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Nobody knows how the whole system works

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Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#151

Post by robocat »

pixl97 wrote: post #139
sceptic123 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existential crisis part for me is that no-one (or not enough people) have the skills or knowledge required to do these things. Getting people to work together only works if some people have those skills to begin with. I also wasn't putting the focus is on cooking, the ability to hunt/gather/grow enough food and keep yourself warm are far more important. And you are far more optimistic about people than me if you…

>the ability to hunt/gather/grow enough food and keep yourself warm are far more important These are very important when you're alone. Like deep in the woods with a tiny group maybe. The kinds of problems you'll actually see are something going bad and there being a lot of people around trying to survive on ever decreasing resources. A single person out of 100 can teach people how to cook, or hunt, or grow crops. If…

The well known SHTF story that summarises your point written by a guy who lived in Sarajevo:

https://www.scribd.com/document/110974061/Selco-s-Survival

From a real situation, only alluding to the true horrors of the situation.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#152

Post by jpadkins »

Even if you know how the compiler and OS constructs work, you might not know how the hardware circuits work. Even if you know circuits work, you might not know how the power generation or cooling work. Even if you know how the power generation works, you don't know how extracting natural gas works or solar panels are created. etc,etc

My takeaway is that modern system complexity can only be achieved via advanced specialization and trade. No one human brain can master all of the complexity needed for the wonders of modern tech. So we need to figure out how to cooperate if we want to continue to advance technology.

My views on the topic were influenced by Klings book (it's a light read) https://www.libertarianism.org/books/specialization-trade

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#153

Post by B56b »

wduquette wrote: post #146

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 wor…

That's the critical difference. You could always find some person who understood a particular piece of a complex puzzle. It's a very new, worrying thing to have pieces that no one understands.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#154

Post by 9rx »

analog31 wrote: post #81

Granted I'm not a software developer, so the things I work on tend to be simpler. But the people I know who are recognized for "knowing how the whole thing works" are likely to have earned that distinction, not necessarily by actually knowing how it works but: 1. The ability and interest to investigate things and find out how they work, when needed or desired. They are interested in how things work. They are probably…

> Granted I'm not a software developer, so the things I work on tend to be simpler.

Intriguing statement. I've worked in a number of disciplines over the years and software, by far, presents the simplest things of all.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#155

Post by B56b »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #83
cbdevidal wrote: post #60

This also applies to other things. No one person knows how to make a pencil. Three minute video by Milton Friedman: https://youtu.be/67tHtpac5ws?si=nFOLok7o87b8UXxY

That's false, I know exactly how to make a pencil. I know because I look it up in case I'm mysteriously transported back to the Roman Empire times. The hard part is finding graphite (somewhere in Wales? looks like lead, but softer and leaves traces on sheep's wool). Then suitable clay to make the lead. Then some kind of glue to glue the two parts of the pencil (boil some bones and cartilages?).

The task isn't "make something that you could plausibly call a pencil". It's "understand every step of how a modern pencil is produced".

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#156

Post by order-matters »

scottLobster wrote: post #100
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…

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…

>Or worse, they were doing some dark management technique of "well he's really hauling ass right now, if he makes the original deadline we'll be ahead of schedule, and if he doesn't we have the spare capacity"

As a business analyst who has worked a lot with executive teams at multiple companies, this is almost always the case (ime). Deadlines are only shortened down the chain, never extended. The assumption is that if it cannot be done then they will simply not administer any consequences and classify it as "not realizing the upside".

The only reason it is almost always and not always, is because sometimes a different thing pops up that needs to get prioritized first, so it is communicated that the first thing isnt actually as important as it was yesterday and this other thing is now the most important.

Now obviously I cant speak for everyone at all teams, but as far as boring corporate default behavior goes this is the safe path for executives. If your boss is doing otherwise, they are going out of their way to do it.

The takeaway as a worker is that you should not treat any business goal or deadline ask of you with the same level of care as you would a personal favor. When something really needs that level of care, your boss should pull you aside and break character and make it a personal favor to them, not the business.

As far as "Ownership" goes, it is just a pissing contest as far as I can tell. if you own a task but cant do the task, you just send an email to someone who can do the task so that the task gets done and you can report the task is done and get your ownership credit. the person who did the task was used as a tool in this regard. So high performing managers just try to get ownership of as much as they possibly can, as there's no meaningful difference between who sends that email.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#157

Post by zen4ttitude »

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…

You sit on the arbitrating layer. It sounds like you have some programming experience as you miss looking at the code. I did check a lot of code and got tired of how perfect it were, generated by AI. Latest Claude is insane, does not even make errors. You still have to guide it and it will occasionally go astray and make rookie mistakes. If you extrapolate to 6 months down the road, one Claude API = a team of 10 programmers. None of them sloppy and undocumented. So if one wants to remain pertinent in this new economy of infinite coding, one should go back to project management, learn best practice and software fundamentals. I think there will be a lot of demand for ex-programmers able to steer AI in the most efficient stack, the best architecture and the most optimised deployment. Notions of recurring cost, maintenance and security will help for sure.

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#158

Post by cgh »

wtetzner wrote: post #82

I think a lot of people have a fear of AI coding because they're worried that we will move from a world where nobody understands how the whole system works, to a world where nobody knows how any of it works.

This comment on the article sums it up for me, at least in part:

“Nobody knows how the whole system works, but at least everybody should know the part of the system they are contributing to.

Being an engineer I am used to be expert of the very layer of the stack I work on, knowing something of the adjacent layers, mostly ignoring how the rest work.

Now that LLMs write my very code, what is the part that I’m supposed to master? I think the table is still shifting and everybody is failing to grasp where it will stabilize. Analogies with past shifts aren’t helping either.‘

Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works

#160

Post by wrs »

sgarland wrote: post #107

> “What happens when you type a URL into your browser’s address bar and hit enter?” You can talk about what happens at all sorts of different levels (e.g., HTTP, DNS, TCP, IP, …). But does anybody really understand all of the levels? [Paraphrasing]: interrupts, 802.11ax modulation scheme, QAM, memory models, garbage collection, field effect transistors... To a reasonable degree, yes, I can. I am also probably an outl…

I had the same reaction — yes, in fact I can at least explain all of those examples at an impromptu whiteboard talk level, and for many of them I can go a lot deeper.

But I hate not knowing how things work, and I have a pretty good memory, so I’m probably an outlier.

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