MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by TuringNYC | 2025-05-07 13:47:25+00:00
Controversial opinion - perhaps getting free tutoring from LLMs is a good thing?

Some thoughts:

0. Rich kids (not me) got expensive tutoring. Now that is available to everyone. How is this not great? Was it cheating when rich people paid for it also?

1. At my undergrad (Cornell) about 20% of TAs couldnt speak english (or did not want to.) Some of the group office hours would tangent off into other languages. This was terrible to those who only understood the standard language of the school (English.) ChatGPT is available to everyone.

3. You dont even need to pay exorbitant tuition to get the same level of support as everyone in the world, this is a great democratizer. Isnt this what people have always wanted?
by pona-a | 2025-05-07 13:47:28+00:00
> Every Linux distribution is different

A distribution is just a collection of software to handle common needs. Most are quite similar: systemd, coreutils, glibc, dbus, polkit, pipewire/pulseaudio, and a DE, typically GNOME or KDE. You'll expect to see them on Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Nix, Arch, or anywhere else except Void, Alpine, and Gentoo. The only meaningful difference is typically the package manager. We have more standardization in the Linux ecosystem then ever and equally as much bloat, both thanks to systemd.

> Surely it would be better to concentrate on fewer languages and make those more adaptable.

Programming languages are a combination of tools and notation. Different domains have different needs and preferences. We don't lament quantum physicists using bra-ket standard linear algebra notation. Unlike notation, there are material reasons to use one beyond clarity. Some languages support deeper static analysis, some prove complete theorems about your specification, some are small enough to embed, some are easier to extend, and some exist only within a narrow domain like constraint satisfaction. We can add macros or introspection to a language, but in doing so it will fall outside a domain that might value predictability or performance.

> Now take the huge numbers of programming languages out there

~> open langs.csv | filter {|x| $x.SOPercent > 0.25} | get Year | math median 1994

I took data from the 2024 Stack Overflow survey filtered for professional developers. The median release year for languages above 25% market share is 1994. The youngest serious language on the list is Swift, dated 2014. I don't think this is evidence of a growing number of programming languages.

See converted data below. The release year was augmented by o4-mini.

cat | cut -c3- | base64 -d | gunzip > langs.csv H4sIAAAAAAAAA0WS23KbMBCG7/cpOtPLuI0QiMMlxok9Ka5p8GSmuZOJapTKFiPACW9frTj08v+0 +2tPOb+ee34Wq9+Cm1V5KISpxLWzBJ74jZeVkU238pKErcj3kPqwO+7z+6wskfmWMZpAMXS1viLx kHhQ/sqtioJRHYdGTEaUeNRCP2aw5m19X9ZCKRsaJ0j9xH06f+cTH7KvNocQq2jkQXZ3h8H4aEvJ 8A+0ozaw2BVznhdTKPSHMKO7zQ+R+jFsNarEKQbPfesqQnePhvBDd0pekWAbJAkg7/ncJwkpbLjp lucQ0rYVl5MabEiAnoQF1vM0zHUQRqH8kH9cDs6CBBE8L4aBDy+y7bn6Ykchq3l8JKCwT495usZW xzR4WadLnh/B1mh9G7CXkfhQVlzxBdhm7CLdYCOnGWw3/1fgTO0AD6d3UXXyJr5ly1/UgwclP6VZ GrVkx9u/46IS4hBshGpquXTqxbCXldHTJdhUV4cXQi7bxoax2GkGmdLvvRFYqivNo/DUK8nn07Cf wqs8o2STfNSmMxzvi0UTKrWSb7Iblm4sS99wWbErkCTwYJS9bSThRB7dLbFJpY34XKogMRRGK32e TwrJIeMX13M4gUyfNALmtk0iyMzQdlwtVdhN/ZQXdI0n+SqaenCzHE18+Adx5nJHcgMAAA==
by antonyh | 2025-05-07 13:47:37+00:00
Here in London, we've already boycotted all the services except Dominoes. Poor practices, delivery to wrong addresses, cold food, worse quality compared to eat-out, and items often missing. It's quicker and better for me to hike up the hill and eat the same food than to deal with all the nonsense. Deliveroo was particularly bad. On top of that, it's restaurant prices for take away food. There's no advantage for me.
by sfn42 | 2025-05-07 13:47:46+00:00
> And the return isn't knowledge, but a diploma.

