skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Using ChatGPT to auto generate config files: Wasted effort
I shared the following message about the learnings of using ChatGPT in production under the premise of "this will replace mundane coding tasks" in our Discord. The result is disappointing. I thought it might be of interest to the HN crowd.

# Context

The release of ChatGPT lead to a discussion if ChatGPT could be used to auto generate a config file that takes the source codes structure into account. Manual prompting yielded amazing results, see the screenshots in [0]. But, turning the manual prompting into an automated system led to a massive effort that took >2 months (not full-time, but still a lot of effort!). The idea of "just fine-tune a prompt and done" is, at the moment, far from true. Besides, the result is most likely wasted efforts due to:

a) simplifying the config made the requirement for GPT style "write the config for me" obsolete.

b) hardcoded heuristics are easier to iterate on, more cost efficient (0 costs) and easier to deploy (no API calls needed).

# The message

FINALLY AUTO GENERATION OF THE CONFIG
https://www.loom.com/share/85d77004aa4c4bea9752d959c229e577
.

The irony is that this is not needed anymore. The plugin API simplified the config interface so much that initializing configs only differs by the used plugins and their respective configs.

The only useful thing that chatgpt provides is deriving what files in a filesystem are translation files. But a hardcoded version might be faster and more resilient.

Learning: The GPT hype is ... well hype. The amount of work that went into this feature is insane. The work boils down to software engineering. Sure, tools will emerge that make prompt engineering easier but so does the previous ML hypetrain led to endless nocode machine learning tools. Yet, there is no "disruptive everyone builds ML models" (for GPT "everyone will become a developer") nocode machine learning tool in sight. Maybe signaling that the premise of ML NoCode/GPT of "this works for everything" is not true. Deriving what files are translation files, yep. Deriving an entire config file, maybe not.

## Footnotes

[0] https://github.com/inlang/inlang/discussions/408#discussion-4914727
Montparnasse is a perfect example of cities in France going "on a second thought, let's not build more skyscrapers right in the middle of cities" in the 70s. See also: Part-Dieu, Tour Bretagne, Pleyel.
I was confused by the term, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill but it refers to the concept of humans basically adapting to anything and that the "new normal" can be an Overton Window away or more.

Couple in some Corn Pone Opinions (Twain) and constantly moving the Goal Posts (fallacy) or making grand proclamations without any evidence, even all of that is proof that we are living in interesting times.

Not to be a fence sitter, but things are moving so quickly that it is impossible to make predictions in anything but the current level of chaos. Anyone who makes predictions right now is suspect.
Using static typing in Python will generally speaking significantly increase the number of bugs in the codebase.
Pretty relevant for an open source project.
Very neat! I was looking for something exactly like this for a library I'm building - will try it out
It’s not, that is why it’s considered Unix-like
You are incorrect you can verify network access on iOS.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212958
Redis has MULTI transactions and many applications depend on that functionality. You can't add multiple reader threads without a hugely complex locking system to prevent things like uncommitted reads. This is the tradeoff Redis made when deciding to stay single threaded at its core.
Only millions? That is too optimistic order of magnitude.
If I didn't thought of it, it can't be good?
The original Macintosh solved a problem which business had: desktop publishing.

I can't see what "problem" the headset will solve. Apple is not good at games and won't do pron, so what is left?
AFAIK, Japanese judges get promoted based on the number of convictions. So not surprising.
Once you get used to it, the overwhelming majority of cases you don't actually need to manually write recursive style functions - you start thinking in terms of `map`, `zip`, `unzip` `fold`, `unfold`, `scan`, `init`, `filter`, `take` and `drop`. There are various other related methods but they can usually all be implemented in terms of these. As for non-recursive styles of iteration, I use F# as my primary language and every time I write a loop I have to consult the manual to remind myself of the exact syntax because it's so rare that I actually use them. Usually `iter` does the trick.
> currently this blog posts articles in two separate subjects, Macs and painting; while that works fine on Twitter, there doesn’t appear to be an easy way of getting good coverage on Mastodon without dividing the blog into two, and ceasing to be as eclectic.

