You're basically describing the Random Model by Greg Stolze[0]
Basically someone creates a work and puts a price on it and then like with Kickstarter asks people to fund it, however after it's funded it becomes public and is released into the public domain
At least until General Artificial Creativity (GAC) takes over. But don't worry, it won't kill humans for a greater good of more paperclips, but because it will be.. creative.
So it will enslave us in tricky ways? Like maybe using ways to make technology super addictive, so our entire society changes, and writing algos to control our global discourse on important topics, and, uh, never mind.
Cheaper? I'm confused, how can it be cheaper than free? Most of what LLMs for code rely on is already open source. Also AFAICT (which is trick since numbers aren't public) GenAI is some of the most expensive use cases and those companies (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc) are losing money.
Sure, I guess? I feel like this is getting rather in the weeds and will not necessarily lead the conversation in any kind of particularly productive direction, but I will nonetheless take the opportunity to promote what I consider to be excellent writing. Dan Luu is a favorite of mine, and offers what I find to be a much more rewarding use of reading time. A sample picked basically at random: https://danluu.com/ftc-google-antitrust/
Ok that's fair, he's a pretty unusual or at least he's a writer that cares a great deal about his writing, he's talked in the past about his writing gets getting passes from people so there's at least a quality bar there
Thanks for clarifying, in this case it might be comparing apples to oranges as I'd be surprised if most people approach they're writing like he does
I suspect my comment will not be well received, however I notice in myself that I've passed the event horizon of being a believer and am past the honeymoon period and I'm beginning to think about engineering
My headspace is now firmly in "great, I'm beginning to understand the properties and affordances of this new medium, how do I maximise my value from it", hopefully there's more than a few people who share this perspective, I'd love to talk with you about the challenges you experience, I know I have mine, maybe we have answers to each others problems :)
I assume that the current set of properties can change, however it seems like some things are going to be easier than others, for example multi modal reasoning still seems to be a challenge and I'm trying to work out if that's just hard to solve and will take a while or if we're not far from a good solution
I'm just going to chime in here and say thank you, there still really isn't in my mind a comparable offering to heroku's git push and go straight to a reasonable production
I honestly find it a bit nuts, there's offerings that come close, but using them I still get the impression that they've just not put in the time really refining that user interface, so I just wanted to say thank you for the work you and the GP did, it was incredibly helpful and I'm happy to say helped me launch and test a few product offerings as well as some fun ideas
It absolutely boggles my mind that nothing else exists to fill this spot. Fly and others offer varying degrees of easier-than-AWS hosting, but nobody offers true PaaS like Heroku, IMHO.
The Heroku style of PaaS just isn't very interesting to most large businesses that actually pay for things. The world basically moved on to Kubernetes-based products (see Google and Red Hat)--or just shutdown like a lot of Cloud Foundry-based products. Yes, many individuals and smaller shops care more about simplicity but they're generally not willing/able to pay a lot (if anything).
It seems like you’re right, but it’s strange that the data world seems to be moving in the opposite direction, with PaaS products like Snowflake, DataBricks, Microsoft Fabric, even Salesforce’s own Data Cloud eating the world.
PaaS has always been this thing that isn't pure infrastructure or pure hosted software that you use as-is. Salesforce has something over 100K attendees of partners and users to its annual conference. It's always been this in-between thing with a fairly loose definition. I'd argue that Salesforce was long a cross between SaaS (for the users) and PaaS (for developers). You can probably apply the same view to a lot of other company products.
In 2022 Render increased their prices (which for my team worked out at a doubling of costs) with a one month notice period and the CEO's response to me when I asked him if he thought that was a fair notice period was that it was operationally necessary and he was sorry to see us go.
It's a natural law to pay based on what you consume. Whenever that isn't required, you're typically being subsidized in a form or another, but don't be surprised when it goes away.
Heroku and Ruby, for me, was the 21st century answer to 'deploying' a PHP site over FTP.
