alt Hacker NewsHow is this Simon’s area of expertise? I know he’s a programming legend, but I’ve never heard anything to indicate he’s a machine learning expert.
I’m not intending to be dismissive, just noticing a pattern and advocating a bit of skepticism.
Replies
simonw • 01/16/2026
Being an expert in machine learning turns out to not be particularly relevant to being an expert in the applications of LLMs to real-world problems. I'm certainly not an expert in the former but I do think I have credibility in the latter.
This is more akin to a race car driver give a review of, for example, a new type of electric car. It doesn’t matter that the driver is not a domain expert in electric motors and regenerative braking; what matters is he knows how to operate these machines in their use case at the limits.
Hearing a programming legend weigh in on the latest programming tool seems entirely completely reasonable.