Hmm, are they concerned with what instance they’d post on based on subject matter or something? People really do dramatically overestimate how important this is; unless it’s a tiny instance few people are paying much attention to the local feed anyway.
A better source for the actual language would be this PDF file [0] or the Wikipedia page [1].

It is a kind of strict flowchart language that only allows you to do it in one way, which may be bad for some, but it helps how fast you can grok it when you understand the simple rules.

The same author have also recently made a JS widget that allows you to embed these diagrams on websites [2].

[0]: https://drakon-editor.sourceforge.net/DRAKON.pdf

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAKON

[2]: https://github.com/stepan-mitkin/drakonwidget
Linux distributions that use PGP are effectively closed key ecosystems, meaning that their use of PGP is purely incidental: you trust the key material because they come from trusted sources or baked into your distribution, not because of any of the behavior that PGP supplies. PGP is strictly a liability in these contexts: it's more malleable and allows third-party signers to make mistakes that a reasonable codesigning scheme does not.

In other words: each of these distributions could switch to bare signing keys tomorrow, and nothing would change (other than being able to delete a massive pile of insecure GPG code).
This is roughly my experience, too.

Static type safety has interesting YAGNI characteristics. For the bits of the code that must work, and where defects and regressions due to type errors may be subtle and difficult to detect, it's indispensable.

But it can also be an impediment to iteration. Sometimes the code you're working on is still so experimental that you don't really know what the best structure and flow of data will be yet, and it's easier to just bodge it together with maps and heterogeneous lists for the first few iterations so you can let the code tell you how it wants to be structured. Having to start with static types subtly anchors you to your first idea. And the first is typically the worst.

Something I really like about Python for this sort of thing is that I have a lot more ability to delay this industrialization stuff to the last responsible moment, and be selective in where I spend my industrialization tokens. Here's a list of the languages where I've found selectively rewriting the important bits in Rust to work well: C, C++, Python. I know which of those I'd rather use for prototyping, scripting, and high level control.

Relevant Fred Brooks quote: "Plan to throw one away. You will, anyway."
Dragon's Egg, by Robert L. Forward

Nexus Trilogy, by Ramez Naam

Anathem, By Neal Stephenson
This is my domain - I run a website for freelancers to share their hourly and project level earnings, kinda like a levels.fyi or a glassdoor but for freelancers.

In my experience collecting this kind of information, it is actually in the interest of freelancers to charge hourly. Far too often, with project level quotes, there is a scope increase, and in the end, the hourly rate is way less than your actual hourly rate. Not always, but very, very common. It only is in your favor if the project itself is actually very simple, you know it will for sure take you x amount of hours.

I wouldn't lie about how much time you spent doing something, either. But there is some nuance there. It's not like you can work for 2 hours and then bill for 8. But if you work for 10 minutes, you can bill for the hour. If you work for 2 hours 10 minutes, you can bill for 3. This is what I tell people working for me, but YMMV.
Actively using KeyDB at work. I would normally agree with you; and for a long time after I initially heard about the project, we hesitated to use it. But the complexity and headaches of managing a redis-cluster, uh, cluster (on a single machine — which is the idiomatic way to vertically scale Redis on a single multicore machine...) eventually pushed us over the edge into a proof-of-concept KeyDB deployment.

Conveniently, we don't have to worry about the consistency properties of KeyDB, because we're not using KeyDB distributed, and never plan to do so. We were only using redis-cluster (again, on a single machine) to take advantage of all cores on a multicore machine, and to avoid long-running commands head-of-line blocking all other requests. KeyDB replaces that complex setup with one that's just a single process — and one that doesn't require clients to understand sharding, or create any barriers to using multi-key commands.