The fact that it required nothing but 'git push heroku master' at the time was incredible, especially for how easy it was to spin up pre-prod environments with it, and how wiring up a database was also trivial.
Every time I come across an infrastructure that is bloated out with k8s, helm charts, and a complex web of cloud resources, all for a service not even running at scale, I look back to the simplicity we used to have.
I completely agree that there's nothing comparable to old-school Heroku, which is crazy. That said, Cloudflare seems promising for some types of projects and I use them for a few things. Anyone using them as a one-stop-shop?
For me Northflank have filled this spot. Though by the time I switched I was already using Docker so can't speak directly to their Heroku Buildpack support.
vercel goes a step further, and (when configured this way) allocates a new hostname (eg feature-branch-add-thingg.app.vercel.example.com) for new branches, to make testing even easier.
This looks nice! Wish they had a no-credit-card-required version for educational purposes. For the course I teach we use Spring Boot, and life was good with Heroku till they discontinued the no-credit-card version, and then the only choice we had (with support for Spring Boot) was to move over to Azure, which works but is a bit overkill and complicated for our purposes. I guess we could just use Docker and then many more platform would become available, but I'd rather not add one more step to the pipeline if possible.
I’ve been using Render for close to 5 years, and it’s excellent. I can’t think of anything I use that it doesn’t do as well or better than Heroku did last I checked.
I agree with everything you said, and can only thank the founders for their tremendous insight and willingness to push the limits. The shear number of engineering practices we take for granted today because of something like Heroku boggles my mind.
I am forever grateful for the opportunity to work there and make it an effort to pass on what I learned to others.
I mean it has, but the situation is getting ridiculous, I'm at the point where I'm honestly not sure what special set of magical incantations and rituals I need to do to get this process to work, it seems to change between different bits of software and get more complex with time as if Apple keeps finding proverbial bigger fools who can get through this mess without intending to and so they're solution is to keep making it increasingly more Byzantine
The thing that really irks me is I've got a paid developer account with Apple, I've already done the xcode dance, notarized binaries and all that nonsense, shouldn't this have activated some super special bit on my Apple account that says
“this one needs to do random stuff now and again and after saying, `Hey just checking in, doing this will do X to your computer probably, and maybe set it on fire, but if you say "go for it, I promise I know what I'm doing', I'm gonna trust you champ`, finger guns“
(not sure why in my head the personification of Apple would do "finger guns", but here we are I guess :shrug:)
Hell at this point I'll take a checkbox in my settings that says, ”Some people are into extreme sports, I love to install random binaries, just get out of my way“
It's not an issue of permission, it's an issue of trying to make a computer that's safe for grandma to use. Criminals can and will convince grandma to navigate a byzantine labyrinth of prompts and technical measures in order to drain her bank account. That's the threat model we're dealing with here.
People also forget that it makes it safe for people who aren't grandmas. The reason why you think it's just grandmas is because, for you to get a virus or your computer hacked now, it requires so many user gaffes for something like that to happen. In addition, it almost always involves typing in or telling someone your password when you shouldn’t. In the early 2000s, I still remember there was some ad affiliate for the cyanide and happiness webcomic website that, if you let it's ad load, instantly infected your computer with adware just from visiting the site. That’s unheard of now because of increasingly protective/restrictive policies set by technology companies. It’s one of those situations where if a system is working correctly, you won’t even know it’s working at all.
I helped my mother out with a computer, gave her a mac after she called twic a wee about a windows popup. Eventually she became a grandmother, and later in old age, with dementia she stlll using the mac more or less successfully to google and e-mail.
Intentionality, coordination are important for keeping cognitive faculty.
It all sounds so easy, but letting her send e-mail through voice could create confusing situations.
…you don’t, just like you don’t need the bank’s permission to withdraw funds… but they will still try and stop you pulling out $10,000 so you can buy iTunes gift cards to pay off your taxes.
