Is 'computation' really universal and fundamental? Turing machines, lambda calculus, algorithmic notations, they're all human-made formalisms. Are the halting problem and the limits of computability actually constraints that exist only within these human-made formal systems?
When we constrain a formalism to reduce complexity, it feels like necessity emerges from within those constraints. For example, when we say 'CRUD app,' we immediately think of a specific pattern. In the same way, once you adopt a 'form,' the constraints that come with that form progressively expand the state space. In that sense, it feels like both discovery and invention.
Famous mathematicians and scientists often distinguish between model and reality, yet we tend to mistake the model's shape for reality itself. People like John Wheeler and Stephen Wolfram argue that computation is a fundamental property of the universe. But can we really say that when we downcast reality to fit human cognition, losing information in the process, and then upcast it back, the information is fully restored? I always find this point difficult.
Landauer's principle says that abstract logical operations, information erasure, necessarily increase physical entropy. That shows there's a thermodynamic cost to physically implemented information processing. But I don't think that proves computation is fundamental.
Whether it's computation or geometry, they're all abstract formalisms created by humans. But when we actually measure things, they're subject to physical laws. Still, whether that makes them fundamental is a difficult question. I think these are just results of the process where humans name phenomena and constrain them. I don't think they're the cause.
You can define computation broadly enough, as 'a process where a state changes to another state according to rules,' to make almost everything look like computation. But being able to explain something with computation and claiming that computation is fundamental are different things, aren't they?
Meaning exists within the structures and constraints of human-made formalisms. We artificially lower cognitive complexity and translate things into human language. Whether that's fundamental, I'm not sure.
Maybe I'm a reductionist. Plenty of intellectually brilliant scholars make those claims, but people like me, with slower minds, end up thinking these kinds of stupid thoughts. I wish I could organize my own thoughts bette
Thank you, senior programmer, for sharing your valuable perspective. I'm Korean, so I've mostly studied Western culture through the curation of specific figures, which means I only knew broadly that there was a conflict between Postgres and MongoDB but I never knew the details like you do. In other words, for me it feels like reading a history book, whereas for you it feels like lived experience, so I imagine our perceptions are quite different.
'The heart lusts after Rust on the promise that it will solve all problems, but the mind knows it won't solve all problems.' I really like that sentence.
Personally, combining your thoughts with mine, I think this is also a matter of community belonging. In other words, I don't think the issue with Rust is that it's a solved problem. Rather, I think it's a process of burying anxiety about careers and professional uncertainty into community voices, as a way to project that unease. Learning a new language and all the libraries and frameworks tied to it is very demanding, and internalizing the conventions of a language takes time. So it becomes a question like, 'What if the skills I've invested so much in are suddenly no longer relevant?'
And while Rust's approach to problem-solving is attractive, as both you and I know, no single language can solve every problem. After all, every language has its own trade-offs and subsets. As you go lower-level, cognitive load increases significantly, which is why high-level programs are often written in low-level engines and scripts in high-level languages.
Anyway, I thought this place, where the world's best programmers gather, would be different, but I'm realizing that most programmers are quite similar.
Thanks for your thoughtful input. I hope I haven't taken up too much of your time. After all, this kind of question isn't usually encouraged in communities, and it's a difficult one to answer. Everyone thinks differently. But your explanation made the most sense to me. Have a great day.
You have a point. I think it's just a matter of how we get information. It's a difference in values, and we're bound to see things differently. That said, this is how I think, and I don't plan to change my mind. You probably also think you're right, and given your situation, you probably are.
I respect your perspective. Have a good day, and I hope you understand that I didn't write my comment with any intention of attacking you.
This is truly a high-quality post. I completely agree with it.
Workflow is tied to one's identity.
Regarding the discussion about Linux desktops in this post, I think the reason Linux lacks popularity as an desk operating system is that programmers want their computers to be not a 'product' but their own personal tool. So rather than preferring a unified system, they tend to want more freedom to modify the OS themselves.
In other words, this is about system customizability, and about 14 years ago, Linus Torvalds made a similar point [1].
Personally, I think the TUI vs GUI debate simply depends on the domain you belong to. Those focused on OS or open source work face pressure to become familiar with TUI, while programmers like me who deliver software to factories face pressure toward GUI. The people I deliver to almost always ask for the same thing: 'Make it understandable without reading the manual.'
On the other hand, most of the TUI and low-level work I've encountered has been dominated by the 'Read The Fucking Manual' culture.