Do you believe that if you were given a diploma saying you passed med school with flying colors, you could just go be a doctor? Knowledge doesn't matter, it's all about that diploma?

Personally I think it's the exact opposite. The diploma doesn't matter, it's the knowledge you want. CS is a good example of that, plenty of great programmers with no degree. Diploma doesn't matter.

A lot of my peers slacked off in university, since then I've had an extremely easy time getting jobs whereas I know many of my peers have struggled. Most of my job applications have resulted in interviews and all of my interviews have resulted in job offers.

We all have the diploma, difference is knowledge. While my peers were struggling with their assignments I was already done, spending my time helping them and studying further. When they were finally done with the assignment they slacked off until the next thing they were required to do, while I was programming for fun, exploring new things, studying to prepare for every lecture etc.

University is the perfect environment for learning. You have lots of time, guidance, peers, resources etc. The fact that most people completely ignore that opportunity does not change its value. You get what you give.
by herpdyderp | 2025-05-07 13:49:15+00:00
I really wish there was viable replacement for Prettier with the same language support coverage. Every Prettier release introduces new breaking bugs for me, (I'm not talking about formatting updates I'm talking about formatting that never settles or outright crashes, etc.) and they never fix them. The plugin system for Prettier is also the worst I've ever seen, it's a nightmare to write a plugin.
by akudha | 2025-05-07 13:49:28+00:00
On one hand, it feels pointless for someone like me to be environmentally conscious - no matter how hard I try, I won't be able to pollute even one millionth of pollution that people like Zuck are going to cause. But I am living on this planet too, so it is my responsibility too, to be environmentally conscious (no matter how little practical effect it has).

In the end though, the only thing we can control (to some extent) is our own consumption...
by GenZ_RiseUp | 2025-05-07 13:49:49+00:00
ChatGPT hit the mainstream market in my final year of undergrad.

I was indeed guilty of using it for one assignment wholesale, and a sizable portion of my final practicum. However, in the article it mentions something lightly that teachers use to distinguish LLM work from human work, which also rubbed me the wrong way.

The arguments and counterarguments were given equal weighting, unless a command were to be given to the LLM to spit out partiality to one, whereby it is overwhelming in substance (if not in language) towards that thesis. Now, finalizing my grad school time, I've not used it, and have actively discouraged group members from using it, as I feel there is an advantage in searching painstakingly for new, obscure ideas - where LLMs tend to give the same advice for recommendations to anyone who sets them the same problem. I used to do the same thing with Bing, in lieu of Google search, for more 'quirky' ideas to implement in my arguments.

There, I believe, lies an advantage for the semi-industrious knowledge student. Travel not the beaten path, but the one that takes slightly more effort for proportionally greater rewards.
by phkahler | 2025-05-07 13:49:57+00:00
>> On the other, if they're cheating so much to get well-paying jobs will I --without cheating, relying on just the merits and knowledge from my career-- be competitive enough to find work in the future? Been wondering if anyone else feels this way.

You need to find a place that understand the difference between BS and real work. The next 5 years might bankrupt the ones that embrace the BS.
by DarkWiiPlayer | 2025-05-07 13:50:11+00:00
"need", as in can't do without, no. People survive without friends.

It's a miserable life though; for one, not everyone even has a romantic partner, and even for those who do, being 100% dependent on one person is incredibly toxic.

So yea, while being friendless might not kill you, realistically, adults need friends.

> In my life and in the life of people that I observe regularly, there is no real need for friends.

