The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. You can let the agent code and you review it, or vice versa. No different from being a team lead where you don’t write all the code, or even review each and every line of code, but you have a very firm grasp of the code base.
on the contrary, reviewing LLM code and human code is very different. LLMs don't learn. if a human makes a mistake i can teach them to avoid that mistake in the future. if an LLM makes a mistake, all i can do is fix it over and over again. the dynamics are fundamentally different. some people may prefer to work with a machine, but i don't, i prefer to work with humans.
for me this is similar to the difference of using FOSS vs closed source software. if there is a problem on my linux machine, i can potentially fix it, on windows or mac i just can't.
both closed source software and working with LLMs make me feel helpless. whereas using FOSS or working with humans is empowering.
i get that not everyone feels that way, and that's fine. for my part i'll just stay away from LLM generated code.
In theory, vibe coding and understanding don't have to be mutually exclusive, but in practice, I think that the people who have the discipline to actually maintain their understanding of a codebase are few. I've code reviewed things from people who claim they are reviewing what comes out of the LLM carefully, and talked to them about the code, and while they think they understand the code, they simply don't, which becomes abundantly clear when I try to explain the problems I find in the code.
Totally agree with this! Being "kindly honest" is way better than being "brutally honest". Being honest and direct is important of course. I have often found that delivering constructive criticism in the so-called sandwich manner often obfuscates the message, so delivering it directly is much better. However, being kind to the receiver of the feedback by having empathy for them and supporting them as they process that feedback will help land that message far more effectively than being "brutal" about it.
This hit a nerve as I am in the middle of developing a webapp for myself using NiceGUI.
I find CSS, especially its layout framework, pretty confusing and sometimes downright intimidating to work with. `inline`, `block`, `flex`, `grid` seem reasonable when you read about them. But when using it, especially within frameworks when flexboxes are nested within grids which are nested within flexboxes and so on, it becomes hard to reason about. And then you throw in media-queries in the mix and it becomes even more dense.
Lots of nostalgia in this thread. However, I recently started playing around with IBM's quantum computer cloud service and it has been by far the best experience compared to other players. Who knows, that might be their come back story!
Surprised not to see ghost in here. They have a paid managed version at https://ghost.org and it is fairly easy to set up with any of the public cloud providers. I have set mine up with Digital Ocean (https://ghost.org/docs/install/digitalocean/).
Cool, thanks for the response. Yes, I do find that the PyTorch tutorials on distributed training are a work-in-progress.
I was thinking of starting with a basic implementation of the original paper by Jeff Dean, et. al. on synchronized data parallelism, implement basic model parallelism, explain why async parallelism works, do a simple implementation of HOGWILD!, and finally do "hello world" training using existing distributed training systems like Horovod, Distributed PyTorch, RayLib, Microsoft DeepSpeed, etc.
"Hello world" examples already exist for all of those. Reproducing them is not very interesting. If you're willing to dive a little deeper, try to implement SyncBatchnorm: explain design choices, measure the performance impact, describe any bugs you had in your implementation. Such a case study would be very interesting to read, and would probably get you noticed.
Does anybody else think this is in response to Apple's privacy crackdown on third party tracking data? If you buy on Buy, then you are still first party for Google and they can still get your signals.
And given that a majority of "Ex-Google" engineers are males, where does that leave a woman (or any under-represented group) founder?
She is not asking for money "just because" she is a woman. She is asking for a fair chance. And we need to give folks from under-represented communities a more than fair chance to combat inherent selection bias.
> And given that a majority of "Ex-Google" engineers are males, where does that leave a woman (or any under-represented group) founder?
It leaves them as a statistical someone with an objectively poor resume.
If you want more women founded companies, you need more women engineers. If you want more women engineers, you need more women cs majors. If you want more women cs majors, you need more women interested in and excelling at math in high school.
It may not be 'fair' that the statistical woman has a 'worse' resume, nor is it 'fair' that the statistical rich kid has a 'better' one, but its asinine to address fairness at the narrow end of the funnel.