I think people see the pros and cons of their environment depending on where they place their identity. I'm a programmer, but honestly, I don't really enjoy looking at a terminal. I look at the logical structure of my code and the logs when it runs, but I'm not really comfortable with the terminal. But the typical end users I deliver to are even less comfortable with terminals than I am. So I don't particularly like terminal culture or memorizing long command strings. They're just more used to clicking buttons.
The problem is that the products we develop don't just stay with developers—they also need to be accessible to ordinary consumers. Of course, those who build tools for developers might not think that way, but I believe that even ordinary consumers should be able to easily operate the software
Others, of course, think differently. In the end, as the author of this post said, it's a matter of identity.
What is that emotional longing, exactly? I don't really know.
First, to be honest about my own feelings toward Rust: as you know, Rust's traits feel like a mix of Haskell's typeclasses and OOP, and that mashup of multiple languages just didn't click with me. I'm not a fan of solving compiler puzzles either. Especially when I've used AI to generate Rust code, it produced a lot of bad code relying heavily on clone, so it's not a language I'm particularly fond of.
In that sense, I do understand part of what you're saying. I suppose this is exactly the "emotional longing that isn't being satisfied by the technical reality" you mentioned.
So then why does the community keep holding Rust up as this symbol?
That's the hard part. Rust's promise is solving undefined behavior. But UB has already been largely solved by GC languages too. So what is it about Rust that pulls people in? Is it because it replaces C and C++, the oldest legacy in programming? Or is it because it's hard for a new superstar to emerge within the legacy that C and C++ created, so people are drawn to Rust as a fresh language? I really don't know. It's a tough question.
There are some points where I disagree with that argument. It comes down to where you draw the line on human effort.
You're basically saying that hammering a nail with a regular hammer and hammering it with a power tool aren't the same act. Let me put it this way. I don't like fully AI generated writing either. But if I read something and can see traces that a human wrote the first draft and then refined it, then I don't really care if AI was involved.
It's just a question of where the effort is placed. And the real key is whether the right "keywords" are there or not. If you've actually used AI, you'll know that it's a layering tool. The output varies a lot depending on the layers of input you give it. No matter how much I prompt it about functional programming, I'm not going to get results that are deep or particularly good. This piece seems like someone put a fair amount of care into it, but I guess you see it differently.
Honestly, if the people who taught me or explained things to me had written at this level, I might agree with you. But most of the professors and people I've encountered didn't write this well this easily.
Thank you for pointing out something I didn't know. That said, I do think there are some issues with it, just as you mentioned.
I think it's a simulacrum and simulation problem. I recently had a chance to teach some students, and I noticed their writing was starting to resemble AI generated text. The reason was that the AI was guiding their learning, and the students ended up picking up the AI's way of speaking.
Honestly, you can't rule out that kind of issue, and the homogenization of voice is definitely a valid concern too.
Opinions on what counts as "improvement" will vary from person to person, but I do think the problems you've raised can't be completely dismissed.
Thanks for the insight, and I'll take the time to read through the links you shared. Have a good day.
I can recognize it too. For example, there's that particular archetype where the writing summarizes things by leading with a block quote. But I don't think that's a bad thing. To be honest, I actually think some AI style of speaking is effective for conveying information.
People can have different opinions, of course. I write most things with my own hands. But if I feel like the AI's suggestion is better than what I wrote, I'll improve my writing. In fact, I did exactly that with a few pieces recently.
I respect that some people prefer things unpolished, and I respect their way of thinking. But I don't think that flat, AI assisted writing is bad for information delivery.
I believe there are many different kinds of writing. In novels or reportage, I think AI writing is bad. The style itself is part of the author's signature, after all. But on the flip side, I'm skeptical about whether someone's personality really needs to come through in a wiki or an encyclopedia.
The core of the anti AI argument right now is ultimately about form and style. But that style is something the model was trained on, based on datasets that people, on average, preferred. In other words, it's the most average, the most flat. It's inorganic, but it's the median.
When we define readers or consumers, there's always the question of where to draw the line, what segment to set. And when you think about it, the AI's training data comes from the broadest consumer distribution. It spits out that kind of data because it learned that most people preferred it.
Of course, even in informational writing, things like "has this person actually been through this?" or "is this exaggerated?" do matter, and that feeling is important. But when I read a technical article, the most important thing, unlike a novel, isn't the prose style. It's whether it hands me the technique or not.
So while I respect your opinion, I don't think it aligns with my values.
think there's a difference in perspective here. There are a few things I see differently.
