Robust-first computing: Beyond efficiency

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Strong rec DonHopkins · 2025-07 · on “LLMs bring new nature of abstraction – up and sideways”

Me to, and I'm always battling with the LLM's obsession with lazily writing reams of ridiculously defensive code and masking errors in the code it generates and calls, instead of finding the root cause and solving that. (Yes, I'm referring to the code LLMs generate, not the API for generating code itself, but "fail early and spectacularly" should apply to all code and apis.) But you have to draw the line at failures that happen in the real world, or in code you can't control. I'm a huge fan of Dave Ackley's "Robust First" computing architecture, and his Moveable Feast Machine. His "Robust First" philosophy is extremely relevant and has a lot of applications to programming with LLMs, not just

Recommends sitkack · 2020-01 · on “Which Machines Do Computer Architects Admire? (2013)”

I am happy you don't agree on modularity. I don't want to be correct, I want to arrive at correct conclusions. :) Composition is great, scale free self similarity is probably the basis for the universe. Modularity is a great design technique, it can also make things weaker and force other (unknowable) design choices because the module boundary prevents the flow of information/force. Overly constrained modular systems encourage globals, under constrained modular systems are asymptotic to mud/clay. I don't want to use K8S as a strawman to attack modularity, but I think it is an example of using this powerful design tool to solve the wrong problem using mis-applied methods all the while being m

Recommends nelsonmandela · 2021-01 · on “If memristors act like neurons, put them in neural networks”

You might be interested in 'Robust First Computing' - [LINK] edit: here is a far better explanation by the terms creator: [this video]

Cites justifier · 2015-11 · on “The Movable Feast Machine”

then you'd debug it, or program debuggers to flit around looking for programmer error then address it the system is clear about its capabilities regarding 'correctness' which seems to imply the programmer's job is to optimise with those built in inaccuracies but what those inaccuracies afford is what ackley is calling robustness and indefinite scalability ackley addresses your question directly with a sorting comparison(o) from a later video the graph fails to exhibit where maxwell's demon(i) horde sort would express itself on the graph, but sorting corruption is addressed in the paper(ii) The demon horde sort’s performance may be just adequate, by that measure, but its robustness seems quit