In a large enough code base, there is no "your code". There is the code you wrote today, there is the code you wrote two years ago, there's all the code people are writing around you.
I change a function's arguments, I'm _pretty_ sure I caught every place it's called (spoiler alert: I didn't, because someone calls functions dynamically based on their names with call_user_func_array, maybe), and I ran the test suite - everything works, and I've fixed what doesn't.
Except some of that old code written 8 years ago didn't have good tests, or didn't have any tests at all, or didn't cover the specific code path.
And now it's 2am on the production server.
Now, you could tell me - Pavel, you're an engineer, you should be sufficiently dedicated to your craft to verify that the tests are testing those paths, you should find all those instances where that function is called (a few dozen times across the codebase), and check that those tests exist and are good. And you're not wrong! I should be doing cleanup in the codebase as I go, washing those dishes while I wait for pasta to boil or whatever...
... but now I've given myself two more actual engineer-weeks of work for a change that just needed to add a flag to a function to make sure only premium users get emails when something happens. My manager will be thrilled to hear it. Do you think I'll get a raise?
yep and JBlow is a massive gatekeeper who discourages people from learning programming if he doesn't believe they can program the way he thinks a programmer should. He is absolutely running from any criticism that will hurt his enormous yet incredibly fragile ego.
The hate he is receiving is bizarre. It takes guts to be opinionated - you are effectively spilling your mind (and heart) to people. And yet some people will assume the worst about you even if it's an exact inversion of the truth.
telling someone the path to happiness is through marriage and kids is probably the dumbest advice imaginable. its basically a coin flip on whether or not it ruins your life and the data supports this.
The creator, gingerbill, uses it to build real time flame and smoke rendering [0]. AFAIK they have vectors and matrices built into the stdlib as well as various graphics apis[1].
So I'd say from what I know the niche is "batteries included high performance code that can target the gpu"
Odin is a general purpose language, in the same way C.
Professionally, we use Odin to create all of our software at JangaFX: EmberGen, LiquiGen, and GeoGen.
Many people have been using Odin for similar purposes:
* game development
* application development
* 3D graphics
* physics related stuff
* etc
This is what a lot of people feel Odin's "niche" is, even if it is not restricted to that. A good example of this is Odin's first class features for array-programming, swizzling, matrices, quaternions, and many other things useful when dealing with 3D related things (graphics, physics, games, etc).
gpt4 needs better marketing. its not perfect but its without a doubt the best learning tool humans have achieved. its better than books, wikipedia, libraries, etc. its basically your personal college professor with 24/7 office hours on practically any subject. using it in combination with other tools is the best approach, but this has always been the best approach for every learning tool.
So if you're teaching, I dunno, Introduction to Physics, your claim is you'd rather assign students GPT 4 than a physics textbook if you could only assign them one educational tool? Because it's the best tool?
If you were teaching fourth grade math, instead of assigning a workbook of math problems you'd prefer to tell the kids "Ask GPT to make up math problems" because it's the best tool, so if you could only pick one tool you'd go with that?
If you were teaching history and had the choice of sending kids to the university library to write research papers of having them ask GPT 4 about history, you'd have them just ask GPT 4 about history, because it's the best educational tool?
A physics textbook is a great start, but it has one major drawback: it's linear, and can't adapt to the reader. Maybe I already understand half of the textbook, but I can't figure out this one section. I'm out of luck, because the textbook won't expand on the part I struggle with.
One major value of the teacher in the classroom is to be able to sense when students are getting lost, and have ways to slow down, re-explain concepts that they missed.
A basic AI sounds like it could soon do a great job of providing the content of a physics textbook, with the adaptability of a one on one teacher.
Sans neuralink or equivalent tech, I’m skeptical that an AI will soon develop the input mechanisms to make those judgements on par with an experienced human tutor. Students often (inadvertently) mischaracterize what is blocking their progress - and blockers are often nonacademic. What I would like to see, and work on, is augmenting the human instruction rather than replace it.
A physics textbook? For intro to physics? Instead of Khan academy? I wouldn't be surprised is a double digit percentage of students never even open their 30 year old decaying textbook in their high school physics class.
The claim was GPT4 was the best education tool. I think that's absurd.
Forcing an educator to choose it or a book demonstrates the book is in fact the best education tool unless the educator is going to double down and say they'd teach from a chatbot over a textbook.
I'm curious how many students would agree that textbooks are useful at all. My memories of college include actively finding ways to avoid having to buy textbooks and never opening a textbook if lectures were recorded. The best classes by far were seminar classes where the entire text basis for the class would be reading publications in the field - cell signaling and microbiology and others didn't have any recommended books at all. I don't remember ever using a textbook in a CS class either. I'm pretty sure GPT-4 would be infinitely more useful than a textbook in those classes considering we didn't use textbooks
its not absurd at all. if i want to learn what an atom is, why on earth would i open a book when i can just have a hour long conversation with an AI that can explain the concepts to me at any level and answer my questions? as a learning tool, why is a book better?
If I wanted to know what an atom is I wouldn't sign up for a college course.
But if I did sign up for a college course i would expect a more systematic presentation of the material than "whatever random thing I thought to ask an AI."
Not to mention just the other day I asked Chatgpt 4 accounting questions and it gave the wrong answer, and only interrogating it prompted it to correct itself.
you seem to think "gpt4 is the best learning tool" means "gpt4 is the only tool that should be used in education". i literally said in my original reply that it should be used with other learning tools. your example is the perfect use case. the course is a great tool for providing an outline of what to learn. if i follow that outline with gpt4 im going to learn the concepts much faster than i would with a book, and since i'm learning them faster i will have more time (and motivation) to learn more concepts.
I'm saying GPT 4 isn't the best learning tool, books are, and GPT 4 can be useful without exaggerating it's usefulness and declaring it "the best tool".
The hardest thing about learning a new concept/idea is to get started. GPT lowers the barrier of entry, and you can use the knowledge you got to tackle other learning tools and fix the parts GPT got wrong.
if i had this when i was in school im certain i would have been an A student. my biggest hangup has always been fear of looking dumb, asking dumb questions, holding up the class to clarify things...gpt4 eliminates all these problems
depends on how far into the weeds you get and the model you're using. gpt4 is pretty reliable at explaining concepts at a high level and its better at it than any textbook or wiki page can be because of its ability to answer follow-up questions in context. its basically the next best thing to a college professor's office hours.