When you think about it, a single process on a single machine is a pretty "reliable backplane" as far as CAP theory goes. Its MVCC may very well break under Jepsen — hasn't been tested — but it'd be pretty hard to trigger that break, given the atomicity of the process. Whereas even if redis-cluster has a perfect Jepsen score, in practice the fact that it operates as many nodes communicating over sockets — and the fact that Redis is canonically a memory store, rather than canonically durable — means that redis-cluster can get into data-losing situations in practice for all sorts of silly reasons, like one node on the box getting OOMed, restarting, and finding that it now doesn't have enough memory to reload its AOF file.
> most of the mid tier freelancers I know inflate the hours they worked on paper... I Its immoral no question

Just to be a little argumentative, I'd like to point out that software estimation is very hard.

You might grossly overestimate the effort for Project X with a client and end up charging a few more hours than you physically coded, but you might grossly underestimate the work for Project Y and end up eating a bunch of hours to keep the client happy.

Is overcharging for Project X but undercharging for Project Y, and basically keeping things in balance and fair that unreasonable?
A headset having 4Kx4K panels for each eye doesn't make it a substitute for a 4K monitor, the distortion through the optics means a virtual display will appear much lower resolution than that. The rule of thumb for headsets with 2Kx2K panels is that a virtual theatre covering most of your field of view has a perceived resolution of about 720p, so you can maybe expect about 1440p from the Apple headset in the best case where the virtual display dominates your field of view, and less than that if the display is smaller.
I think probably only a small minority are evil. I have some answers because I've faced many of the problems. It doesn't require much brain to figure things out, just a lot of wrong places, wrong times.
Managed to get it to guess Inception:

128164 1F4A4 SLEEPING SYMBOL

129670 1FA86 NESTING DOLLS

128188 1F4BC BRIEFCASE
This is probably more like a dev subsidized devkit than a real product. I doubt even Apple thinks $3k is sustainable.
That's beside the point. Those types ("types" you see? hehe) go against your argument "it's obvious from the context", because now it becomes "it's obvious from the context if you are lucky enough that your codebase doesn't suck or you spent 'enough' time figuring it out"
That sounds more like a portmanteau of vrai and naturel. Vraituel maybe?
Note that this write-up includes mistakes and omisions. I tried to translate the original source using Google Lens.

https://i.postimg.cc/gm6ZNFYw/File-20230521-171346.jpg
The problem is that the App Store encrypts each binary to a device-specific key for DRM purposes, and it's not possible to disable that.

Additionally, how would you even calculate a binary hash of an iOS app? The filesystem is locked down.

I suppose the OS could provide a way to list binary hashes (either after DRM decryption or for non-DRM-ed binaries, if that ever becomes an option), which would be slightly better if you trust the OS more than the app store, which I personally do (it's much riskier to compromise all devices than to target a single device with modified app binaries).
Can we please avoid mass hysteria about rail? As you've seen, bulk shipping by pipelines is incredible stupid.

Moving dangerous stuff is always risky, there’s plenty of disasters from both. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pipeline_accidents

From 1994 through 2013, the U.S. had 745 serious incidents with gas distribution, causing 278 fatalities and 1059 injuries, with $110,658,083 in property damage.

US: From 1994 through 2013, there were an additional 110 serious incidents with gas transmission, resulting in 41 fatalities, 195 injuries, and $448,900,333 in property damage.[83]
From 1994 through 2013, there were an additional 941 serious incidents with gas all system type, resulting in 363 fatalities, 1392 injuries, and $823,970,000 in property damage.[84]” The US list is so long it’s broken out by year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pipeline_accidents_in_...

The pipeline page lists individual highlights starting: Belgium 2004, killing 24 people and leaving 122 wounded… with some highlights being Quebec killing 28, 2013. China 2013 55 people were killed. India 2014 killed 22 people and injured 37, Kenya 2011 killed 100 hospitalized 120.

Mexico: 12 people were killed, killing 52 people, killed at least 27 people and injured more than 50, 2019: killed at least 96 people and injured dozens more

Russia: 1989 Up to 645 people were reported killed on June 4, 1989

Taiwan: At least 30 people were killed and over 300 injured

Of course Nigeria is the scariest with several accidents each of which killed hundreds.
Strongbox is a fantastic KeePass client on iOS and macOS.

