Hackers 
they are when it comes to math 
Would subtraction also approximate division?
Yes.
Would negation also approximate the reciprocal?
I've always hated that it's called an "inverse". It's not an inverse. The inverse of square root is square. If they had called it "reciprocal", it would have been clear to me what it does, but "inverse" confused the heck out of me when I first saw it.
It's confusing for non-mathematicians, but (and you may know that) it is not incorrect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_element "In mathematics, the concept of an inverse element generalises the concepts of opposite (−x) and reciprocal (1/x) of numbers."
Shoulda just called it fast 
mapping()
"inverse" has a very specific meaning: inverse(x) * x = 1, x^2 * x != 1 for any x other than 1. So no, x^2 is not the inverse of sqrt(x)
The inverse is about the negative power right? Square root is the 0.5
.webp?h=10 "Nuzzles, pounces on you, UwU, you're so warm!..")
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I used to think doctors were the dumbest people with "smart people" jobs but it's become increasingly clear that programmers are as a group extremely r-slurred.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Everyone is r-slurred
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
This is the world's big secret
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Code monkeys should never have been called software engineers because they literally know nothing about any traditional engineering field and act like they do. You can teach an engineer to code but you can't teach a coder to be an engineer.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I've come to the understanding that anyone who can't explain their job/hobbies without injecting a ton of acronyms and jargon you obviously don't get are some of the dumbest motherlovers out there.
Smart people either don't interact with stupid people or if they do, know how to simplify their complex system to the layman.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Yeah a good example of that is Excel. So many r-slurs thnk a long complex spreadsheet with tons of formulas that run on and on means they are smart but smart is doing things as simply as possible and it being easily understandable.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
"Yeah bro i wrote this spreadsheet that basically runs the whole business, look at all these formulas. By the way, never use capitals with your inputs, never copy and paste, and also this spreadsheet is shared with everyone so don't make any changes"
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
People who come from coding make good plumbers. People who come from engineering make good abstractions, and jobs for the plumbers when abstractions encounter the real world and overflow the heap
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
The only programmers I've met that aren't as r-slurred as me are programers with math degrees.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Who will write the most god awful code to ever exist
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
But it's so clever and efficient! You don't want everything done with bitwise operators?
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Variables don't need to be more than one character unless you have over 20 of them
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Just need to rename them when I need to do something different with them
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
Lawyers deserve a mention too
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
I mean most normie engineers are pretty smart on the whole but the dumbest engineers are way dumber than any doctor or programmer, like you'll find qtards and flat earthers among that category
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Smartest STEMcels
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
learning math is not a requirement in programming
getting into conversations about it usually is tho
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
was he actually trying to say "square root is the 0.5 exponent," i.e. the inverse of x^2=y is y^(0.5)=x
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
The comment chain is about whether fastInverseSqrt(x) = 1/sqrt(x) = x^(-0.5) should be called fastReciprocalSqrt(x).
With his logic, fastInverseSqrt could just as well mean -x^0.5
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
just throw an i in there or something
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
Worst example of this is the people who insist on tau over pi or using arcsin instead of sin^(-1)
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Never met someone using tau instead of 2pi but I have used it myself to teach people the unit circle.
Arcsin is r-slurred tho.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Two things that are (almost) monoids both behave similarly
what could explain this? 
perhaps they both...behave like monoids... 
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
When I was curious about haskell I mostly wrapped my head around functors and etc, but I found it disorienting to approach the concepts from the perspective of my programming experience. My math stopped at linear 101, so I'm not even sure how to find the path that leads to practical mathematical comprehension of these terms.
I get the same feeling from church numerals and the lambda calculus. It's clear that these were useful in the math domain, but I had never seen anything like them before encountering them as a programmer, and have no idea who used them or for what purpose.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
It's just generalizing stuff more and more. Take a class on group theory or real analysis (as in properly starting from axioms of the reals and proving convergence theorems etc.) They're very fun and quite approachable subjects
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Wait, do you mean that because integer addition and float multiplication are both monoids, it would imply that float2int(x * y) ≈ float2int(x) + float2int(y)?
That's not it at all, the relevant property here is that float2int approximates log2
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
Most threads on HN I want to scream "WHO CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARES!" but
@dang won't let me because he's a cute twink.
Plus he's not even asian. Fricking liar.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
I care because you do
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Not patronizing enough.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
umm please familiarize yourself with this site's rules before engaging in an illegal attack on the mods
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
More options
Context
Snapshots:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42992505:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_element::
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
More options
Context