Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nobody knows how the whole system works

surfingcomplexity.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 226 posts

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#141

Post by scottLobster »

toyg wrote: post #115
scottLobster wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is "ownership" is a common management talking point, but when you actually try to take ownership you inevitably run into walls of access, a lack of information, and generally a "why are you here?" mentality. Granted one person can't know/do everything, but large companies in particular seem allergic to granting you any visibility whatsoever. It's particularly annoying when you're given a deadline, bust your…

Ownership doesn't imply FULL ownership. You get handed ownership of a slice, and expected to be responsible for that bit of land; but you'll never own the farm, and will likely never be consulted on whether that land should become a car park from Tuesday. That's just how capitalism work.

That's called renting. And even renters have rights per whatever lease they signed and local laws.

It's a simple formula. If you want me to be personally invested in my work and go above and beyond, then I need the motivation to do that. So either you grant me a reasonable level of professional input such that my opinion is valued and I'm helping the mission succeed, or pay me for said extra effort (can be opportunities for promotion, direct overtime pay, career advancement, etc). If you want me super-motivated you can even do both!

If we're playing hardball "you're some lowly IC nerd without an MBA or connections and we're here to make money so fuck you" capitalism, well the only serious leverage I have to is to take my talents where they're most appreciated. So you'll get exactly what you pay for until I find something better, and aside from some professional courtesy I'll be looking. Maybe you're fine with that, but if you start preaching "ownership" of the product just be aware that the entire dev team is going to pay you lip service and then laugh as soon as you're out of the room, and we clock out at 5:00, even if we don't on paper. Except for poor Bob who due to life/family commitments has no option to leave and needs to rationalize his situation even though he agrees with us. Sometimes we'll tone it down just so he doesn't feel too bad about being trapped. Regardless, in that environment we take ownership of our careers, not our work.

I've worked both types of jobs. I'd say the former worked the best for all involved, but the latter has its place and is fine so long as everyone acknowledges what game we're playing and expectations are set appropriately.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#142

Post by pixl97 »

stoneforger wrote: post #41
lijok wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that's a whole different level of ignorance, that's much more dangerous. Why? Is it more dangerous to not know how to fry an egg in a teflon pan, or on a stone over a wood fire? Is it acceptable to know the former but not the latter? Do I need to understand materials science so I can understand how to make something nonstick so I’m not dependant on teflon vendors?

You do need to be able to understand nonstick coating is unhealthy and not magic. You do need to understand your options for pan frying for not sticking are a film of water or an ice cube if you don't want to add an oil into the mix. Then it really depends what you are cooking on how sticky it will be and what the end product will look like. That's why there are people that can't fry an egg, people that cook, chefs,…

>You do need to be able to understand nonstick coating is unhealthy and not magic

Will it kill you faster than you can birth and raise the next generation?

If it's something that kills you at 50 or 60, then really it doesn't matter that much as evolution expects you to be a grandparent by then.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#143

Post by bethekidyouwant »

sgarland wrote: post #87
alphazard wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The series this is from (Free to Choose) is a great introduction to economics for people of any age. I highly recommend it. This particular example can be misinterpreted though. It's true that no single person knows how to make that exact pencil that he is holding. But it's not true that no single individual exists who can make a pencil by themselves. If the criteria is just that it works as a pencil, then many peopl…

> This is an important distinction because there are things like microprocessors, which no single person knows how to make. That depends on your definition of “knows how to make.” I worked at Samsung Austin Semiconductor for a while, and there are some insanely smart and knowledgeable people there (and, I’m sure, at every other semiconductor company). It was actually a really good life experience for me, because it g…

There are still innumerable supply chains they know nothing about. Can they run a strip mine? Fix the diesel trucks that run on the mine?

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#144

Post by Insanity »

cortesoft wrote: post #112
rorylaitila wrote: post #71

There are many layers to this. But there is one style of programming that concerns me. Where you neither understand the layer above you (why the product exists and what the goal of the system is) nor the layer below (how to actually implement the behavior). In the past, many developers barely understood the business case, but at least they understood how to translate into code, and could put backpressure on the busin…

Strangely, I feel that using Claude helps me stay MORE focused on what I am actually trying to accomplish. In the prior 30 years of my programming life, so much time was spent "yak shaving"... setting up all the boilerplate, adding basic functionality you always have to do, setting up support systems, etc. With Claude, all of those things are so quick to complete that I can stay focused on what I am actually trying t…

But apart from side projects these true new setups happen rarely. When working at a company you probably work on an already established codebase with known patterns.

