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I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

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Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#381

Post by gaigalas »

nixon_why69 wrote: post #277
gaigalas wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humanity has some 300.000 years of existing, and we can only trace back the prevalence of cult figures a few thousand years back. For all we know, it could be a temporary fluke and we'll snap back to something else. We could be beings with no default to snap back to, ever changing, destined to dissolve the prevalence of cult figures into something else in the following eras. In a few thousand years we could totally s…

We only have writing and, consequently, people who's names we know a few thousand years back. A cult figure before writing would have more limited reach, and be forgotten because their name wasn't written down. But they'd still have been a cult figure.

It's an interesting hypothesis we can never prove. We don't even know how old names are.

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#382

Post by andruby »

jimbokun wrote: post #340
andai wrote: post #246

Reading the list of Bellard's contributions, what strikes me is not the raw ability (although certainly there is that too!) but "damn, he knows how to pick 'em!" He keeps picking stuff to work on that ends up being insanely useful to a massive number of people. That seems somehow even more remarkable than the technical ability. Deciding what to work on might be the most important question in life.

These are your 10x programmers. Maybe 100x or more in Bertrand’s case. It’s not about putting in 19 hour days or spitting out more lines of code or PRs or whatever. It’s coming up with elegant solutions with broad impact that no one else even considered.

I don't even think such a scale works for the kind of brilliant solutions Bellard (not Bertrand) creates.

I don't think 100 1x programmers can create these solutions. So much gets lost having to communicate and coordinate people. And they would just accumulate cruft (and DX tarpits like other mention).

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#383

Post by nancyminusone »

fdsfsdsd wrote: post #221
raverbashing wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The psyop about "only shipping clean code" has been a big drag on projects On the real world, if it runs and solves their problem nobody gives a fucc. Period Props on him.

Watch how developers breathlessly defend code quality and stand tall ready to die on the hill against "AI slop". Craftsmanship, quality control, oh, it's all so, so important. No, it's absolutely vital to civilization. Then witness the amazing reversal when some member of The Tribe pushes unbelievably unreadable slop that works. Then we see his Ring getting kissed by all the betas: "if it work, it works". Pick a side…

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Goomba_fallacy

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#384

Post by gaigalas »

MomsAVoxell wrote: post #176
gaigalas wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humanity has some 300.000 years of existing, and we can only trace back the prevalence of cult figures a few thousand years back. For all we know, it could be a temporary fluke and we'll snap back to something else. We could be beings with no default to snap back to, ever changing, destined to dissolve the prevalence of cult figures into something else in the following eras. In a few thousand years we could totally s…

> a few thousand years back I beg to differ, but okay. I don’t disagree to your allusions that there is a banality to mob idolatry, but that’s a discussion for other forums, ironically.

Idolatry is not the same as mythologizing. And I never said there is a banality to it, just that there could be. We don't have enough to know.

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#385

Post by gopher_space »

taeric wrote: post #363
gopher_space wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know, it wasn’t until the pandemic and a layoff that I had time to actually sit and think. There’s a reason that most of the voters (and protesters in my area) are retired, and it isn’t apathy. I don’t have time to educate myself on these topics in any real depth. And I need to educate myself because the push information is all bullshit. Digging into policing in Seattle, the official and public conversation w…

We don't disagree? But this is part of the problem of many complaints. The cost of entry into any system is non-zero. That people with more resources are involved is not at all a surprise. Which is why I have my "twist" there that this is not necessarily bad. I'm fine letting people dream. I'm fine with people having general complaints. I have to be fine with people being wrong, as it happens whether I'm fine with it…

"Willing to put forth the work" is where we differ. The collapse of the fourth estate alone meant the end of the broadly informed citizen.

I've been professionally trained to monitor my own thought process and review my notes for signs of bias, and I've spent decades absorbing new domains well enough to build testable models. When I look at understanding political issues the people I rely on to help me "put forth the work" are gone, man. The effort I need to put in on one subject well enough to make decisions now is immense.

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#386

Post by zerohp »

nixon_why69 wrote: post #277
gaigalas wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humanity has some 300.000 years of existing, and we can only trace back the prevalence of cult figures a few thousand years back. For all we know, it could be a temporary fluke and we'll snap back to something else. We could be beings with no default to snap back to, ever changing, destined to dissolve the prevalence of cult figures into something else in the following eras. In a few thousand years we could totally s…

We only have writing and, consequently, people who's names we know a few thousand years back. A cult figure before writing would have more limited reach, and be forgotten because their name wasn't written down. But they'd still have been a cult figure.

The Buddha lived before writing in India. We have plenty of other stories that were passed by oral tradition before they were written down.

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#388

Post by canelonesdeverd »

fdsfsdsd wrote: post #221
raverbashing wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The psyop about "only shipping clean code" has been a big drag on projects On the real world, if it runs and solves their problem nobody gives a fucc. Period Props on him.

Watch how developers breathlessly defend code quality and stand tall ready to die on the hill against "AI slop". Craftsmanship, quality control, oh, it's all so, so important. No, it's absolutely vital to civilization. Then witness the amazing reversal when some member of The Tribe pushes unbelievably unreadable slop that works. Then we see his Ring getting kissed by all the betas: "if it work, it works". Pick a side…

>some member of The Tribe >his Ring getting kissed >all the betas

Wow the quality of online discourse is really in the gutter.

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#390

Post by baobabKoodaa »

HelloNurse wrote: post #320
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ffmpeg (codec specs) if your mental model is that somebody writes codec specs and then fabrice bellard comes in and turns the specs into C, you are dead wrong. first of all, codecs are usually reverse-engineered, there is no spec. second of all, even when a well specified document describes the codec, that spec does not describe how to efficiently encode or decode with that codec. people like fabrice bellard develo…

Vocabulary please. A "codec" is software that CODes and DECodes multimedia content, while specs describe an encoded file or stream format (occasionally involving network protocols and other concerns). In a normal standard development process experimental codecs come first, then those that have proved to work well, including having good enough performance, are described in the spec; after standardization there's very…

> after standardization there's very little room to "develop the algorithms" because nonconformant implementations would be useless.

there is A LOT OF ROOM to develop the algorithms. it seems that you are confused about what an algorithm is, since you seemingly think that there can be only 1 algorithm that can decode a given media file.

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