Ling Wang an0

Anti-hype LLM reading list

Goals: Add links that are reasonable and good explanations of how stuff works. No hype and no vendor content if possible. Practical first-hand accounts of models in prod eagerly sought.

Foundational Concepts

Pre-Transformer Models

Approachable PL Papers for Undergrads

On September 28, 2021, I asked on Twitter:

PL Twitter:

you get to recommend one published PL paper for an undergrad to read with oversight by someone experienced. the paper should be interesting, approachable, and (mostly) self-contained.

what paper do you recommend?

libdispatch efficiency tips

The libdispatch is one of the most misused API due to the way it was presented to us when it was introduced and for many years after that, and due to the confusing documentation and API. This page is a compilation of important things to know if you're going to use this library. Many references are available at the end of this document pointing to comments from Apple's very own libdispatch maintainer (Pierre Habouzit).

My take-aways are:

You should create very few, long-lived, well-defined queues. These queues should be seen as execution contexts in your program (gui, background work, ...) that benefit from executing in parallel. An important thing to note is that if these queues are all active at once, you will get as many threads running. In most apps, you probably do not need to create more than 3 or 4 queues.
Go serial first, and as you find performance bottle necks, measure why, and if concurrency helps, apply with care, always validating under system pressure. Reuse

What I Wish I'd Known About Equity Before Joining A Unicorn

Disclaimer: This piece is written anonymously. The names of a few particular companies are mentioned, but as common examples only.

This is a short write-up on things that I wish I'd known and considered before joining a private company (aka startup, aka unicorn in some cases). I'm not trying to make the case that you should never join a private company, but the power imbalance between founder and employee is extreme, and that potential candidates would

	import Foundation

	struct Partial<Wrapped>: CustomStringConvertible, CustomDebugStringConvertible {

	enum Error<ValueType>: Swift.Error {
	case missingKey(KeyPath<Wrapped, ValueType>)
	case invalidValueType(key: KeyPath<Wrapped, ValueType>, actualValue: Any)
	}

	private var values: [PartialKeyPath<Wrapped>: Any?] = [:]

	/*******************************************************************************
	* The MIT License (MIT)
	*
	* Copyright (c) 2017 Jean-David Gadina - www.xs-labs.com
	*
	* Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
	* of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
	* in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
	* to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
	* copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is

	http://courses.cms.caltech.edu/cs179/
	http://www.amd.com/Documents/GCN_Architecture_whitepaper.pdf
	https://community.arm.com/graphics/b/blog
	http://cdn.imgtec.com/sdk-documentation/PowerVR+Hardware.Architecture+Overview+for+Developers.pdf
	http://cdn.imgtec.com/sdk-documentation/PowerVR+Series5.Architecture+Guide+for+Developers.pdf
	https://www.imgtec.com/blog/a-look-at-the-powervr-graphics-architecture-tile-based-rendering/
	https://www.imgtec.com/blog/the-dr-in-tbdr-deferred-rendering-in-rogue/
	http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/opencl-zone/amd-accelerated-parallel-processing-app-sdk/opencl-optimization-guide/#50401334_pgfId-412605
	https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/a-trip-through-the-graphics-pipeline-2011-index/
	https://community.arm.com/graphics/b/documents/posts/moving-mobile-graphics#siggraph2015

	#!/bin/sh

	defaults read com.apple.finder CreateDesktop > /dev/null 2>&1
	enabled=$?

	if [ "$1" = "off" ]; then
	if [ $enabled -eq 1 ]; then
	defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop false
	osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to quit'
	open -a Finder

	//Make sure you scroll down to get all data loaded
	var text = '';
	$('.col-email').each(function(index,el) {
	if (index == 0) {
	text = 'Email, First Name, Last Name\n';
	}
	else {
	//Email
	text = text + $.trim($(el).find("a").text()) + ',';
	//First Name

	/*
	---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	Obj-C Literal Dictionary Syntax - Multiple reasons for allowing nil values
	Radar 19747372
	---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The obj-c literal syntax for dictionaries does not allow nils.

	@{key : nil}; // Exception (and compiler error)