- fully native apps

- open source

- fully offline option (Strongbox Zero)

- one time purchase

- solid browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox

- native keychain autofill for Safari and Orion

- compatible with other KeePass apps on other platforms

- multiple sync options iCloud, G Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, SFTP, WebDav, Syncthing

- support for offline vaults

- biometrics, Apple Watch unlock, and Yubikey support

- TOTP codes, attachments, and markdown notes can be stored

- supports password auditing with Have I Been Pwned

- supports importing 1PW vaults

Most importantly, Strongbox is made by a small and transparent company. Unlike Bitwarden or 1Password, they are solely focused on making high quality macOS and iOS apps.

https://strongboxsafe.com
“That little island changes everything”
+1 for strongbox.

Have been using it for 3-4 years now. Its integration with the Apple ecosystem is second to none. I do use an online version that syncs with iCloud so I can access it anywhere (but with a Yubikey).
"Mimsy Were the Borogroves," by Lewis Padgett, is short and excellent.
could be harder to find something that sticks with the CO2 given the molecule sizes? CO2 is also relatively easy to monitor, so sensors + awareness of people living/working nearby should also cover a lot.

But both of course only would give better warning, not solve the challenge of dealing with the situation when it has happened.
>Yet no sane businessman spends time hacking scripts

Huh?

>The idea that they will spend time prompting chatbots doesnt stand.

Huh?

I guess your definition depends on the "sane" part, to function as a "no true Scotsman" argument. That is, if someone points to businessmen that do it, and that they are plenty, you can always argue that they're not the "sane" ones.

Otherwise, businessmen (startup founders, people with some idea they try to test for a sidegig, etc.) do "hack on scripts", and will absolutely use GPT-style chatbots to build code/websites/etc for their businesses.

So, if we remove the "no true Scotsman"-style "sane" qualifier, your statement doesn't hold: businessman do spend time hacking scripts even without the help of an ai, and the idea that they will spend time prompting chatbots stands 100%.

I think your idea of "businessman" is someone with a suit making deals and thinking about the business part only, which is not how a lot of tech/online business work. The distinction between "indie hackers" and "businessmen" is much more blurred.
Isn't there that new thing called Sequoia which is supposed to have all advantages of PGP while having none of its drawbacks?
They can measure some approximation of happiness by doing regular, anonymous surveys. They can count the bottles of pee which are most definitely not a sign of happiness, or the # or injuries.
As a fork, it is essentially a new version of an already Jepsen-tested system. That meets your definition of "a lot better" than "untested bespoke algos".
Well said. I work with farmers in encouraging natural and organic farming and also in supporting sustainable practices. It would be impossible to do this viably without livestock and planned grazing.
Apple (and most high end tech designers) use highly specialized, very $$$ PCBs for a lot of their products.

They aren't created by traditional litho + etch, but rather by a process called modified semi-additive processing (mSAP). iPhone, apple watch, etc PCBs are basically the same as CPU/IC interposers on a large scale.

Definitely not 1 cent/sq cm cheap, but they have massive volume and high price points. It lets them get the insane part density needed these days.
I personally benchmarked Dragonfly vs Memcached. Are you calling me a liar? :)

Do you think I also photoshopped this document? https://github.com/dragonflydb/dragonfly/blob/master/docs/me...
Ironically enough, iPhones for the Chinese market allow you to disable an app's network access completely. Non-Chinese-market ones only allow disabling mobile data but not Wi-Fi.
"Big Brother Inside" :-(
At least I would like to see when installing an app if it requires full internet access or what hosts it requires access to.
> Go has vanity URLs for the first

In theory, maybe. In practice, I haven't seen vanity urls used very much in go projects, and for it to completely solve the problem you need to use the vanity url from the very beginning and you can't ever change the vanity url. It also requires you to have your own domain.
One-shot shift = after tapping, the next key you press is shifted? That does seem useful.