My condolences. I hope one day you find people that you can actually connect with and care about each other.
by lolinder | 2025-05-07 13:50:12+00:00
TFA does a poor job explaining what this means, but I found the original data and included it here [0]. The short version is that investment emissions are defined as the emissions spent in building up capital: machines and similar. The emissions caused by the direct manufacture of consumer goods are attributed to the consumers, not the investors.

This makes intuitive sense: the machines are owned by the investors, not the consumers.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43915596
by blakesterz | 2025-05-07 13:50:13+00:00
It's worth a read, even if it's not obvious what it's about from that title.

"To get the actual data, you need to go through a website maintained by the US Trade Commission. This website has good and bad aspects. On the one hand, it’s slow and clunky and confusing and often randomly fails to deliver any results. On the other hand, when you re-submit, it clears your query and then blocks you for submitting too many requests, which is nice."
by jermaustin1 | 2025-05-07 13:51:02+00:00
But then so are we? We are just predicting the next word we are saying, are we not? Even when you add thoughts behind it (sure some people think differently - be it without an inner monologue, or be it just in colors and sounds and shapes, etc), but that "reasoning" is still going into the act of coming up with the next word we are speaking/writing.
by hermitShell | 2025-05-07 13:51:30+00:00
As I understand the benefits of electric cars themselves, the burning of hydrocarbons at scale is more efficient than piecemeal. So if the ‘bus’ contained a turbine, there would probably be net benefit. Or a nuclear bus!

Plus, even if it’s equal to the present state of affairs, we need a practical road to electrification of transport. I’m sure there are many cheaper options, it’s just fun to think about the infrastructure options.
by tnel77 | 2025-05-07 13:51:41+00:00
My neighbor has delivery (sometimes two separate drivers/services at a time when him and his wife want different types of food) at least 3 times a week. To each their own with their finances, but I just can’t bring myself to pay all of the extra fees. Also, the food is usually listed at a higher price to make up for the cut the various apps take.

I’d rather just call the restaurant directly and get it myself. For some of these restaurants, the savings is 20-35% by just grabbing it rather than using a delivery app.
by hbn | 2025-05-07 13:51:49+00:00
I'm super happy JetBrains has been opening up all their editors to offer free access for non-commercial use. I've never made any money off of my occasional side projects, so I could never justify the cost to pay for a license when I may go an entire year without using. But I really love their editors - their key mappings are an extension of me at this point, it's so smart about figuring out how the code works and letting you find usages or refactor without thinking, and their git UI is basically the only way I find git tolerable.

I may or may not have been abusing the fact that my university let me keep my email address as an alumni to squeeze more years out of their free access for students, though that seemed to stop working for me at some point a year or 2 ago. But I'll happily take this instead!
by jasperry | 2025-05-07 13:51:58+00:00
Yes, prompting an LLM is a kind of skill. But relying on it has been shown to hinder development of the most important skill of all--critical, independent thinking. And ultimately that's the only "accomplishment" that matters when it comes to education. Completed homework assignments are not a product, they're a process for making someone think, and that's what's being avoided with LLM usage.
by ben_w | 2025-05-07 13:52:01+00:00
Not just that, but he's also got this weird idea that the feed algorithm understands people.

Mine right now is:

1. Friend

2. Ad: Mothers day promotion — mine died years ago

3. People you may know

4. Someone commenting on a post shared by a friend, but FB didn't expand the post so I could actually read the comment, this was just an announcement that such a comment exists

5. Friend

6. Ad: jewellery

7. One of my own posts

8. "Are you interested in this post?"

9. One of my own posts

10. People you may know

11. The same people in #2 with a different picture for the same deal

And this is relatively competent! Usually it's just an endless stream of recommendations for things I have no interest in — meme groups, or support a team I've never heard of in a sport I don't follow in a state I've not visited in a country I was last in before the pandemic, or services I can only buy if I was both a citizen of a different country and living in an additional different country, or both (but as separate ads) dick pills and boob surgery.

I may not be interested in the mother's day promo or the jewellery, but I could at least theoretically buy them if I was.

