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whitfieldsdad

30 karma · joined June 8, 2023

Ask HN: are there auto-completes for LLM prompts yet?
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whitfieldsdad··on Robert Munsch, Canadian children's author, approved for assistance in dying
As a Canadian this seems great - if someone wants to go, they should be allowed to go.

One of my neighbours ended their life through MAiD a few years ago after becoming fully paralyzed due to ALS - and I can see why - all they could do was watch TV all day - they couldn't even wipe their own butt for like, a year.

Another one of my neighbours was on the fence for a long time, but then after their dementia progressed too far they were no longer eligible and regretted waiting - as they had to wait to die of natural causes at that point.

MAiD is fine.

I think that MAiD is fine.

whitfieldsdad··on Mom jailed for letting 10-year-old walk alone to town
Yeah, the requirement for 24/7 surveillance to avoid being sent to a foster home - or something - kinda sucks
whitfieldsdad··on Mom jailed for letting 10-year-old walk alone to town
Thankfully, it sounds like the child's mother won't be required to go to prison for a year - as long as she agrees to always have someone physically watch her son, and additionally surveil her son 24/7 using an app installed on their phone.

I wonder how many people these days think that they're going too light on her, and are thirsting for stricter penalties?

whitfieldsdad··on Mom jailed for letting 10-year-old walk alone to town
Maybe, but, I've never heard of any cases like this.

Granted, I'm only 32, have only lived in Canada for 32 years, and haven't checked to see how common it is for parents to be sent to prison for things like this.

whitfieldsdad··on The number of CS grads who don't even know basic Git commands is astounding
Obviously, yes.

It's worth noting that the person who said that they'd only hire junior developers who know git isn't the President of the United States or anything, and can absolutely make their own hiring decisions.

It's perfectly reasonable to make your own hiring decisions, IMO, and asking people to know git, or the fundamentals of version control seems totally fair, IMO.

If people are willing to spend a few weeks solving leetcode problems, or answering mock interview questions, I feel like they could absolutely spend 15-30 minutes learning how to use git.

whitfieldsdad··on The number of CS grads who don't even know basic Git commands is astounding
This is the nuance that people aren't able to understand anymore - something happened when the Internet came out, and we've never been the same.

The OP was just surprised that people don't know git, and indicated that he wouldn't hire a junior engineer who didn't know git, but, there's very likely nuance to this, and I don't think that one person's personal preference necessarily needs to be discussed and debated extensively on Twitter, HackerNews, etc.

In my opinion, git is a very popular tool, and lots, and lots of people use it - and it only takes 15-30 minutes to learn the basics - for this reason, I think that it is fair to be surprised that someone doesn't know it.

whitfieldsdad··on The number of CS grads who don't even know basic Git commands is astounding
I think that this would be a great idea, and could also help combat students not doing anything in group projects.

I lone wolfed most of my group projects in college, and don't have any regrets, but, of the projects that I didn't loan wolf, most people didn't write a single line of code, or only contributed in relatively inconsequential ways.

I think that adopting distributed version control systems in higher education would be mostly good.

whitfieldsdad··on The number of CS grads who don't even know basic Git commands is astounding
This has proven to be an extremely controversial topic, but, in my opinion, it's perfectly okay to use git in college or university, and we should encourage, not discourage people from using technologies like distributed version control software.

You could substitute git with WhatsApp, Google Drive, or e-mail for small projects, and get by just fine, but, why not spend 15 minutes learning the basics of git?

As far as I know, the use of git and other distributed version control software is very popular, and we don't see the same hesitation when adopting technologies like Google Docs and its collaborative editing features in college or university.

Is distributed version control software truly a controversial technology?

If distributed version control software is not suitable for use in college and university, what would be a more appropriate technology?

whitfieldsdad··on Ask HN: Where can I ask for code reviews online without being roasted for fun?
TIL: all code posted for review on https://codereview.stackexchange.com/ has to be compilable.

I noted that a function wasn't available in the snippet in my post, but 2 users still voted to remove the question without any feedback, person-to-person communication, etc., because it broke the rules.

While I'm a rule-breaker, and the problem, maybe GPT4 is where to go for code reviews.

whitfieldsdad··on Ask HN: Where can I ask for code reviews online without being roasted for fun?
I was moreso thinking of review comments like "this is the worst code I've ever seen", "give up now", "ignoring the hundreds of errors, this looks fine", Dreamworks villain laughter, etc.
whitfieldsdad··on Ask HN: Where can I ask for code reviews online without being roasted for fun?
I get what you mean, and agree with the idea of Just Building Things, but, I also want to make sure that I'm building things "the right way" if that makes sense.

For example, I'm not new to programming, but am new to Go and have been struggling to figure out how to model messages as structs using composition rather than inheritance.

As one of, if not the most senior developer in the team that I work on, I have nobody to ask questions to, and even though the answers are out there, on the Internet, I'm still confused by them, which, IMO isn't super anomalous, but, still leaves me in a place where I'm yearning for feedback.

whitfieldsdad··on Ask HN: What's the closest thing to Reddit for software developers?
As a generalist, it's a mind-numbing amount of work in 2023
whitfieldsdad··on Ask HN: What's the closest thing to Reddit for software developers?
And use their Slack, so, Slack.
whitfieldsdad··on Ask HN: Where can you safely ask beginner-level questions online in 2023?
Thanks for the insights!
whitfieldsdad··on Ask HN: Where can you safely ask beginner-level questions online in 2023?
Yeah, I get that, I just didn't realize that being a beginner in a particular field of study was a bad thing or something to be frowned upon.

