Tips for probabilistic software - jxnl.co
In many walks of life, expressions of uncertainty are mistaken for admissions of weakness. When you first start to make these probability estimates, they may be quite poor. But there are two pieces of favorable news. First, these estimates are just a starting point: Bayes’s theorem will have you revise and improve them as you encounter new informat
... See moreNate Silver • The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't
technique colonized realms of life to which it did not properly belong. The key, then, is to recognize where and when it is appropriate to allow technique (or quantification or optimization) a place and where and when it would be good to circumscribe its scope. In order to do so we must have before us a clear sense of the good we seek.
theconvivialsociety.substack.com • The Limits of Optimization
Lehman and Belady offer evidence that quanta should be very large and widely spaced or else very small and frequent.[14] The latter strategy is more subject to instability, according to their model. My experience confirms it: I would never risk that strategy in practice.
Frederick P. Brooks Jr. • Mythical Man-Month, Anniversary Edition, The: Essays On Software Engineering
My whole life was basically trying to optimize things. You don't just save parts, but every time you save parts you save on complexity and reliability, the amount of time it takes to understand something. And how good you can build it without errors and bugs and flaws.