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

No Hello

nohello.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–256 of 256 posts

Re: No Hello

#251

Post by hombre_fatal »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #112
hombre_fatal wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get what this achieves since the whole reason they sent you "hello" is that they want a TCP handshake before they get on with it. So sending hello back just acks the message and they will proceed which is what they wanted. The annoyance in TFA is that you have to do the handshake at all.

Actually, when you put it like that, sending 'hello' back might be the best thing you could do. They sent you a SYN, you send back and ACK, then the real conversation can begin. I suddenly no longer agree with TFA. This makes way more sense to me in this light.

Right, but the problem is that with async communication, you don't need a synchronous ack handshake.

Instead you can pipeline both messages: `[hello][are you coming to lunch with us?]`, and that's more convenient and efficient for the receiver and sender.

The problem that TFA is referring to is that context switching is very expensive for the receiver, so without pipelining, the receiver pays a huge cost just to send back the ack and then again to finally reply to the payload once it is sent. The receiver is asking that you send all messages; it prefers to buffer them.

Re: No Hello

#252

Post by cxr »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #249
cxr wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is such a ridiculously cynical interpretation. no u > Someone doing something that you consider outdated or inefficient does not imply that he is malicious. The absence of malice does not erase the harmful effects.

You specifically attributed malice and I'm responding to that. As to these supposed harmful effects. If you find the most basic of social pleasantries to be such an unmanageable burden then I'm likely better off not associating with you. Do you get angry at people who greet you as you walk by on the street? Navigating that interaction similarly demands some small part of your attention after all, however brief it mig…

> You specifically attributed malice

O RLY? Wanna give that one another shot, scooter?

Re: No Hello

#253

Post by matt_kantor »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #112
hombre_fatal wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get what this achieves since the whole reason they sent you "hello" is that they want a TCP handshake before they get on with it. So sending hello back just acks the message and they will proceed which is what they wanted. The annoyance in TFA is that you have to do the handshake at all.

Actually, when you put it like that, sending 'hello' back might be the best thing you could do. They sent you a SYN, you send back and ACK, then the real conversation can begin. I suddenly no longer agree with TFA. This makes way more sense to me in this light.

The problem is that a lone "hi" isn't universally used that way, and doesn't provide enough detail even when it is. I have no problem with messages like "Hi, are you free for a quick chat? I'll be around for the next 20 minutes."

Re: No Hello

#254

Post by CRConrad »

ninalanyon wrote: post #247
hanche wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could have sworn it was Asimov, but now I’m not so sure. As I remember it, the problem was communication with astronauts in the outer reaches of the solar system.

Now you have me wondering too. I'm still inclined to think it was Clarke because he was much more concerned with scientific and technical plausibility. But now I'll have to dig into it to find out for sure.

A) Did you find anything? I would also have bet Asimov. (The "slightly sexist" point also speaks for that, IMO; I think Clarke was less so.)

B) Á propos another comment[1] by you, too old to reply to now[2]: Betcha you meant Gustavsberg, not "Gustavsen". They're Swedish, BTW, not Norwegian.

___

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44012715

[2]: Yeah, I admit: That's why I came here. But, hey, I found a discussion about two of the Grand Old Three!

Re: No Hello

#255

Post by ninalanyon »

CRConrad wrote: post #254
ninalanyon wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you have me wondering too. I'm still inclined to think it was Clarke because he was much more concerned with scientific and technical plausibility. But now I'll have to dig into it to find out for sure.

A) Did you find anything? I would also have bet Asimov. (The "slightly sexist" point also speaks for that, IMO; I think Clarke was less so.) B) Á propos another comment[1] by you, too old to reply to now[2]: Betcha you meant Gustavs berg, not "Gustavsen". They're Swedish, BTW, not Norwegian. ___ [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44012715 [2]: Yeah, I admit: That's why I came here. But, hey, I found a discussi…

Of course you are quite right about the loo. In my defence I was unable to look at it to check as I'm out of the country on holiday. :-)

I have been remiss in searching for evidence about the Clarke vs Asimov question. Perhaps I'll try delegating it to ChatGPT.

I don't think that it was sexist in a pejorative anti-woman sense, in my (possibly faulty of course) memory it was said approvingly that women had solved a problem that men were struggling with.

Re: No Hello

#256

Post by ninalanyon »

CRConrad wrote: post #254
ninalanyon wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you have me wondering too. I'm still inclined to think it was Clarke because he was much more concerned with scientific and technical plausibility. But now I'll have to dig into it to find out for sure.

A) Did you find anything? I would also have bet Asimov. (The "slightly sexist" point also speaks for that, IMO; I think Clarke was less so.) B) Á propos another comment[1] by you, too old to reply to now[2]: Betcha you meant Gustavs berg, not "Gustavsen". They're Swedish, BTW, not Norwegian. ___ [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44012715 [2]: Yeah, I admit: That's why I came here. But, hey, I found a discussi…

I was wrong, not an infrequent occurrence. It was Asimov, as others suggested:

Here's the ChatGPT question and answer:

Which SF author wrote a story in which communication speed over astronomical distances was made faster by sending messages continually instead of waiting for a reply? In the story it was pointed out that this is how women exchange news on the telephone.

ChatGPT said:

The story you're thinking of is “My Son, the Physicist” by Isaac Asimov (1962). In it, a communications engineer struggles with the long delays of radio messages to Pluto (about 12 hours one way). His mother suggests what women do on the telephone: “Just keep talking”—transmit continuously rather than wait for a reply—effectively creating a live conversation despite the latency en.wikipedia.org+1tvtropes.org+1 .

This clever idea highlights a real aspect of human communication—especially on the phone—where continuous exchange helps bridge delays, and adapts it to an interplanetary scale. So yes, Asimov used that domestic analogy to demonstrate a practical solution to astronomical message delays.

Post reply on HN