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patrickcollison.com

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Re: Questions

#171

Post by bachbach »

jacques_chester wrote: post #133
bachbach wrote: post #68

There needs to be a club of people focusing on these sorts of questions consistently. There are only so many Gwerns and Scott Alexanders and Dredmorbiuses out there. There really are not that many people out there thinking about and discussing the Big Ideas and you keep running into the same ones over time. I fear many club members are lost in the blogosphere and near impossible to find with Google. Some possible ans…

> There needs to be a club of people focusing on these sorts of questions consistently. They're called "universities".

I can't believe this is still a middle class meme, some ideas die hard.

Universities have been sliding downhill for a long time and they know why because they operate the nightclub protocol for entry.

Geography and formal education not what links the people I mentioned. Correlation, causation, you know the mantra.

Re: Questions

#172

Post by jstimpfle »

petra wrote: post #142
lisper wrote: post #106

> Why are programming environments still so primitive? Because we as an industry made a strategic decision in the late 20th century to value run-time efficiency over all other quality metrics, a decision which has manifested itself in the primacy of C and its derivatives. Everything else has been sacrificed in the name of run time efficiency, including, notably, security. Development convenience was also among the co…

One reason(or maybe the common excuse) is often "we need to have full control". That's a reason most managers can get behind. So that's a common reason slowing every shift to a higher level language or library, to tools that automatically create stuff for you(GUI, optimized code from dsl), to using a platform controlled by another company(one important channel for newer tech, with some strong ux benefits over open-so…

> One reason(or maybe the common excuse) is often "we need to have full control". That's a reason most managers can get behind.

On modern machines, this excuse is even better. Full control can easily mean 100x difference in speed. Most importantly, how do contemporary lisps deal with arrays of unboxed structs or primitives?

Re: Questions

#173

Post by CM30 »

unixhero wrote: post #47
chucky wrote: post #35

> Why are there so many successful startups in Stockholm? Several reasons. First, you need to recognize that any Sweden-based startup will, when it gets to be known internationally, have a Stockholm-based office. So it's not about a city of 1 million inhabitants, it's a country of 10 million that's the true number here. As an example, I believe Spotify opened their original offices in both Stockholm and Göteborg more…

Good observations! You forgot one major thing. This goes for all of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The winter is horribly dark and boring. (Unless you're super rich). Therefore most turn inwards, staying indoors, thinking deeply at problems, spending endless afternoons and nights on things. Be it software development, game development, car tuning, car engine work, engineering, knitting or just reading loads of…

> Good observations! You forgot one major thing. This goes for all of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The winter is horribly dark and boring. (Unless you're super rich). Therefore most turn inwards, staying indoors, thinking deeply at problems, spending endless afternoons and nights on things. Be it software development, game development, car tuning, car engine work, engineering, knitting or just reading loads of books.

Wonder if that's also a factor in the prevalence of tech/programmers/hackers in Russia. Don't think there's a startup scene there, but there definitely seems to be more technology experts coming from the area in general.

Re: Questions

#174

Post by germinalphrase »

JepZ wrote: post #64
hyperpallium wrote: post #44

> Is Bloom's "Two Sigma" phenomenon real? ... one-on-one tutoring using mastery learning led to a two sigma(!) improvement in student performance. When I tutored, I found students often had some misunderstanding, somewhere. So my task was to listen , to find that misunderstanding, so I could correct it. This "teaching" is listening, more than talking. The idea is they are lost, but to know what direction they need, I…

I think the One-on-One Tutoring things is something the AI current movement could make a difference. Everybody seems to be obsessed with building really cool stuff, but our teaching system is quite obsolete and could get better by adding smart systems. That said I must to add, that I am referring to teaching humans who are 12 years and older (IMHO young kids require physical interaction if you want to avoid psycholog…

I agree, generally; however, I believe the lownhanging fruit is in assistive tools for teachers.

The commenter above made a good point about the value of removing barriers to learning as a primary asset of a good teacher. People tend to focus on content knowledge/curriculum as the mark of good teaching, but removing barriers is the real, difficult work. Tools that assist the instructor in understanding their students’, their students’ knowledge, and their learning behaviors would be valuable. Don’t focus on content delivery. Focus on making in-class assessment more frequent and trustable. Focus on tools that assist an instructor understand thirty students as they might understand five.