If there's a trope about people new to a particular field being overconfident in what they know, maybe it's just human nature rather than a fatal character flaw, or sign of immaturity.

(i.e. since you'll likely have the same sense of overconfidence the next time you try something new, or work towards mastering a particular skill rather than that overconfidence only ever coming up once or twice in your entire life)

whitfieldsdad··on Ask HN: Where can you safely ask beginner-level questions online in 2023?
Ah, gotcha, I didn't realize that sophomore was an insult - I just thought it meant you were a student
whitfieldsdad··on Ask HN: Where can you safely ask beginner-level questions online in 2023?
I don't really understand the meaning of sophomoric discussion, but, is it basically being open to, and discussing thoughts, ideas, concepts, etc., that you're not an expert in?

Isn't talking about, and exploring things that you're not an expert in, good, rather than bad, as that's how you learn new things?

whitfieldsdad··on Microsoft will assume liability for legal copyright risks of Copilot
Ah, gotcha - I assumed that if some document said you couldn't use something for some purpose and you decided to use it anyway it would be considered theft from the intellectual property owner.
whitfieldsdad··on Microsoft will assume liability for legal copyright risks of Copilot
I don't follow, don't encryption and compression algorithms carry out a very specific steps that isn't likely to show up accidentally by happenstance?

(e.g. it'd be hard to accidentally invent Rijndael with nothing but next best token predictions, but might be possible to duplicate someone's code for inverting a binary tree or encrypting a file)

whitfieldsdad··on Microsoft will assume liability for legal copyright risks of Copilot
I've received a lot of flak for this answer in other communities, but, if a statistical model is producing purely derivative works using a mathematical model that's basically a next best token predictor, is it really "stealing"?

Is it "stealing" to have a working understanding of the next best token, or even simply the token that shows up the most often (e.g. on GitHub)?

I'm sure that the argument could be made that all AI should be illegal as all ideas worth having have already been had, and all text worth writing has already been written, but, where would that leave us?

(e.g. your function for converting a string from uppercase to lowercase will probably look like a function that someone else on Earth has written, and the same goes for your error handling code, your state of the art technique for centering a div, etc.)

whitfieldsdad··on Ask HN: Where can you safely ask beginner-level questions online in 2023?
I've noticed this phenomenon as well - all knowledge that has ever been documented is considered common knowledge these days, but, most people don't have a working understanding of it.

It's sort of like the dirty little secret of the 21st century - knowledge is power - therefore you must know everything to be powerful - therefore, by faking advanced level knowledge of all things is the shortest route to becoming all-powerful.

So, we have all of these people who get upset by beginners because they're the weakest, least powerful people - even if we're only powerful because we've lied about the things we have a working knowledge about (e.g. quantum physics, how vaccines work, the pros and cons of wearing a skin-tight latex bodysuit vs. a t-shirt and jeans while riding your bicycle to the grocery store to get milk because it makes you 5% faster).

whitfieldsdad··on Ask HN: Where can you safely ask beginner-level questions online in 2023?
Honestly, I probably ask ChatGPT 3-10 "stupid questions" a day.

Yesterday, I asked ChatGPT which file formats are most popular for storing knowledge graphs in flatfiles, and loved that I didn't have to spend the remainder of the afternoon apologizing for being as dumb as an apple or an egg.

I wonder if my main problem is that I don't know the level at which most people are at, or aim to be at before asking questions, since everyone experiences some level of hostility on the Internet, and surely people have a strategy for reducing how much hatemail they get on a given day.

Browsing Wikipedia works, and so does searching through GitHub for anchoring points of reference, but, I wish that there was an easier way - it'd be incredible if I could just, ask someone what my starting point should be, and where I should go from there - but, alas, this is the mark of a failed man.

whitfieldsdad··on Ask HN: Why do companies typically provide APIs but not clients or specs?
I was moreso just saying that at least one reference implementation would be nice so I can see how they intended the product to be used, why they designed the API like they did, etc.
whitfieldsdad··on Ask HN: Why do companies typically provide APIs but not clients or specs?
Yeah, making a good SDK for every major language would be an absolutely Sisyphean task with negligible returns - it'd be great to have at least one solid reference implementation though.

e.g. a reference implementation in Ruby if they're a Ruby shop, a reference implementation in Java if they're a Java shop, etc.

I wonder if you can generate a "good enough" API client to start out with using say, OpenAPI and then tweak it to suit your needs?

Then again, maybe this is where something like gRPC would really shine compared to REST APIs - I'm not sure, but, it seems like an area that could be improved significantly.

Your startup sounds promising, and hopefully it helps to simplify things!

whitfieldsdad··on Ask HN: Why do companies typically provide APIs but not clients or specs?
That's fair, and in hindsight, I suppose it is a little silly to try to help customers use your platform as it was meant to be used rather than having them sort of guess how to use it...it'll generate revenue either way...
whitfieldsdad··on Ask HN: Why do companies typically provide APIs but not clients or specs?
Ah, yes - I forgot to mention that I was referring to REST APIs :(

I know that you can send HTTP requests in every language - I was moreso referring to say, a Python package that you could import into your project and use off the shelf without having to write one yourself over the course of weeks to months as you become more familiar with the vendor's API.

I suppose that it makes sense that vendors tend to only provide APIs rather than API clients since one client may use say, Ruby rather than Python...