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Always bet on text (2014)

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Re: Always bet on text (2014)

#31

Post by Ferret7446 »

Text is just bytes, and bytes are just text. I assume this is talking about human readable ASCII specifically.

I think the obsession with text comes down to two factors: conflating binary data with closed standards and poor tooling support. Text implies a baseline level of acceptable mediocrity for both. Consider a CSV file will millions of base64 encoded columns and no column labels. That would really not be any friendlier than a binary file with a openly documented format and suitable editing tool, e.g. sqlite.

Maybe a lack of fundamental technical skills is another culprit, but binary files really aren't that scary.

Re: Always bet on text (2014)

#32

Post by handfuloflight »

socketcluster wrote: post #9

I've also become something of a text maximalist. It is the natural meeting point in human-machine communication. The optimal balance of efficiency, flexibility and transparency. You can store everything as a string; base64 for binary, JSON for data, HTML for layout, CSS for styling, SQL for queries... Nothing gets closer to the mythical silver-bullet that developers have been chasing since the birth of the industry.…

I marvel at the constraint and freedom of the string.

Re: Always bet on text (2014)

#33

Post by tombert »

didip wrote: post #30

I agree. As a simple exercise, look at all software tools that’s GUI only. They become a large walled garden unable to be penetrated by LLM. Tools that are mostly text or have text interfaces? Greatly improved by LLM. So all of those rich multimedia and their players/editors really need to add text representations.

People make fun of it, but I think the fact that Unixey stuff can use tools that have existed since the 70's [1] can be attributed to the fact that they're text based. Every OS has its own philosophy on how to do GUI stuff and as such GUI programs have to do a lot of bullshit to migrate, but every OS can handle text in one form or another.

When I first started using Linux I used to make fun of people who were stuck on the command line, but now pretty much everything I do is a command line program (using NeoVim and tmux).

[1] Yes, obviously with updates but the point more or less still stands.

Re: Always bet on text (2014)

#34

Post by awesome_dude »

mr_toad wrote: post #27
awesome_dude wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Audio is horrible (for me) for information transfer - reading (90% of the time) is where it's at Not sure why that is either - because I look at people extolling the virtues of podcasts, saying that they are able to multi task (eg. driving, walking, eat dinner), and still hear the message - which leaves me aghast

Podcasts are fine for entertainment, great for tuning out people or the traffic. I don’t expect to absorb information quickly, but try reading anything serious on the train when some guy is non-stop on his phone using his outside voice.

Ha! I used to

I had a 53 minute (each way) commute on the train, and I found it perfect for reading papers or learning skills - I was always amazed that the background noise would disappear and I could get lost in the text

Best study time ever.

Re: Always bet on text (2014)

#35

Post by awesome_dude »

textnotalwabest wrote: post #18

Text is not the best medium for the following situations: - I want to learn how to climb rock walls - I want to learn how to throw a baseball - I want to learn how to do public speaking - I want to learn how to play piano - I want to make a fire in the woods - I want to understand the emotional impact of war - I want to be involved in my child's life

Why did you create an account just to post that?

In text format no less

Re: Always bet on text (2014)

#36

Post by vacuity »

I was going to disagree, along the lines of the people bringing up Bret Victor or other modes of communication and learning, but I have long accepted that the written word has been one of the largest boons for learning in human history, so I guess I agree. Still, it'll be an interesting and worthwhile challenge to make a better medium with modern technology.

Re: Always bet on text (2014)

#37

Post by yegle »

socketcluster wrote: post #9

I've also become something of a text maximalist. It is the natural meeting point in human-machine communication. The optimal balance of efficiency, flexibility and transparency. You can store everything as a string; base64 for binary, JSON for data, HTML for layout, CSS for styling, SQL for queries... Nothing gets closer to the mythical silver-bullet that developers have been chasing since the birth of the industry.…

As someone who's daily job is to move protobuf messages around, I don't think protobuf is a good example to support your point :-)

AFAIKT, binary format of a protobuf message is strictly to provide a strong forward/backward compatibility guarantee. If it's not for that, the text proto format and even the jaon format are both versatile, and commonly used as configuration language (i.e. when humans need to interact with the file).

Re: Always bet on text (2014)

#38

Post by scosman »

This also leads to the unreasonable effectiveness of LLMs. The models are good because they have thousands of years of humans trying to capture every idea as text. Engineering, math, news, literature, and even art/craftmanship. You name it, we wrote it down.

Our image models got good when we started making shared image and text embedding spaces. A picture is worth 1000 words, but 1000 words about millions of images are what allowed us to teach computers to see.

Re: Always bet on text (2014)

#40

Post by handfuloflight »

socketcluster wrote: post #11

With LLMs, the text format should be more popular than ever, yet we still see people pushing binary protocols like ProtoBuf for a measly 20% bandwidth advantage which is lost after GZIPing the equivalent JSON... Or a 30% CPU advantage on the serialization aspect which becomes like a 1% advantage once you consider the cost of deserialization in the context of everything else that's going on in the system which uses fa…

What are your thoughts on https://github.com/fastserial/lite3?
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