Re: Questions

#175

Post by zbentley »

lisper wrote: post #123
dasmoth wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree regarding the symptoms, but am less convinced that run-time efficiency is the sole (or perhaps even major) cause. If it were, I'd argue that we'd see less usage of, e.g. , Python. I don't know the true cause -- I wish I did. But I do do see a trend towards an ever more "hands-off" style of software development: large volumes of automated (especially unit) tests in preference to interactive approaches (or hybr…

This decision was made and become deeply entrenched long before Python came along. Python is pretty good, but even it is constrained by the decisions that went into the design of C, since Python is implemented in C. Its underlying data structures are C data structures. Its memory management is C memory management. The GIL is there because C.

> The GIL is there because C.

That's not at all true. There are very, very few platforms/libraries/languages that both a) allow you to manage concurrent access to complex, arbitrary data structures in a sane, predictable, and not-dangerous way and b) provide the capabilities (including performance) necessary to implement a general-purpose programming language on top of them. Even fewer of those tools existed when Python came about.

Was it technically possible to make a GIL-free Python or a Python not based in C? Sure. But it wasn't in any way likely, or a reasonable-at-the-time decision. If you look into the history of the GIL things will make more sense; it has next to nothing to do with the implementation language.

Re: Questions

#176

Post by matwood »

petra wrote: post #112
elorant wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel doesn't have long dark winters and yet they're the pioneers of innovation and start-up culture.

I'm an Israeli and it comes from a few factors: 1. Israelis basically have no choice. If you want to make a good income, working hard in a technology startup(we have very few big tech companies) is one of the very few good options. 2. The army: at a very young age,a decent percentage of Israelis who join the army lead, in high value, high risk situations. That creates a sense of responsibility and strong ambition at…

> 2. The army: at a very young age,a decent percentage of Israelis who join the army lead, in high value, high risk situations. That creates a sense of responsibility and strong ambition at a relatively early age.

Summed up in one word - discipline. The glamorous myth of startups is just that, a myth. Some outliers go from zero to hero overnight, but most require slogging away day in and day out. Motivation can only last so long, and after it's gone all you have left is discipline. Military writings both current and historic routinely speak of discipline being the single most important aspect of achieving a goal.

Re: Questions

#177

Post by vinceguidry »

Kiro wrote: post #77
coldtea wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't they prefer it?

Nothing beats sitting in front of a computer in the dark.

I can't stand it. Feels like staring at a light bulb. The only thing that makes it passable for me is Night Mode in F.lux on OSX. Nothing else works. I keep a Mid-2012 MacBook Pro around just so I can have a computer I can actually use in a dark room.

Even then it's not ideal. The lowest brightness setting still isn't low enough.

In my twenties I could happily destroy my circadian rhythm and sit in front of a screen til 4-5 in the morning. At 35 that shit's gotten real old.

Re: Questions

#178

Post by andrewmutz »

sakoht wrote: post #147

"Why are certain things getting so much more expensive?" Because we are lying about inflation. It's not a conspiracy, just a mutually agreed-to delusion. By pretending inflation is lower than it is, the poor feel like they are standing still instead of sinking ...though instinctively they know. And the people just keeping up get to feel richer. Since technology and efficiency improve, the people staying in the same p…

Do you have any evidence that “we are lying about inflation”?

Unless you do, I think it those industries are getting more expensive due to Baumol’s Cost Disease:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease

Re: Questions

#179

Post by mhjas »

foolfoolz wrote: post #151
tvanantwerp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I travel to Hong Kong every few years to visit family. Each time, there are more MTR stations--and on some occasions, entirely new lines. The MTR is just as complex as BART, if not moreso. I think it's worth considering why some places can build things like a metro fast, but others can't.

before they build a new station.... do they do environmental impact studies? was enough time given for the study to complete and people to challenge the results? possibly with another study? are there community meetings to discuss the impact? does everyone in the area have a chance to voice their opposition at an open hearing? do all workers on the construction team have strict safety regulations? require certified t…

I would guess they do that in Denmark and Copenhagen has a very modern subway system.

Re: Questions

#180

Post by CamouflagedKiwi »

lisper wrote: post #123
dasmoth wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree regarding the symptoms, but am less convinced that run-time efficiency is the sole (or perhaps even major) cause. If it were, I'd argue that we'd see less usage of, e.g. , Python. I don't know the true cause -- I wish I did. But I do do see a trend towards an ever more "hands-off" style of software development: large volumes of automated (especially unit) tests in preference to interactive approaches (or hybr…

This decision was made and become deeply entrenched long before Python came along. Python is pretty good, but even it is constrained by the decisions that went into the design of C, since Python is implemented in C. Its underlying data structures are C data structures. Its memory management is C memory management. The GIL is there because C.

The GIL is not there because C. It's there because of refcounting and Python guaranteeing that many nontrivial operations are thread safe.
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