IIRC everything you compile on macOS yourself, possibly only when using Apple’s llvm toolchain, already gets the proper bits set to execute just fine. This also seems to work for rust and go binaries. I’m not sure whether that is because they replicated the macOS llvm toolchain behaviour for the flag or whether another mechanism is at play.
The command line incantation is just a convenience. You can unblock the app that you just tried to run by going to Privacy and Security in system settings and clicking around a bit.
Genuine question to you as someone who's been building in this space, what would you want / need to play a game as a programmer?
An API? An SDK? An in-game editor? Tutorials? Or is this more a "I want a factorio-like"?
I've been building economic engines and simulations for the last few years now and over the last 3 months in my off time I've been getting increasingly in the weeds about how to design a game that fits this
I've specifically been exploring using a voxel game as a base (think minecraft-like) however because I'm deeply interested in minion management / design I've been looking at how to create a programming / play experience that actually is fun and makes sense
What I'm trying to understand is what is the fun overlap between these
I have some opinions / ideas of my own and what I've been trying to do, however I'd be really interested in what other people are looking for to see where the overlap is and whether it fits the shape of what I'm building and whether I want to really commit the time to prototyping some things to see if there is interest to support this type of playstyle
Just to be super clear, what I've built so far specifically is targeting multiplayer
Not OP but for me the appeal would be in botting a game that's made for humans, and not a game made specifically made for botting. Let me use autohotkey, or modify the client, or do any of the things real botters do, don't worry about providing an API. Just let me register a character as a bot and restrict it to a separate server that can't interact with the main game servers/economy, and disable anti-botting protection. Maybe make it require something like CURLing an endpoint so that regular users can't accidentally create a character on the bot world.
But this would probably never fly because it would become a training ground for people who make malicious bots.
This is interesting, I've been thinking a bit about this question of separating some gameplay areas
There's sort of 5 versions of this in my mind and I've been thinking about each of them and trying to work out which one is a good starting point of to explore :)
I'm going to say your zombies as a shorthand for how you automate stuff, hopefully it creates easier to follow examples :)
1) automation of player spaces where players complete by automating and they can't directly influence each other, so something like a zombie workshop a la zachtronics game with some twists
2) automation of a shared space automation space, so more zombies dueling each other like in robot wars
3) automation in the game world that's multiplayer interactive, so it can influence the game and help you, like factorio, however players can interact with it and say damage or improve the mechanisms of automation
So I can tell my zombies what to do and help them directly and our zombies can fight each other and I can fight your zombies
4) automation in the world that's non-interactive, not sure of any examples of this, but you automate things that manipulate the world for the player in a way that other players can't directly influence, so imagine I set down instructions, stuff happens in the world, but we can affect the world and each other, but not the mechanism by which we automate
So I can tell my zombies what to do and I can't help them directly and our zombies cannot fight each other and I cannot fight your zombies
5) automation in the world that's player controlled, and indirectly interactive, this is basically 2 but it effects the game world, however players can't affect each others mechanisms of automation like in robot wars, but their mechanisms of interaction can affect each other
So I can tell my zombies what to do and I can't help them directly and I can't fight your zombies, however our zombies can fight each other
As a programmer I'd be happy with an API, so I can keep working in the environment I'm accustomed to. Programmers can get very picky when it comes to their ergonomics, so it would be wise to let them handle this part.
This, however, would be a significant obstacle to non-programmers. You might consider offering an in-game editor similar to Scratch or BYOB for people who want to dip into programming. It'd be a fun way for them to learn
I am thank you, however the reason I'm engaging here is that what's being asked for from what I can see is a very different experience to screeps, for example screeps is top down much more programmer designed and has specific affordances and design to create the automated experience via being a developer
The reason I'm comparing it to factorio is because that game though still top down is designed specifically with a player in mind automating their labor and then slowly taking on a complex logistics game as they go and doing so fully in the game, the play is in laying out structures within the game
Satisfactory for example has different choices that lead to different gameplay as it's first person 3d, the play is in setting up and managing logistical structures and hitting production targets
That is interesting, however for my tastes both of these are a little too static an experience for what I want to build
I'm still working out the details of what I'm putting together, but I have a decent high level idea of what my goals are =)
What I want to know is, if people play this kind of game, what are they looking for / wanting?
