Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dave (the guy in that video) is an older timer Microsoft engineer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Plummer He definitely isn't an idiot who depends on AI to look smart.
He is autistic, and has ADHD.
[deleted]
You Only Use 10% of Printf() – Here Are Things They Didn't Teach You [video]
21–27 of 27 posts
Re: You Only Use 10% of Printf() – Here Are Things They Didn't Teach You [video]
#22[flagged]
Tough crowd, but I for one hate this stuff too and thank you for the heads up. "Engraved invitation to chaos", fucking hell. I think I just lost 3 IQ points. Who's the target audience here?
Everything I needed to know about printf, I learned from the reference manual. Anybody could do the same. Here's a reasonable one: https://en.cppreference.com/c/io/fprintf - look, it's like 5 pages or whatever, and the last 2 are examples and xrefs. You sit there and read it 2 or 3 times and you'd be done faster than Task Manager Man can read his script.
Re: You Only Use 10% of Printf() – Here Are Things They Didn't Teach You [video]
#23Re: You Only Use 10% of Printf() – Here Are Things They Didn't Teach You [video]
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dave (the guy in that video) is an older timer Microsoft engineer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Plummer He definitely isn't an idiot who depends on AI to look smart.
[flagged]
I didn't call Dave a legend (though that term is completely subjective). I just said he isn't an idiot who uses AI to look clever.
What you're failing to realise is that different people write content for different audiences. And the fact that the OP opened with "It's incredibly interesting content" shows that there is an audience for Dave's content.
Also, the tone of your comments is completely unnecessary too.
Re: You Only Use 10% of Printf() – Here Are Things They Didn't Teach You [video]
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If it's interesting then it's not spam Disagree. Just like those spam 'articles' that may at their core be interesting or have some value - but force you to click past 4 ads and scroll over/filter out another 17 just to extract the promised value - noticing that content you're consuming is obviously AI generated results in two things: 1. resentment that your time and attention was wasted by machine generated word-p…
> Just like those spam 'articles' that may at their core be interesting or have some value - but force you to click past 4 ads and scroll over/filter out another 17 just to extract the promised value That's a different problem entirely and predates the recent GenAI craze. > a loss of confidence in the accuracy of the information presented Then it isn't interesting any longer ;) --- You're missing my general point tho…
I wasn't talking about your general point though. Your comment opened with a statement and a question, and I was quoting the statement and directly answering the question you asked.
> That's a different problem entirely and predates the recent GenAI craze.
From the perspective of respecting the reader's time and attention, I see it as almost exactly the same problem, which is why I made that comparison when answering your question.
> ...People like yourself moaning...
Seeing as you conveniently linked to the HN commenting guidelines, I suggest you take another look at them, maybe focusing your attention on the ones closer to the top of the list, and then re-read the comment you just posted.
Re: You Only Use 10% of Printf() – Here Are Things They Didn't Teach You [video]
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Just like those spam 'articles' that may at their core be interesting or have some value - but force you to click past 4 ads and scroll over/filter out another 17 just to extract the promised value That's a different problem entirely and predates the recent GenAI craze. > a loss of confidence in the accuracy of the information presented Then it isn't interesting any longer ;) --- You're missing my general point tho…
I wasn't talking about your general point though. Your comment opened with a statement and a question, and I was quoting the statement and directly answering the question you asked. > That's a different problem entirely and predates the recent GenAI craze. From the perspective of respecting the reader's time and attention, I see it as almost exactly the same problem, which is why I made that comparison when answering…
You mean
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
?
I wasn't doing anything of that. Or at least, if you want to take a looser interpretation then I don't see how my reply was any different from your initial reply to me.
From the rules:
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
I ask that you view my comments through a more charitable lens. Because I'm not trying to belittle people here.
---
> From the perspective of respecting the reader's time and attention, I see it as almost exactly the same problem, which is why I made that comparison when answering your question.
It's not the same problem though. We are talking specifically about AI. Not some other related but different issue.
I do actually agree with you on that other issue. But arguing that they're "almost exactly the same" isn't charitable. Which leads back to the HN rule I quoted above.
---
I think a lot of the problem in this tangent boils more down to peoples bias against AI than it does about the actual content I replied with. I get why people hate AI. And I'm genuinely not defending AI as a broader technology. I'm just saying that people dissecting each and every submission on HN for tell-tail traits of AI isn't the right way to deal with the problem. Just flag the submission and move on. (and in this case, it's not even AI generated content).
The fact that my comments appear so controversial is baffling to me. People complain about the value of their attention being undermined with AI and yet they'll spend twice as long in meta-debates about that content. Surely that's contradictory to the point they're complaining about. So why is "flag and move on" such a disagreeable statement?
Re: You Only Use 10% of Printf() – Here Are Things They Didn't Teach You [video]
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
The FORMAT directive is Turing-complete. The full spec is here: https://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/22_c....
printf is also Turing complete. Thanks for the link, I'll have a read of that later
`printf` with some GNU extensions is accidentally Turing–complete because you can overwrite it's internal state. Common Lisp’s `format` is intentionally and safely Turing–complete because it includes directives for conditionals, iteration, goto, and recursion. The classic example for printing lists:
(setq foo "Items:~#[ none~; ~S~; ~S and ~S~
~:;~@{~#[~; and~] ~S~^ ,~}~].")
(format nil foo) => "Items: none."
(format nil foo 'foo) => "Items: FOO."
(format nil foo 'foo 'bar) => "Items: FOO and BAR."
(format nil foo 'foo 'bar 'baz) => "Items: FOO, BAR, and BAZ."
(format nil foo 'foo 'bar 'baz 'quux) => "Items: FOO, BAR, BAZ, and QUUX."
The directives for recursion takes a format string and a list, calls `format` on the string using the list as the list of arguments and then inserts the result into the current output. This is much less verbose than calling `snprintf` to create a temporary string and then insertimg it into the current output with %s. https://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/22_cg...>
There is also a directives for calling a Lisp function to print the next argument, and the standard library includes several functions intended to be called from within a format string. https://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/22_ce...>