But then I refresh it, and the friend's posts are reminders to vote… in the UK local elections… which were last week… and I live in Berlin.

On the plus side, this makes it very easy for me at least to not find it at all addictive. If only everyone was so lucky…
by juliosophiedoc | 2025-05-07 13:52:09+00:00
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by duped | 2025-05-07 13:52:17+00:00
Maybe, but no other application or editor has this problem. If all other apps work but Zed doesn't then it sounds like a Zed has an issue.

EDIT: just gave it a shot and I get "unsupported GPU" as an error, informing me that my GPU needs Vulkan support.

Their detection must be wrong because this is not true. And like I said, other applications don't have this problem.
by piva00 | 2025-05-07 13:52:17+00:00
I've seen similar patterns of behaviour at corporations that are extremely metrics-driven (I don't call it "data-driven" that's bullshit).

Management put up the metrics they care about and think they are doing well when those reach some thresholds. They stop thinking about the qualitative side of anything over the time, and truly believe if the metrics are going where they want to it's because people love the experience overall.

It's very McNamara fallacy-y. Even more when you get sycophants around to push whatever your vision is, even to the detriment of the overall experience.
by pasoevi | 2025-05-07 13:52:52+00:00
I'm not conflating these two things. I didn't say they have to have telemetry to keep it free. All I am saying is, if you have the option to pay and decide whether you give them telemetry or not, then there is no reason being vocal about them giving you more for free. It is a company and they need to make profit. If more users with telemetry enabled gives them more data that they can use to indirectly increase their profit, I only applaud them. If they stopped allowing to turn telemetry off for the product in paid version as well, then you would have a valid point.

That said, nothing wrong with being vocal about privacy and high standards in collecting usage.
by hiryuken | 2025-05-07 13:53:04+00:00
you can check "Italia è uno stato di polizia" on google, bing and all others search engine, and check the "news" section and you'll find plenty of articles, links, and information. There is no difference in doing it with or without a vpn. I suppose that search is not censored at all. I understand anyway your worries and I share part of them.
by PaulHoule | 2025-05-07 13:53:20+00:00
There's nothing automatic about StackOverflow.

StackOverflow suffered from the "benign neglect" variation of "enshittification" -- once they had a social game that people would play they did not attempt any kind of continuous improvement. Looking for answers involves:

1. Parsing a wordy question by a highly confused author to determine if their problem is really related to your problem.

2. Finding the accepted answer on top with 80+ upvotes and 10 comments that say "NOOOOOOOO! This is wrong!"

3. If it's Python the examples all look like

print x

and can't be cut and pasted into your Python 3 console.

In all the quality is atrocious and I think it's a better use of your time to read the manuals over and over again until you can find answers in the manual.
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by jklowden | 2025-05-07 13:53:30+00:00
What drugs were they on? Why on earth is there any distinction between variables allocated statically, on the stack, or on the heap? I allocate a struct, copy data to it, and those data have no Effective Type? Because I started with malloc? Give me a break.

The point of the type system is to define types. It’s not to make the compiler’s job easier, or to give standards committees clouds to build their castles on. No amount of words will justify this misbegotten misinvention.
by dave4270 | 2025-05-07 13:54:00+00:00
This is something I want for all of my street bikes. I roll off the throttle a fair bit before grabbing the brakes on my Ruckus and way earlier on my modified Metropolitan. Always watching the mirrors while doing so. And my 1966 Sears ( made by Gilera ) only has a brake light switch on the rear brake pedal. I'm so conditioned to use the front brakes on a motorcycle that I often forget to tap the rear brake to signal other drivers. I'll be ordering 3 myself if they ship to the US, or getting my buddy in the UK to snag them for me.
by cess11 | 2025-05-07 13:54:02+00:00
I'm under Debian and i3wm/X11, sometimes it does some stuff that blocks input for a while so I can't drive the window manager until its done.

At least it did a month or so ago, and at that time I couldn't figure out a practical use for the LLM-integration either so I kind of just went back to dumb old vim and IDEA Ultimate.