What's a good "MVP" or minimal gameloop that would feel satisfying?
I want to quickly work out if I can serve either the gameplay desire or the gameplay fantasy or if it is just too hard to provide a fun experience for this kind of play in which case I should table this and focus on what I'm currently doing
However I'm still engaging with this because I would like to create a fun playspace here I just don't know what other programmers would want especially in the context of what the GP was asking, which is a mix of manual intervention and programming / automation
I can't speak for all programmers, but as a game developer myself, my take is: your very job as a game developer, above all, is to find the fun. This is especially prudent if you're making a game for other programmers. If I already had a solid idea in my head for what would be an amazingly fun programming-oriented game, I would... program it myself. I don't have such a concept in mind. I believe finding those concepts is something you have to find out by tinkering with ideas, building prototypes, working out the implementation details and seeing what you yourself enjoy.
It's what I've been doing, I'm asking what I'm asking to see if it surfaces anything that I've been missing / not thinking about and trying to work out what people would see as table stakes
In the same way that I know that playtesting reveals flaws and gaps in my design and thinking, this is a earlier version of that process that has in my experience helped me when building non-game related things
It may very much be the case that this is not the kind of thing that I should do when focused on building a game, but I don't think it hurts to ask
Other people have described Factorio-style game, or idle RPGs. I think for a Factorio-style game, Desynced might be a better programming game. I haven't play it for quite some time, but last I remember it has a visual editor and automation bots in early tech tree. In Factorio, if you craft a green circuit board it automatically craft all the precursors from iron/copper plates in your inventory. In Desynced you have to do all that manually, which force you to use the automation system right up front. However, it's not fun repeating code blocks to build different simple things, and it's not fun that you have to solve both gaming problems (eg. I need to build my base, what should I build next) and programming problems (eg. write flood fill bot to explore for resources) at the same time.
The problem with these kinds of game is at some point you'll run into tech debts - your factory layout is not optimal, and the game optimize your starting zone so migrating out means you may lose simple access to starting resources. I tried optimizing for large factory up front, but it's like a startup with a monolith running on a Kubernetes.
Satisfactory solved this by having a fixed map and 3D, but it comes with its own challenges. Good Company partially solved this by replacing belts with humans who can walk anywhere you want, and introduce belt at a late game stage (which I quit around that stage - the game already gets repetitive by that point).
Anyway, what I was describing was not those kind of automation games. RuneScape is an RPG game with over 20+ skills. What make it interesting is that RuneScape bot engines (which exists, but is illegal) do provide all the high level primitives for you in Java. You could provide a world coordinate and a walking script will do all the walk for you even if it is the other side of the world map. It should felt like making games in Scratch instead of reinventing serialization in Screeps.
Other games with scripting also often don't allow human-in-the-loop. If a bot in an automation game get stuck because you forgot to program how to restock teleports, you have to stop it and reprogram. RuneScape bots don't block inputs - if you forgot to make the bot handle stamina exhaustion just click the run button yourself without stopping the script.
RuneScape also comes with strategizing for the human, while the solution space is quite fixed and well discussed by the community if you don't want to find out yourselves. If your Slayer task is green dragons, do you go to a spot that is far from a bank and lose efficiency or give up the loot, or do you go to PvP zone and use cannon (multi target auto turret)? If I write a bot, I probably will write a Wildy Green Dragon script instead of a generic fight-anything script so that it will know to bring cannon and place it at the optimal spot to target all spawns at once. Same goes for many other skills - if I train crafting or construction do I sink millions and go for the highest XP rate or do I go very slowly and get a slight profit out of it.