So what you say is true about boilerplate reduction, but that’s not a huge ROI for enterprise software.

(Some exceptions apply, there’s always some setup work for a new microservice etc. But even those don’t happen weekly or even monthly)

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#145

Post by bethekidyouwant »

mhog_hn wrote: post #25
tjchear wrote: post #15

I take a fairly optimistic view to the adoption of AI assistants in our line of work. We begin to work and reason at a higher level and let the agents worry about the lower level details. Know where else this happens? Any human organization that existed, exists, and will exist. Hierarchies form because no one person can do everything and hold all the details in their mind, especially as the complexity of what they in…

But what if the AI agent has a 5% chance of adding a bug to that feature? Surely before any feature was completely bug free

What is the chance that you add a bug?

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#146

Post by wduquette »

It's certainly the case that I don't always know how the layer below works, i.e., how the compiled code executes in detail. But I have a mental model that's good enough that I can use the compiler, and I trust that the compiler authors know what they are doing and that the result is well-tested. Over forty years and a slew of different languages I've found that to be an excellent bet.

But I understand how my code works. There's a huge difference between not understanding the layer below and not understanding the layer that I am responsible for.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#147

Post by kgwxd »

Who cares? Nobody is concerned about that. They're concerned no one will be able to fix stuff when it goes wrong, or there will be no one to blame for really bad problems. Especially when the problem is repeating at 50 petaflops per second.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#148

Post by robocat »

lazystar wrote: post #118
scottLobster wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is "ownership" is a common management talking point, but when you actually try to take ownership you inevitably run into walls of access, a lack of information, and generally a "why are you here?" mentality. Granted one person can't know/do everything, but large companies in particular seem allergic to granting you any visibility whatsoever. It's particularly annoying when you're given a deadline, bust your…

> Granted one person can't know/do everything, watch me try, at least. > but large companies in particular seem allergic to granting you any visibility whatsoever. It's particularly annoying If the blind spot is directly causing customer pain, find metrics that demonstrate the impact. If it ends up driving away your customers, then your company is securing itself to death.

> customer pain > driving away your customers > company death

You are implying efficient market theory, which is bunk.

Example: Our banks have endless painful papercuts yet most of us don't change banks just because of one pain.

We each respond to our own complex of costs and benefits (or risks versus rewards).

Second example: I use an iPhone because I judge it to be more secure yet I'm constantly fighting the same bugs and misfeatures that seem to never get fixed/improved.

Your chain of reasoning is broken? Or is it your model of the world?

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#149

Post by youknownothing »

I see many people comparing the production of code through AI with compilers: just another layer of abstraction. They argue that, in the same way that creating high-level languages that were compiled to assembler meant that most people didn't need to know assembler any more, then specifying specs and letting AI produce the high-level language will mean that most people won't need to know the high-level language any more.

However, there is a fundamental flaw in this analogy: compilers are deterministic, AI is not. You get high-level code and compile it twice, you get exactly the same output. You get specs and generate high-level code through AI twice, you get two different outputs (hopefully with equivalent behaviour).

If you don't understand that deterministic vs. non-deterministic is a fundamental and potentially dangerous change in the way we produce work, then you definitely fail at first principles.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#150

Post by jmalicki »

ffsm8 wrote: post #94
rorylaitila wrote: post #71

There are many layers to this. But there is one style of programming that concerns me. Where you neither understand the layer above you (why the product exists and what the goal of the system is) nor the layer below (how to actually implement the behavior). In the past, many developers barely understood the business case, but at least they understood how to translate into code, and could put backpressure on the busin…

I am still missing something like Claude code that's less "hands-off" and optimizes for small edits instead of full feature development Like you're sitting in your ide, select a few rows, press (for example) caps lock to activate speech and then just say a short line what it should adjust or similar - which is then staged for the next adjustments to be done with the same UX Like saying "okay, I need a new usecase her…

In cursor you highlight and hit Ctrl-L, and use the voice prompting - I can do this today!
Post reply on HN