When its fast its pretty snappy though. I recently put revisiting emacs on my todo-list, should add taking Zed out for another round as well.
by os2warpman | 2025-05-07 13:54:24+00:00
I take the even riskier route.

Frankenstein motherboards direct from Shenzhen with recycled parts and features that didn't exist at the time that allow me to strip out high core count Xeons and max-capacity ECC DIMMs from servers being tossed at work and shove them in standard mATX/ATX motherboards in tiny quiet cases at home for my homelab.

Plus, the recyclers add in NVMe boot support (and M.2 slots) at the factory!
by eesmith | 2025-05-07 13:54:37+00:00
If you want to go that route, money is immoral because it doesn't exist unless people are threatened by force to use it.

When you need to pay the king's taxes with the king's money as otherwise the king's men will beat you up, which is why you'll give the king's soldiers food in exchange for the king's money.

> companies often ensure reviewers

LOL! Of course they do! Companies pick reviewers who give good reviews, and spurn those who are critical. You every wonder why most game reviewers are so fawning?

Consumer Reports knows this, which is why they buy their products on the market, which is why they can't have reviews with the product first comes out.

Which is why when a product is first released you'll rarely find honest negative reviews.

Who rates the reviewers? Are they shilling for the manufacturer? Are they the marketing arm of the manufacturer? How do you know?
by arp242 | 2025-05-07 13:54:46+00:00
If you look at countries with a lot of corruption, then there's this sense that "everyone uses corruption to get ahead, and I'd be a fool not to". This view is not entirely wrong.

I don't envy students here; aside from the shining examples meritocracy, hard work, and accountability that you mentioned, you're also left with a feeling of "well, everyone else is using ChatGPT, and I'd be a fool not to". I don't entirely blame them, as the choice is between "use ChatGPT for one hour and get a passing grade" and "do my own work for six hours and get a passing grade". Of course the outcomes are not the same as there is value in doing the work yourself as it will give you a much better understanding of things, but taking delayed gratification in account has never been a top quality of young people.
by ModernMech | 2025-05-07 13:55:54+00:00
I feel a large part of this is the definition of "cheating". For example, I give take home exams and I allow students to use whatever resources they want.

They can use chat GPT, the textbook, Stack Overflow, etc. as much as they want for as much time as they need. Access to these resources during an exam is typically considered "cheating" because using them would confer an unfair advantage, since tests are designed without them in mind. So then just give them access to the resources and make the test harder.

Instead of a question like: "Here is some code find the bug", ask them to implement a large system and to document the bugs they encounter along the way, and how they used ChatGPT to fix them. Instead of "what's the definition of TCP" ask them to measure TCP vs. UDP using iperf.

If all the students are cheating, then you're not testing the right thing. Make the test fit better to the current information landscape, and professors / students alike will have a better time. Stop testing information recall, start testing for information literacy, analysis, and integration. Stop asking students to answer multiple choice questions, start asking them to build systems.
by SafeDusk | 2025-05-07 13:56:03+00:00
Tried Zed and Cursor, but they always felt too magical to me. I ended up building a minimal agent framework that only uses seven tools (even for code edits): read, write, diff, browse, command, ask, and think.

These simple, composable tools can be utilized well enough by increasingly powerful LLM(s), especially Gemini 2.5 pro to achieve most tasks in a consistent, understandable way.

More importantly - I can just switch off the 'ask' tool for the agent to go full turbo mode without frequent manual confirmation.

I just released it yesterday, have a look at https://github.com/aperoc/toolkami for the implementation if you think it is useful for you!
by procha | 2025-05-07 13:56:22+00:00
That's an excellent analogy. Also, if the fundamental nature of LLMs and their training data is unstructured, why do we try to impose structure? It seems humans prefer to operate with that kind of system, not in an authoritarian way, but because our brains function better with it. This makes me wonder if our need for 'if-else' logic to define intelligence is why we haven't yet achieved a true breakthrough in understanding Artificial General Intelligence, and perhaps never will due to our own limitations.