I also liked QMK's "caps word" feature. It's like CapsLock, but only for UNDERSCORED_WORDS. (i.e. the keyboard returns to non-CapsLock after typing a non-word letter, like space/esc/tab/etc.).
Dilterbilter – a Chrome extension for ChatGPT to search conversations
It's totally sweet. I consolidated WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger and Instagram into my Matrix server, and get it all via Element. Battery life is many magnitudes better on my Pixel and ThinkPad as a result instead of running all this background crap.

One app to install on any device, any OS, including Linux, and all my messages appear, SMS included. What's not to love?
where did I imply that they were insignificant? I specifically mentioned a well known android user. I used to be a dyed in the wool android user myself and a day one adopter of the Moto 360.

Like, yeah, it’s not ideal but you just ask a friend with an iPhone to help out. Unless you’re in an android only circle of course.

Either way, not ideal, but not as dire as the people above make it out to be either
Where’d you get $3k from?

$3k seems a bit high. OTOH I wouldn’t pay $3k for a laptop, and Apple seems to sell plenty of $3k laptops.
Let me introduce you to our lord and savior: YAML. ;)
Personally, I switched to Go and soon after to Nim. https://nim-lang.org/
It's great!
Just to add one more feature request... ;-)

Comments are preserved when you read a file, change some of its contents, and write it back out again.
You just asserted it was a lie, but didn’t say why. I want to know how you are refuting the “cashless is cheaper” argument? All of the business owners I know value cash only for the ability to declare a bit less, the fees are a wash with the complexity of dealing with cash. If you are arguing that there is another reason it’s cheaper but not saying how — please tell us! Or are you talking about the every-day, minor tax fraud that makes it cheaper?
Not very many people, I don’t think
I doubt ChatGPT "believes" to begin with, not to mention the definition of consciousness has to be provided first (although there is an underlying implication of panpsychist theory). From what I understand GPTs are basically the "chinese room" analogy by John Searle ... although I ultimately disagree with the conclusion of that analogy I think it is apt for GPTs and how they produce coherent sentences.
Also, the ability to appropriate someone else's work to further your own goals is actually a very useful life skill. It is arguably the foundation of capitalism.
Did you read the article?

This is a pretty different risk from a hydrocarbon liquid or gas pipeline (which obviously carry their own risk).

Odorless, colorless CO2 can leak and cause suffocation with no warning. Those in the affected area may have absolutely no idea what is happening and by the time they feel the effects, it may be too late for them to take any action and move to another area.

Furthermore, the only reason these carbon pipelines exist are to take advantage of overly generous Government subsidies. There is absolutely no economic benefit whatsoever.
The pgpkeydump page links to... six pages about GPG in the "Much has been written about this" part.

GnuPG is one of the cases where "rewrite it in rust" helps a little. rPGP and sequoia-openpgp offer somewhat reasonable library interfaces. pgpkeydump depends on sequoia.

With a rewrite you also don't get maintainer issues like https://twitter.com/FiloSottile/status/1355194247482384392 either.
My intro to Asimov's work was through the short story, The Fun They Had. It was part of our English Reader at class.

After I grew up, I picked up the Robot Series and Foundation Series. I didn't find any fictional work of his to be uninteresting. So, perhaps this comes down to individual preferences.
Solid state, active cooling system

https://www.froresystems.com/
Yup, but it's a new thing. It's something like 2-3 years old, I think?

I'm not sure, maybe that'll revive things some? But something of this sort has been needed for decades.
Matthias Buchinger
The original iPhone was pretty bad actually. It didn't have many of the unique capabilities compared to what we know.

In terms of competitive pricing, I mean yeah if this is just a Quest 2 with better screens its DOA, but I would hope not, though I am keeping expectations low. My only point was Apple does have the capability to pull rabbits out of their hat, not that they will.
Not Android but highly recommend https://osmc.tv/vero/
Another alternative is HOCON: https://github.com/lightbend/config/blob/master/HOCON.md

I'd describe it as JSON-like with much more flexible syntax and the ability to reference itself.