I'd probably hate it too if AI generated writing started showing up in novels. But when it comes to things like wikis or encyclopedias where the whole point is conveying information, I find myself wondering, is it really that bad?
So rather than saying "it's bad for all writing," I kind of feel like as long as the facts get across in informational writing, that's good enough.
Because there were a few techniques in there that I didn't know about. I copied them down and saved them. So in other words, I gained new knowledge.
On the other hand, if it had been a novel, the writing style itself would have been a problem, so I'd think it was bad. But for this kind of informational writing, I don't think it's a bad thing at all.
But I don't really get what the problem is with using AI for editing. This article clearly has a sense of what it's trying to say. A human wrote the first draft, and then AI polished it. It's a method I use a lot myself. So it's a human plus AI hybrid piece, and honestly, I don't see anything particularly wrong with the content.
Stuff like isolating the hot core and packing the cold fields, that's just common knowledge you pick up.
Compared to purely human writing, it's actually safer and reads better than you'd expect, so I find it hard to understand why people are complaining about this.
If anything, I think tech blogs especially need to check whether their own thoughts line up with the knowledge of an LLM, which is basically a talking encyclopedia. But it seems like people don't really see it that way.
Do they still make screensavers that collect these kinds of things these days? When I was a kid, I used to love just staring blankly at computer screensavers.
I read it, and it seems like the core formula is ΔL ≈ ln(1 / HR) × 12.93 years (for U.S. males). It also gives you an easy way to approximate and interpret HR values from health studies, like an HR of 0.90 roughly translates to a little over a year of added life expectancy. Makes it easier to read those papers.
Personally, I found it interesting. But what I'm curious about is this: are there any studies where the lower your exposure to risk, the shorter your lifespan gets?
I've been thinking about this because I recently saw a story about an ultra wealthy guy who tried a reverse aging experiment and ended up with an incurable disease. This person probably had the best diet in the world and received top tier care, so how did he end up with something like that? It makes me wonder, maybe the human body just rejects reverse aging itself. Maybe we're wired to die because that's how species diversify. Just curious.
Rust must be a big deal. Every post about programming languages seems to mention Rust. Even C++ articles bring up Rust, and Zig articles bring up Rust. I think it's because Rust has solved some really impressive problems. But at the same time, when I read interviews where people are so intensely conscious of Rust, I can't help feeling that they've come to see Rust as having solved the problems inherent in their own languages better than they did.
Your skills and knowledge aren't your entire worth. I think you're a perfectly fine person. They just said cruel things that hurt you. Don't let that define you.
I actually think if people become mindless AI imitators, creative people like you will become even more competitive. Of course, I think you can still be creative even while using AI, but the kind of creativity we're talking about is just different.
Why bother fighting them? They're just people who are anxious themselves. I don't think you need to waste your energy defending yourself over such a pointless issue.
The claim that you're useless trash just because you don't use AI is wrong. AI is just one kind of workflow. You and they just didn't click.
As for people calling me useless trash, well, I hear that all the time. It's part of the freelancer life. But even so, that's just their opinion. I don't think of myself that way.
It's just that our environment makes things painfully difficult for us, my friend.
I'm sorry you had to go through those cruel messages. But I don't think they define you. You're a perfectly capable person, capable of intelligent conversation. You just chose not to adopt one particular workflow. That's not your problem.
If we keep talking, we might just end up hurting each other's feelings, so let's stop here and take a deep breath. Have a good day
There are some points I understand rationally but find hard to agree with emotionally.
What I understand rationally is the claim that AI is destroying your garden and community. It's an undeniable fact that intellectual property and the associated disruption are happening. That's simply true.
But what I find hard to agree with emotionally is that personal attacks aren't always justified just because of that. I've also been affected by AI. I had to create a new homepage because the traffic to my technical blog dropped due to AI. Of course, there are also benefits. As a non-native English speaker, it opened up a new path for me to access good programming resources, which I couldn't easily get before. So I have both affection and resentment.
Still, I understand your feelings. Because for you, the emotional anger of having something you built destroyed without any compensation is real. Our situations are different.
That said, I don't think that necessarily justifies attacking individuals.
People often think of blogs and homepages as places to write 'personal stories.' But once they're made public, they carry responsibility. And Andrew Kelly is a public figure—his words spread easily. So there needs to be a certain level of responsibility when writing.
No promises on code quality, of course. Cheap things are cheap for a reason, right?
It's not work-related — feel free to reach out just because you want to get closer