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patrickcollison.com

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Re: Questions

#21

Post by dvdhsu »

(I work at Retool, and Patrick is an investor.)

> Will end-user applications ever be truly programmable? If so, how?

I think that most end-user applications now have APIs that allow you to manipulate the data. For example, Salesforce, Lever, Excel, etc. all have APIs for reading and writing data. Allowing end users to build custom UIs on top of those APIs seems like a simpler problem.

Retool (https://tryretool.com) is a fast way of building UIs on top of data. And so if there are APIs for reading and writing data from “end-user applications”, Retool lets you build custom UIs and workflows on top of them quickly.

I think this is an interesting problem, and I’m not sure what the right solution is. If anybody else has ideas, feel free to email me — I’d love to learn! I’m david@. :)

Re: Questions

#22

Post by joefreeman »

> Why are certain things getting so much more expensive?

I recently read Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs, and suspect the answer lies in there. The examples Patrick lists are all service industries driven by labour costs. This probably influences the following two questions too (project delays and GDP).

Re: Questions

#23

Post by alkonaut »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #17
ricardobeat wrote: post #7

> Why can't I connect my editor to a running program and hover over values to see what they last were? Why isn't time-traveling debugging widely deployed? Why can't I debug a function without restarting my program? Why in the name of the good lord are REPLs still textual? Why can't I copy a URL to my editor to enable real-time collaboration with someone else? Why isn't my editor integrated with the terminal? Why does…

> Why can't I debug a function without restarting my program? This was/is true in C# for 32 bit programs. Being able to code with live data is really productive. Live unit testing also would be a big win.

C#/.NET 64 bit does this too but there were always limitations such as not being able to reload the code if method parameters were changed, closures were modified etc.

Re: Questions

#24

Post by quickthrower2 »

gotbeans wrote: post #18

> Why can't I connect my editor to a running program and hover over values to see what they last were? What the actual fuck am I witnessing.

I remember when I was 18, back in 1998, installing a specially licensed copy of this thing called "Visual C++" and doing just that, i.e the thing they call 'debugging'.

Re: Questions

#25

Post by TeMPOraL »

gotbeans wrote: post #18

> Why can't I connect my editor to a running program and hover over values to see what they last were? What the actual fuck am I witnessing.

A perfectly reasonable question probing at limits of software engineering.

Re: Questions

#26

Post by ziaddotcom »

panic wrote: post #8

> What's the successor to the book? And how could books be improved? > Books are great (unless you're Socrates). We now have magic ink. As an artifact for effecting the transmission of knowledge (rather than a source of entertainment), how can the book be improved? How can we help authors understand how well their work is doing in practice? (Which parts are readers confused by or stumbling over or skipping?) How can…

Seems like roms for emulators are becoming kind of book like. As soon as a new platform reaches market relevance, there is a dash to make sure these old platforms are emulated.

However, rom files specifically (as opposed to executeables for retro computing platforms) seem to be distinctly less fickle in becoming reliably emulateable.

The reason is seemingly simple, the early rom files were essentially an operating system, having all the software required to boot the system included in what now looks like one file.

Re: Questions

#27

Post by tobr »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #5

"Why are certain things getting so much more expensive?" Because relative prices (e.g. the ratio of the price of a 42" TV to the price of a cinema ticket) are constantly changing due to changes in technology and competitive dynamics. Some things have gotten (and continue to get) much cheaper due to technological progress and economies of scale. So, relative to those, anything that hasn't benefited from the same trend…

This is very interesting and implies a kind of paradox. As some things become radically cheaper, it should leave us with more resources to spend on things that are difficult to make more efficient. But instead, it makes it appear as if they have become so expensive we can barely afford them anymore!

Does this fallacy have a name?

Re: Questions

#28

Post by thenewewb »

In order:

Inflation, regulation/globalism, corrupt system, wait, don’t, up to us all, good question, good question, remove politics, no, books, papers, don’t try, no, false laziness.

Re: Questions

#29

Post by sgillen »

>> Why are programming environments still so primitive?

I think adding all the features the author is requesting and have it work seamlessly is much much harder than be seems to realize.

Re: Questions

#30

Post by pliny »

jaggederest wrote: post #14

The easy answer for the "Two Sigma" problem is that you... don't try to reproduce it on a large scale by finding some other method. You provide individual, one-on-one full time tutoring to each student, if that is the analytically best method. It's worth it, since educational spending is close to the most effective public spending imaginable - something in the $3-$5 return per dollar spent, which you'd be hard presse…

>You provide individual, one-on-one full time tutoring to each student

So, at a modest 2 hours of instruction per day, and assuming people spend on average 12 years in education and 48 years in the workforce, you need at minimum for 1/16th of your adults to be teachers. Not 1/16th to be employed in education but just teachers and just for this education scheme. Today it's about 1/40th (in the us) and that includes post-secondary and administration, logistics etc. so you're scaling up the education sector by 3x or 4x AND you need to find something to do with the kids for the other 5-6 hours when their parents are working.

>It's worth it, since educational spending is close to the most effective public spending imaginable - something in the $3-$5 return per dollar spent

Marginal ROI does not work that way. Even assuming you get that return on what you're spending now, that doesn't mean the marginal dollar invested in education is getting that return nor that you can scale up the amount you spend and continue getting that return.

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