Badland9085@lemm.eetoProgramming@programming.dev•New Book-Sorting Algorithm Almost Reaches Perfection | Quanta Magazine
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4 days agoIs there anyone here who’s familiar with the paper(s) mentioned in the article? I’d actually like to read them, so if you do, it’d be great if you could share it with me. I couldn’t really find it in the article, unless it’s just hidden under one of their links.
I found the following paper with the authors mentioned:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.11582
But not sure if that’s it. It does have some semblance to the topic though. My search-fu isn’t really doing me great with just author names though.
You come from a healthy background is what I’m hearing. And that’s good, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way. What you have there is absolutely the right mindset to have. These tools are made by humans, who have their own set of problems they want to solve with their tools. It may not be the best tool, but it can work pretty damn well.
However, it’s also not uncommon to see communities rage and fight over the superiority of their tools, if not just to shun those that they think are inferior. It’s a blatantly childish or tribalistic behaviour, depending on how you look at humanity. And you’ll see this outside of programming too; in the office, in town, on the streets. People engage in this behaviour so that they can show that “I am on your side”, for the side where they think is the right or superior side, based on factors like a perception of group size, a perception of power, a perception of closeness. It appeals to a common human desire to belong to a strong group. It appeals to the human desire to feel safe. And when you start looking at it that way, that’s not too different from how animals behave. It’s important to note that not all humans have the same amount of desire for this sort of tribe, or would give into that desire to engage in such behaviours, but it’s not surprising to see.
In any case, this article is essentially a callout to the sort of toxic behaviour done for the sake of feeling superior, that exists within the programming community, to a point where some may even say is a major subculture.