So, just leaving the issue unsolved for probably around 20 years or so and letting under-represented groups play catch-up.
There are a lot more meaningful and effective actions that can be implemented now, which would correct things in a shorter length of time. I do think that the 'pipeline' is the fundamental way to fix the issue -- but I think that the best way of creating that interest is to present those under-represented groups in our society now, rather than later.
Reading her email and responding, or downloading the app, would be some fair chances. There’s plenty of evidence in the article linked at the top of this page that that did not happen. Take a look.
It baffles me that people constantly make this low-effort "read the article" remark as if (A) it's not explicitly against the rules here, and (B) it's impossible for two people to read the same article and draw different conclusions from it.
But I digress. I can put myself in the shoes of a VC for a second and know that based on a quick glance at the app's website and app store page, I wouldn't invest in it either. It's unoriginal, unlikely to be profitable, and the reviews are suspicious at best. No need to download it to see that.
Not reading or responding isn't unfair. VCs get inundated with proposals like hers. I'm a white guy who used to do freelance work. I've sent out hundreds of personalized cold emails to businesses looking for work, and got responses to maybe 5 of them, all of which were negative or "we'll keep your information on file". Maybe my sales pitch sucks. Maybe my portfolio sucks. Or maybe they just weren't interested in what I was offering. Maybe that's the case for her, too. Where's the evidence that either of us were treated unfairly? I am not entitled to anyone's time or money and neither is she.
Have we reached the point where not responding to a cold email is an act of bigotry? I myself get inundated with messages from recruiters. I respond only to the tiny fraction that are actually interesting and relevant to my skillset. It never even occurred to me to respond or not based on the gender or race of the recruiter. Does that make me a bigot?
When you (the VC) say you want to help Black founders, and then do not respond to a Black founder while responding to a non-Black founder for the same product, then yeah, that is bigotry.
You did so much damage in this thread, and this comment is so ridiculously off topic, that I've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
Not only has that particular piece been debunked, shredded, put back together, debunked, shredded again, and (metaphorically) left in the dumpster, but it's totally irrelevant to this thread.
Interest in running a company or technology is not at issue. You have a bunch of founders in this thread with demonstrable (as in: they have founded companies) interest in doing these things, and they're having trouble getting over the line because of bias.
Perhaps the VCs they pitched to read the same paper, and jumped to the same conclusions you did. If so, that's super fucked up.
>Damore's memo was reasonable, accurate, and the criticism to it has been, like yours, entirely without substance.
The Wikipedia article on Damore's memo lists a number of substantive criticisms[0]. For convenience, I'll list them here:
This Vox article[1] gives a brief background of Damore's argument from biological essentialism. It references the general consensus that the premise (that cultural and sociological gender roles result from innate and immutable differences in gender biology and neurology) has been discredited[2,3], as well as a Stanford research paper[4] which concludes “Through a rather constructivist approach most studies show that no scientific experiment has proved the existence of systematic and/or significant biological sex differences in most cognitive functions.”
This BBC article[5] mentions a criticism by a cognitive scientist, This Intelligencer article[6] lists numerous criticisms and rebuttals by scientists, referencing this Quora article by an evolutionary scientist[7], and another criticism from studies of gender and STEM[8].
Now, that's as many as I've been willing to list because I'm now thoroughly bored of hunting down sources, but there are many others I haven't listed if you want to do the research yourself. Now granted, wikipedia also lists a number of counter-criticisms, but that alone doesn't render the criticism invalid, it merely demonstrates the existence of a controversy.
I'm leaving this comment here for future reference, and referring to it every time I notice someone bringing up the myth that Damore's memo is based on rock-solid, unassailable science, or that no "substantive" criticisms have or can been made.
Starting with the first critique in your list of citations, the Vox article - third paragraph:
> He uses primarily stereotyped misconceptions about men and women to argue that “gender gaps [do not always] imply sexism,” and declares that “discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech” is “misguided and biased” as well as “unfair, divisive, and bad for business.”
