sswatson

8 ms·

1.
by sswatson 4mo ago
I’ve never used magit but my impression is that it’s similar to jj in the sense that it smooths out git’s rough edges in an elegant way and in the sense that it’s hard to properly appreciate without using it. That being said, I also much pr
2.
by sswatson 4mo ago
Not trying to tell you how to live your life, obviously, but I think “changes for the sake of changes” overstates it. For example, `jj undo` is a pure ergonomics win. It’s been said a million times but it is really true that jujutsu’s appea
3.
by sswatson 4mo ago
What does jjui have on lazyjj? Sincere question; I tried it, and I want to get it, and so far I don’t.
4.
by sswatson 4mo ago
Good on you for spelling out this reasoning, but it is manifestly unsound. For a wide variety of values of X, people a few years ago had no reason to expect that LLMs would be capable of X. Yet here we are.
5.
by sswatson 4mo ago
I don't agree. Many 3b1b videos provide a rigorous mathematical argument in the usual sense (i.e., they don't contain every conceivable detail — math papers don't do that either — but the gap from what is explained to rigorou
6.
by sswatson 5mo ago
You're conflating two points: (1) learning math requires work, not just watching videos, and (2) learning math requires proofs, not just intuition and analogies. Both are true but only the first is pertinent, because 3b1b videos typica
7.
by sswatson 5mo ago
I find this kind of advice to be a more scathing indictment of an interface than a critic could ever muster: asking users to forego available functionality so that some sense of order can be imposed.
8.
by sswatson 5mo ago
No system is perfect, but there's nothing wrong with `jj edit` and `jj new`. Both commands are completely reasonable and do what you think they would do.
9.
by sswatson 8mo ago
The linked article makes a specific carveout for Java, on the grounds that its SufficientlySmartCompiler is real, not hypothetical.
10.
by sswatson 8mo ago
It’s well known and also wrong. Delta’s airplanes also require a great deal of maintenance, and I’m sure they strive to have no more than are necessary for their objectives. But if you talk to one of Delta’s accountants, they will be happy
11.
by sswatson 9mo ago
Neither of those assertions means anything. For many years, people have been using them to make confident predictions about what AI systems will never be able to accomplish. Those predictions are routinely falsified within months. Of course
12.
by sswatson 9mo ago
1. Because no one knows how to do it. 2. Consider (a) a tool that can apply precise methods when they exist, and (b) a tool that can do that and can also imperfectly solve problems that lack precise solutions. Which is more powerful?
13.
by sswatson 10mo ago
The author has exclusive claim to their own aesthetic sensibilities, of course, but the language in the piece suggests some degree of universality. Whereas in fact, effectively no one who is knowledgeable about math would share the view tha
14.
by sswatson 10mo ago
As the name indicates, a demo is used for demonstration purposes. A personal tool is not a demo. I've seen a handful of folks assert this definition, and it seems like a very strange idea to me. But whatever. Implicit in your claim abo
15.
by sswatson 11mo ago
Recently I've used Claude Code to build a couple TUIs that I've wanted for a long time but couldn't justify the time investment to write myself. My experience is that I think of a new feature I want, I take a minute or so to
16.
by sswatson 11mo ago
In this case, overuse of re-assigning is the sloppy thing to do, and immutability by default is the craftsman's move. Reducing your program's memory footprint by re-assigning variables all the time is a false economy.
17.
by sswatson 11mo ago
In the vast majority of cases, developer ergonomics are much more important than freeing memory a little earlier. In other scenarios, e.g., when dealing with large data frames, the memory management argument carries more weight. Though even
18.
by sswatson 11mo ago
This is a textbook example of damning with faint praise. If your VCS's interface is so bad that it motivates you to scale back your use of any nontrivial version-control features and instead just content yourself with rudimentary file
19.
by sswatson 1y ago
The author lists that as a separate benefit, though. My interpretation is that jj makes certain useful operations convenient to use that would be so complex in git as to be completely impractical. Something like jj undo would be a simple ex
20.
by sswatson 1y ago
> but others have been pretty much fawning… This is not relevant. An observer who deceives for purposes of “balancing” other perceived deceptions is as untrustworthy and objectionable as one who deceives for other reasons.
21.
by sswatson 1y ago
The idea is thoroughly absurd. Our days are filled with unpaid labor. Getting dressed in the morning, collecting the items you want to buy in a grocery store, making your bookings for a vacation, giving your spouse feedback on their wardrob
22.
by sswatson 1y ago
My first thought as well. I wonder what Kobo will do in response to this announcement.
23.
by sswatson 1y ago
Yes. I’m happy to do whatever makes the most sense in any given situation. I have never in my life thought to myself “I could easily help solve this problem and make everyone better off, but I will refuse because problem-solving is work and
24.
by sswatson 1y ago
No, all governments have the authority to tell people what to do. Some governments operate within a legal framework that limits that authority in many ways, but if an organization has no authority over the people who live in a given area th
25.
by sswatson 1y ago
The phrase "solely one of birthright" suggests the diminishment of the citizenship of certain people. That is not how citizenship works: no one is less of a citizen than anyone else. The most objectionable part here — by far — is
26.
by sswatson 1y ago
I disagree with the idea that data must be accompanied by a guarantee of accuracy to be used or published. That standard would rule out almost all datasets for which the underlying data is not programmatically generated. My guess is that th
27.
by sswatson 1y ago
All of these things can be true at the same time: 1. LLMs have been massively overhyped, including by some of the major players. 2. LLMs have significant problems and limitations. 3. LLMs can do some incredibly impressive things and can be
28.
by sswatson 2y ago
They’re only machine-readable in the very weak sense that all computer files are machine-readable.
29.
by sswatson 2y ago
If I recall correctly, uv is doing some ninja stuff like guessing the part of the relevant file that is likely to contain the metadata it needs and then doing a range request to avoid downloading the whole file.
30.
by sswatson 2y ago
Not if the data they'll collect in the process is going to be valuable for the training effort.

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