C++ is, quite rightly, considered an overly-complex and bloated language. A lot of newer features are papering over poor design from the beginnings of the language.
But..
There is something about the use of destructors, RAII, and even smart-pointers that just feels so...elegant? I'm not sure what the word is I'm looking for. I feel like there's a kernel of a beautiful language hiding in c++ and those features are the integral parts of that.
Because C++ has almost all the possible features of the programming languages, so you find a subset to like in it. A language shines when it picks the correct subset of the features, not all.
If you're undecided on reading Chiang's work, I would suggest checking out the movie Arrival based on one of his short stories.
I found it to be a wonderful adaptation and inspired me to dive into his works. I've found a joy reading his work that I haven't experienced in reading sci-fi since coming across Philip K. Dick when I was much younger.
One interesting thing about the movie Arrival is that they actually completely flipped the message of the story in their adaptation!
An explanation of the differences is ROT13 encoded below to avoid spoilers:
Gur zbivr Neeviny vf fhcresvpvnyyl onfrq bss Grq Puvnat'f fubeg fgbel "Fgbel bs Lbhe Yvsr". Obgu vaibyir gur neeviny bs nyvraf ba rnegu naq qrgnvy n yvathvfg'f nggrzcg ng haqrefgnaq gurve ynathntr naq ubj yrneavat gung ynathntr nssrpgf gung yvathvfg. Ubjrire, gur rssrpg bs yrneavat gur nyvra ynathntr vf pbzcyrgryl qvssrerag va obgu fgbevrf.
Va gur zbivr, yrneavat gur ynathntr pnhfrf gur yvathvfg gb tnva gur fhcreangheny novyvgl gb frr vagb gur shgher. Va fgrerbglcvpny Ubyyljbbq snfuvba, gurer ner n ohapu bs npgvba fprarf jurer gur cebgntbavfg vf enpvat ntnvafg gvzr gb erynl n zrffntr sebz gur shgher gb gur cnfg.
Ba gur bgure unaq, va gur obbx, yrneavat gur ynathntr erfhygf va n fuvsg bs crefcrpgvir sbe gur yvathvfg. Gur yvathvfg qbrfa'g rknpgyl orunir nal qvssreragyl be erprvir nal arj vasbezngvba. Gurve bhgjneq orunivbe vf rknpgyl vqragvpny gb orsber gurl yrnearq gur ynathntr. Gur qvssrerapr vf gung gurve vagreany crefcrpgvir unf fuvsgrq terngyl. Guvf vf fbzrjung cuvybfbcuvpny naq pna or n ovg pbzcyvpngrq gb pbaprcghnyvmr, ohg Grq Puvnat qbrf n znfgreshy wbo rkcynvavat gung arj crefcrpgvir va gur fgbel.
Very interesting. I loved both but for some reason I did enjoy the short story better (I'm definitely not always a "The book was better"-type person either), and I think this explains why. I'll have to go and check them both out again and keep this in mind.
It is a pretty great adaptation, and pretty difficult if you think about how you can express things in a book vs movie. I really enjoyed this video essay breakdown of the adaptation process: https://youtu.be/QTxvzkwVsQE
Most of the non-Tesla systems do. Waymo uses lidar, radar, and cameras. The cruise vehicles I see around have lidar and radar as well, and I just assume everyone has cameras because they're cheap and easy to stick somewhere.
To be specific about waymo (to be clear I work at Google, but don't actually have any special info on this), look at the photo in [0]. The cone thing on top is a lidar, but also has cameras in the larger part under the cone. The spinny thing on the front is also probably a lidar. The fin that looks like an extra mirror on the back, and the two on the front have radar. There's also probably a forward facing radar mounted on the nose somewhere near the grille.
So self driving cars are basically going to be really expensive for the first while as the sensors take time to reduce in price plus the computer in the back and less distance from the battery.
Sounds like a reasonable trade off. No one needs to own these cars just rent them on demand. Plus some wealthy people in the early adoption curve.
Lidar used for long range. Vision used for things like colour recognition e.g. is a traffic light green/red or is an ambulance sirens on. Radar used for reversing etc where Lidar given its location might not be able to see that close.