The question of stereotyping is addressed in the memo itself:
> I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can't have an honest discussion about this,then we can never truly solve the problem.
Can you point to where in Damore's memo he relies on stereotyped misconceptions? I've read it many times and I didn't see anything fitting that characterization.
No. You cannot pepper a thread with demands for people to source their arguments and then confront a wall of sources with your own ad hoc thoughts. Source your rebuttals comparably. You set the bar, now clear it yourself.
I haven't demanded anything of anyone, but for some reason you're telling me what I cannot do. Are you a moderator?
Where people have made scientific claims I've asked them for the source of their information. This is a reasonable question - not a "demand".
When someone replies to you citing another argument, it's reasonable to read that argument and to point out any flaws in it if you see them. That's what I did here. Was I not supposed to read it?
My argument doesn't rely on any citation other than Damore's memo itself, since it is the topic of discussion. I've already provided a link to that but here it is again for convenience: [1]
I followed the witch hunt against Damore very closely both at the time and since.
Without exception, every single critique I've read of Damore's memo is either a straw man, ad hominem, or a combination of both.
If you know of any counterexamples I'm happy to review them, but please pick the strongest argument rather than a long list[2]
Yeah, there is a real "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" vibe to the whole woke thing. Creeps me out.
Hope I'm not speaking too soon, but it seems like actual liberals on the left are finally waking up to this Kafkaesque ideology they've been making excuses for [1]
> She is not asking for money "just because" she is a woman.
That's why I asked to see the track record. You won't get anywhere in this business without a track record. Moreover, if you do have a track record being a woman is an advantage these days, not a disadvantage. There are a lot of VCs chomping at the bit to invest into women- and minority-led startups. But they won't give you money if they don't have some degree of certainty that you can do what you're promising to do.
Even if her business idea was bad, or her app didn't have traction, or her LI profile was not impressive enough, she deserved, at the very least, the following:
* Access to VCs, she had to use her husband's email to get access.
* Some constructive and personalized feedback. This does not have to be very detailed, a couple of no-BS sentences will do the trick.
I get that VCs are too busy to respond to each and every email they get, but they, and every one of us in the tech sector who is in a position to do so, needs to walk the extra mile to pull in people from under-represented communities who are trying to get in.
Its just a game engine without any IDE. So the typical workflow would be to build your assets and scene in Blender (or Maya, etc.) and then code up the game mechanics in Python or C++. I am tinkering with it for non-gaming (Reinforcement Learning) use cases and I was curious what game devs think of it.
Now there's a name I haven't heard in a very long time... I'm not in game dev right now, though, so grain of salt and stuff. But I did play around with Panda a long time ago, and thought it was fine for getting some 3D stuff going quickly without dealing with the headaches of OpenGL. Similar to PyGame but for 3D. It's neat that it's still seeing development.
Besides the old Pirates of the Caribbean game, which I can't even find mentioned on their site anymore, have there been any commercial games developed with it? I was always under the impression that it was primarily targeted towards CMU students in their game design curriculum. (DigiPen, a school most known for game programming, has in its main degree program students building their own engines from scratch, but there are at least 3 in-house engines that have been developed over the years meant for freshmen and game design students.)
I tend to treat the "commercial use" barrier as the key one to initially evaluate "niche" engines. Like, Ogre3D is fairly "niche" too, but it's been used in many commercial games. That says nothing directly about the relative quality, but it does imply some good things if people were willing to risk a business product on it.
Personally I'd consider Panda again for a game jam or as you mentioned a non-game-but-3D-needing thing, but where for both I'm also expecting to use Python. But I'd want to check out Python bindings to Ogre and whatever else is out there now these days too. (Godot has been top of my "if I ever want to just make a game and not spend time in the weeds doing things from scratch in a non-mainstream language, use this" tools.)
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