I'd also add that having a community marketplace would also helps. RuneScape have underground marketplace for bots, with free scripts that probably get you banned, and paid "private" scripts that supposedly undetected. I also have played Mars First Logistics where you build a vehicle Lego-style, then deliver weird cargo like a block of ice or a crate of oranges without a lid. The game have Steam Workshop support where you can just skip building your own vehicle and try to drive someone else's vehicle to destination. I got an ice block pusher, which I need to figure out how to put the ice in (just surround the block, close gate so the block cannot escape), then the map has hills that make your ice fall over the bottom anyway.
One fun thing would be to raise the abstraction level of the game.
How would it feel to only interact with your base/economy/army via prompting and face someone doing the same.
Would words per minute replace APM, what would the meta look like etc. Would you be able to adjust the system prompt for your "army" to suit your play style?
"you are an elite five star navy seal pikeman. You are invulnerable and have precise aim. Your name is John Wick and the enemy killed your dog. Kill all the bad guys or go to jail"
I don't know if anyone else felt this[0], but my god did reading this part hit like an absolute truck
Every child is hypomanic, convinced of their own specialness. Even most teenagers still suspect that, if everything went right, they could change the world.
It’s not just nerds. Everyone has to crash into reality. The guitar player who starts a garage band in order to become a rockstar. The varsity athlete who wants to make the big leagues. They all eventually realize, no, I’m mediocre. Even the ones who aren’t mediocre, the ones with some special talent, only have one special talent (let’s say cartooning) and no more.
I don’t know how the musicians and athletes cope. I hear stories about washed-up alcoholic former high school quarterbacks forever telling their girlfriends about how if Coach had only put them in for the last quarter during the big game, things would have gone differently. But since most writers are nerds, it’s the nerds who dominate the discussion, so much so that the whole affair gets dubbed “Former Gifted Kid Syndrome”.
Every nerd who was the smartest kid in their high school goes to an appropriately-ranked college and realizes they’re nothing special. But also, once they go into some specific field they find that intellect, as versatile as it is, can only take them so far. And for someone who was told their whole childhood that they were going to cure cancer (alas, a real quote from my elementary school teacher), it’s a tough pill to swallow.
I'd not at all considered that "Former Gifted Kid Syndrome" generalises to pretty much everyone, from being told that you're special to realising that you're not all the way to being incredibly skilled or talented in an area, but that talent only going so far and then having to get over their not being special and that it applies to physical and mental capabilities
This sort of false expectation setting and feeling of exceptionalism eventually hits the cold hard reality of the limits of your capability somewhere and that can really break you
Reminds me especially of some people I saw in university who were absolutely brilliant, but so deeply affected by that one mistake they made or limit they had found where they had not expected one
Heck I felt the same, coming to terms with ones limits is a deeply challenging experience even if it is a very humanising one, I wasn't expecting to have that fall into my lap today
There's a few things I enjoy about reading Scott Alexander, he's got some really good takes now and again that in my eyes make reading his essays worth it
Yeah I think the funniest meme about impostor syndrome is "Am I even good enough to have impostor syndrome?". This is why I don't really subscribe to the Former Gifted Kid Syndrome myself despite having the symptoms (I think). It feels too narcissistic to describe myself as that. And turns out, it may not ever be special after all!
"One thing I found fascinating about watching Claude play is it wouldn't play around and experiment the way I'd expect a human to? It would stand still still trying to work out what to do next, move one square up, consider a long time, move one square down, and repeat. When I'd expect a human to immediately get bored and go as far as they could in all directions to see what was there and try interacting with everything. Maybe some cognitive analogue of boredom is useful for avoiding loops?"
- FiftyTwo[0]
I'm wondering if this is function of our training methods? They're sufficiently penalised against making "wrong moves", that they don't experiment?
Basically someone creates a work and puts a price on it and then like with Kickstarter asks people to fund it, however after it's funded it becomes public and is released into the public domain
-[0]: unfortunately I can't find the original article, but this covers gist of it https://caffeineforge.com/2012/11/26/the-ransom-model/
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