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0 pointsgpderetta2y ago0 comments

Why would only the non-bruteforce solution require hiring an engineer to maintain it? Does the brute force solution spontaneously manifest and maintains itself?

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PartiallyTyped2y ago

> vs hiring engineers

The plural form was correct.

It's not just hiring one engineer, it's hiring a whole engineering department because that solution involves symbolic execution plus a few other things that I can not speak about without compromising my employment. The two solutions are in entirely different leagues in terms of engineering complexity.

The bruteforce solution is simple enough that can be maintained by junior engineers.

Add a few mid and senior engineers, and it can become significantly more efficient, without requiring the resources of the optimal solution while still being classified "brute-force".

It is yet another way the bitter lesson manifests [1].

The highest core count machine you can get on EC2 is like 45k per annum, which is peanuts compared to the cost of the team required to build the perfect solution.

[1] http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html

gpderettaOP2y ago

The issue here is not brute-force vs optimized. It is over engineering. Why spend 10 minutes optimizing your program when you can spend two weeks over engineering it.

PartiallyTyped2y ago

Had I been in your shoes, I'd accept that there things I am not privy to, and therefore I can't have the full picture and thus I can't exercise judgement. Instead I'd try to understand what the other person is telling me - especially on HN - instead of jumping to conclusions.

A complete and efficient solution would take 2+ years plus a very senior, very specialized engineering team chasing a moonshot.

A brute-force approach that can leverage compute is far more efficient in engineering time, operational costs (eng time vs compute), and opportunity cost.

This isn't something that can be optimized in 10 minutes, and insinuating that while digging further suggests that haven't dealt with truly complex engineering problems.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

PartiallyTyped2y ago

> vs hiring engineers

The plural form was correct.

The bruteforce solution is simple enough that can be maintained by junior engineers.

Add a few mid and senior engineers, and it can become significantly more efficient, without requiring the resources of the optimal solution while still being classified "brute-force".

It is yet another way the bitter lesson manifests [1].

The highest core count machine you can get on EC2 is like 45k per annum, which is peanuts compared to the cost of the team required to build the perfect solution.

[1] http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html

gpderettaOP2y ago

The issue here is not brute-force vs optimized. It is over engineering. Why spend 10 minutes optimizing your program when you can spend two weeks over engineering it.

PartiallyTyped2y ago

A complete and efficient solution would take 2+ years plus a very senior, very specialized engineering team chasing a moonshot.

A brute-force approach that can leverage compute is far more efficient in engineering time, operational costs (eng time vs compute), and opportunity cost.

This isn't something that can be optimized in 10 minutes, and insinuating that while digging further suggests that haven't dealt with truly complex engineering problems.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse