> This is why I have always said, that a degree in CS is useless without some degree of passion towards it.
I would add I don't know how anyone can do any degree and career without some sort of passion for it.
For me personally, not only do I need passion but I have to have some sort of belief in the product and/or company I'm working for. In the early 00's I worked at a company, not software related nor was I working as a developer, and didn't like what I was doing nor did I believe in the product, it was lacking in so many areas where they were trying to frame it fit in the product market. I left after 3 years and did something completely different.
This is me to a big extent. Sometimes I feel like I to learn for learning's sake. Which is okay, or at least that is what my therapist tells me. I struggle with the fact that I "think about doing" vs actually doing.
My work is my hobby too, that is why I struggle sometimes wondering if I will ever retire. Why retire when what I'm doing is for the most part fun. Sure, there are days that I'd rather be "doing X", or more like "studying X" than actually working but I'm enjoying work so much lately that it soon passes.
Work also forces me to actually DO instead of thinking about doing. I have to perform. People are depending on me to get stuff done and that is a big motivator. With my personal projects, no one needs it or is expecting it so it is too easy to abandon.
I used pg vector chunking on paragraphs. For the answers I saved in a flat text file and then parsed to what I needed.
For parsing and vectorizing of the GCP docs I used a Python script. For reading each quiz question, getting a text embedding and submitting to an LLM, I used Spring AI.
It was all roll your own.
But like I stated in my original post I deleted it without backup or vcs. It was the wrong directory that I deleted. Rookie mistake for which I know better.
Hmmm...now that you say that, it might have been the 20b model.
And like a dumbass I accidentally deleted the directory and didn't have a back up or under version control.
Either way, I do know for a fact that the gpt-oss-XXb model beat chatgpt by 1 answer and it was 46/50 at 6 minutes and 47/50 at 1+ hour. I remember because I was blown away that I could get that type of result running locally and I had texted a friend about it.
I was really impressed but disappointed at the huge disparity between time the two.
> I'm not his target demographic
Me either and I am a dev as well
> He's a good presenter and his advice makes a lot of sense.
Agree
Not that I think he forms his answers on who is sponsoring him, but I feel he couldn't do a lot of the stuff he does without sponsors. If the sponsors aren't supplying him with all that hardware then, in my opinion, he is taking a significant risk in buying all of it out of pocket and hoping that the money he makes from YT covers it (which I am sure it does, several times over). But there is no guarantee that the money he makes from YT will cover the costs, is the point I'm making.
But, then again, he does use the hardware in other videos so the it isn't like he is banking on a single video to cover the costs.
gpt-oss-120b is amazing. I created a RAG agent to hold most of GCP documentation (separate download, parsing, chunking, etc). ChatGPT finished a 50 question quiz in 6 min with a score of 46 / 50. gpt-oss-120b took over an hour but got 47 / 50. All the other local LLMs I tried were small and performed way worse, like less than 50% correct.
I ran this on an i7 with 64gb of RAM and an old nvidia card with 8g of vram.
EDIT: Forgot to say what the RAG system was doing which was answering a 50 question multiple choice test about GCP and cloud engineering.
I am learning Clojure right now and I can relate to the feeling of not wanting to put time and effort into it if there is no marketable value in return. One thing that is motivating me is I read an article about how niche languages can be lucrative. (I want to say that article was here on HN but too lazy right now to search for it). The other thing that is motivating me is that this type of programming and thinking is completely different to mainstream PLs. It is a fun and challenging exercise and my hope is that it will benefit me in "normal" PL like everyone says it will.
I do have a vague (unrealistic??) idea of maybe getting a PT job using Clojure after studying for a year or so. PT because my FT job has amazing benefits and career potential. We will see. As of right now I am just enjoying learning Clojure and Lisp-style language.
I would add I don't know how anyone can do any degree and career without some sort of passion for it.
For me personally, not only do I need passion but I have to have some sort of belief in the product and/or company I'm working for. In the early 00's I worked at a company, not software related nor was I working as a developer, and didn't like what I was doing nor did I believe in the product, it was lacking in so many areas where they were trying to frame it fit in the product market. I left after 3 years and did something completely different.