I suspect that optical will also supplement LIDAR in cases where very precise angular resolution is needed, such as human gesture and posture recognition (which is necessary if only because sometimes humans direct traffic, but also for things like profiling pedestrians to anticipate which is likely to jump into the road without looking.) Being able to detect which way a human head is facing will at the very least be necessary, and while you might be able to read faces with LIDAR from a distance, my gut says that optical will give you better data for that.
Of course, they were presumably using a mostly-stock car with custom niche sensor products, so that comparison would be a bit more favorable in production.
Currently, LIDAR is very expensive, certainly too expensive to build into every Tesla being manufactured. So Musk would not be able to sell a "full FSD capability" option on his cars if he acknowledged LIDAR is useful/necessary to autonomous driving.
The number one link if you search "Tesla" on HN is "All Tesla Cars Being Produced Now Have Full Self-Driving Hardware." It's been an extraordinarily effective marketing gimmick.
They will certainly have an economic value of multiple hundred thousand dollars, but that applies to all manufacturers. So if a manufacturer is able to produce non-LIDAR self-driving cars and sells those cars to consumers for $100,000 less than the competition, you can bet that they’ll still capture the robotaxi rental value that is there, through an app store-like agreement. Leaving the money on the table would obviously not happen, unless it was intended to drive the competition out of business.
There would probably be room for both these models (direct sales that capture much of the self-driving value and leasing), but regardless there are obviously strong incentives for a 5- or 6-figure reduction in costs.
"Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, who has now also taken over the company’s legendary design studio."
This might be a dumb question, but does the COO usually manage design? Our COO is very much a supply chain, logistics, procurement and day-to-day administration type manager. I can't imagine him having any sort of sense of good design.
I'm sure he's (he as in Apple's COO) not there in the design trenches on the daily, but he would have final say on overall design, unless I'm misinterpreting what it means in the article.
To be fair I probably would've said the same thing for a CEO before Steve Jobs came along but he's proven himself to a be very rare exception.
This also confuses me in politics. In one administration a particular member of the cabinet is justice secretary, and in the next election he's an education secretary. I am highly sceptical of the idea that they've studied the intricacies of effective pedagogy in order to get that job.
The jobs are awarded on the basis of political loyalty, ambition, and tribal (party) potential, not domain competence.
In the UK - and I guess the US - they're executive roles. The Prime Minister's office sets policy, with varying levels of debate and pushback, and the department heads implement it.
Executives who climb high enough are allowed to suggest policy of their own, under the oversight of the PM. Ministers direct implementation, but the details of execution are handled by the Civil Service.
No competence is needed. In fact in the last decade or so in the UK most of ministers were absolutely incompetent dolts elevated to purely political appointments - with results that surprised no one.
There seems to be no other explanation for the borderline ridiculous proposals that keep making their way into laws, including but certainly not limited to CAJA 2009 which criminalizes sexual drawings of fictional underage characters - which they admitted in their own reports wasn't based on any empirical evidence and in fact only on hearsay and faulty reasoning from the likes of children's charity workers.
This is an egregious case with the chance to ruin lives (in fact, a substantial number of people are convicted under it each year according to stats in the VAWG report) but I wonder what other deplorable incompetence I'm missing out on seeing from the UK government.
I can see the connection between a Product marketing person and feature development. The connection between the guy responsible for supply chains and operations and product/software design seems a bit weird to me.
But I guess Steve Jobs trusted Tim Cook enough to take over the reigns and he was a COO.
"This might be a dumb question, but does the COO usually manage design?"
I don't think so, but it's not unusual to have CTO, CIO report into COO. I'm guessing there will eventually be a dedicated CDO or a de facto CDO that reports into Williams.
It’s purely speculation on both our parts, but the CDO title was, one could argue, an honorific specifically for Ives and a recognition of his sizeable achievements.
There is no precedent at Apple for it (or many other companies for that matter). While if any company should have such a position it’s Apple, I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t come back anytime soon.
The lack of this option is the single most eloquent statement of Google's coercive intentions for AMP. It's incredibly easy to implement, and if they were really about improving user experience they'd provide it in a heartbeat.
These are beautifully designed and no doubt they will pair seamlessly with other Apple devices, but that price tag seems...audacious to put it nicely.