fireflies_

This is where I started getting that feeling:

> The curse of dimensionality is not theoretical — it’s painfully practical. In high dimensions, naive distance metrics degrade quickly.

>

> Scaling and normalization are not optional details. They fundamentally shape the geometry of the space.

Arguably XSLT

> In one case, we ran a simple a/b test as a proof of concept on whether to pursue the idea further and it added an extra million bucks a year in revenue.

I'm with the people who decided to ship this. The organization will need to fund more maintenance than they would if they waited, but that has real costs. And "keep your 1mm/revenue idea to yourself" doesn't sound like a healthy engineering culture either.

> I just don't understand how they still have users.

Because this post is here and not somewhere else. Strong network effects.

This application of "base rates thinking" was helpful for me - a bit out of left field, I'm aware of the concept and use it sometimes but wouldn't have thought to do so here. Thanks!

Thanks for sharing. I've used megaparsec a little but never looked at ReadP. Your tutorial is concise and helpful, I'd have ended up with better intuition faster if I started there.

It's a shame that these aren't parallel. Why couldn't it be "insular gigantism" or "island dwarfism"? (But not both!)

Would you be equally happy if you were sick enough to be hospitalized as you are when you're healthy? If not, that's a cost. I doubt the out-of-pocket medical costs are the most important part of this decision.

In some ways the argument against Excel is like the argument against Electron: if you're comparing it to an elegant, purpose-built and well-tested application, yes... it falls woefully short.

But is that really the right comparison? Lots of people just don't have the skills or time to build a specific applications. Without Excel, what would they do? There are some places where a 90% solution is worse than no solution at all (at least no solution is a forcing function for a "real" application), and in many ways Excel isn't the best expression of the _idea_ of an Excel-like, low-barrier-to-entry declarative programming environment with a built-in UI, but it's truly a wonderful tool. It makes a lot of automation possible for a lot of people.