillysaurusx »

myWindoonn wrote: post #12
_Microft wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll have to say reading this makes me feel a bit sad for pg. It seems that he worked on Bel extensively for four years, and the end result was something which appeared on the front page of Hacker News for one day and then disappeared. This is not unlike a doctoral dissertation. Invest years of your life and effort, produce nice results, have people cheer for you after you successfully defend it and then nobody car…

The analogy is not great, because the f-expr-based Lisp Kernel [0] did arise from a doctoral dissertation, and is far more interesting than Bel. The Lisp world has respect for Shutt's work but not for Graham's, and that's not by accident. Edit: Hey, I'm just doing what you did. You started this comment thread by both posting a top-level comment, and also starting replies to other folks. So, uh, have you read Shutt's…

Haha. Are you going from comment thread to comment thread putting down Bel while plugging other work?

Okay.

Re: What I Worked On

#32

Post by sdevonoes »

chrisaycock wrote: post #9

> during the first year of grad school I realized that AI, as practiced at the time, was a hoax. I had a similar realization during grad school about a lot of the popular topics at the time (early 2000s). I even used to call them "the hoaxes of computer science". Things like grid computing or formal methods of software engineering had a lot of resources behind them, but nobody was able to use the results. Instead, ve…

Funny because I do have the same feeling these days: that ML is a hoax. Even funnier: I do have a master's degree in ML.

Re: What I Worked On

#33

Post by yters »

Ironic pg passed up philosophy in his search for immortality. Not only is that a focus of philosophy, even in today's materialist worldview, but philosophers are some of the most ancient and best preserved thinkers. The ideas of the ancient greek philosophers still hold sway today, even in popular culture, see Plato and The Matrix, or how the US government is organized in checks and balances to preserve liberty. In fact, pretty much every other aspect of society could be said to be downstream from philosophy.

Re: What I Worked On

#34

Post by [deleted] »

DC1350 wrote: post #18
mplewis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, Paul Graham has a lot of money.

I know he does now but I’m talking about the earlier sections of the essay. He mentions taking time off from art school to work because he needed more money. What’s interesting to me is how he just decided to go to art school, study philosophy, or work on projects that had nothing to do with his career when he wasn’t already financially secure. The common narrative around really successful people is that they work re…

[deleted]

Re: What I Worked On

#35

Post by lifeisstillgood »

>>> What these programs really showed was that there's a subset of natural language that's a formal language.

Don't take this as any fanboy stuff, but pg is still good at putting big thoughts in small sentences. Its a sort of mental zip function.

Also this is why I still type into google things like 'rubik solve how-to' instead of my daughter doing "show me how to solve a rubiks cube"

Re: What I Worked On

#36

Post by AlexCoventry »

myWindoonn wrote: post #7
judofyr wrote: post #4

> Working on Bel was hard but satisfying. I worked on it so intensively that at any given time I had a decent chunk of the code in my head and could write more there. I'll have to say reading this makes me feel a bit sad for pg. It seems that he worked on Bel extensively for four years, and the end result was something which appeared on the front page of Hacker News for one day and then disappeared. I haven't seen it…

There's no onomatopoeia in the English language for the kind of laughter that I'm currently emitting. There have been plenty of technical examinations of Bel [0]; it's just not novel. [0] https://lobste.rs/s/jec21l/thought_leaders_chicken_sexers

There's no techincal examination of Bel in that essay. It's a dismissive aside at the end, based on threads the author perceives in Graham's intellectual history.

Re: What I Worked On

#37

Post by perfmode »

DC1350 wrote: post #14

This was a good read. I wish I could understand the mindset of people who can live spontaneously like this. I always plan so far in the future because I feel like it’s way too easy to ruin my life financially. Is this a generational thing? A class difference?

check out “the middle class curse” for a class-based reflection on this

Re: What I Worked On

#38

Post by alberth »

How does PG recall so much about college. I was a computer science major as well. I made good grades. I went to university similar to PGs.

I’m younger than PG and it wouldn’t surprise me if I’ve forgotten that I even took a particular class, let alone recall the professor and certainly don’t recall the small details described by PG.

Just curious if I’m the only person who can’t recall as vividly courses as PG can.

Re: What I Worked On

#39

Post by timr »

sdevonoes wrote: post #32
chrisaycock wrote: post #9

> during the first year of grad school I realized that AI, as practiced at the time, was a hoax. I had a similar realization during grad school about a lot of the popular topics at the time (early 2000s). I even used to call them "the hoaxes of computer science". Things like grid computing or formal methods of software engineering had a lot of resources behind them, but nobody was able to use the results. Instead, ve…

Funny because I do have the same feeling these days: that ML is a hoax. Even funnier: I do have a master's degree in ML.

It isn't a hoax, but the OP is exactly right: if it were more usable, people would see it for what it is, and not for what the silly media narrative makes it sounds like.

As long as your technology is only usable by a high priesthood, you can make it look like magic.

Re: What I Worked On

#40

Post by colincooke »

sdevonoes wrote: post #32
chrisaycock wrote: post #9

> during the first year of grad school I realized that AI, as practiced at the time, was a hoax. I had a similar realization during grad school about a lot of the popular topics at the time (early 2000s). I even used to call them "the hoaxes of computer science". Things like grid computing or formal methods of software engineering had a lot of resources behind them, but nobody was able to use the results. Instead, ve…

Funny because I do have the same feeling these days: that ML is a hoax. Even funnier: I do have a master's degree in ML.

There are many many practical example of modern ML (especially DL). Would be interesting to hear why you think those examples are not indicative of a field which is useful/not a hoax.
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