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Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

>The name is pretentious,

If we already have useful phrases like "embedded programming", "numerical programming", "systems programming", or "CRUD programming", etc, I'm not seeing the pretentiousness of "differentiable programming". If you program embedded chips, we often call it "embedded programming"; likewise, if you write programs where differentials are a 1st-class syntax concept, I'm not seeing the harm in calling it "differentiable programming" -- because that basically describes the specialization.

>the quotes are ridiculous ("Deep Learning est mort. Vive Differentiable Programming.";

Fyi, it's a joking type of rhetorical technique called a "snowclone". Previous comment about a similar phrase: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11455219

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I feel like calling it a snowclone is a stretch.

The whole point is you’re supposed to have the same “something” on both sides (X is dead, long live X), to indicate it’s not a totally new thing but a significant shift in how it’s done

The most well known one:

> The King is dead. Long live the King!

If you change one side, you’re removing the tongue-in-cheek nature of it, and it does sound pretty pretentious.

Not really. The sentence with the King was used to mean that the new King immediately got into function.

> Le Roi (Louis ##) est mort. Vive le Roi (Louis ## + 1) !

Using the sentence with Deep Learning and Differential Learning just suggests that Differential Learning is the heir/successor/evolution of Deep Learning. It does not imply that they are the same thing.

As a French person used to the saying, Le Cun probably meant that.

> Using the sentence with Deep Learning and Differential Learning just shows how Differential Learning is an evolution. It does not imply that they are the same thing.

... where did I imply it means they're the same thing?

From my comment:

> indicate it’s not a totally new thing but a significant shift in how it’s done

You could say, an evolution?

A snowclone is a statement in a certain form. The relevant form that English speakers use (I'm not a French person, and this is an English article) is "X is dead, long live X", where both are X.

That's where the "joking" the above comment is referring to comes from, it sounds "nonsensical" if you take it literally.

If you change one X to Y, suddenly there's no tongue-in-cheek aspect, you're just saying "that thing sucks, this is the new hotness".

I suspect the author just missed that nuance or got caught up in their excitement, but the whole point of a snowclone is it has a formula, and by customizing the variable parts of that formula, you add a new subtle meaning or tint to the statement.

It does, actually. What matters is that there is a king, not who is the king.

The saying works because, as you say, it suggests a successor, but the successor has to use the same title, because what people want is a new king, so that nothing changes and they can live as they did before the king was dead, not a revolution with a civil war tainted in blood.

If you do volontarily change the title, it's because you think the new one will be better, which is pretentious.

They’re kinda fucked because differential analysis was coined long ago to describe a set of techniques for attacking bad cryptography.

Differential programming would be less flashy but may be confusing.

I wouldn’t actually be interested in this topic much except for the top level comment complaining about them wanting a new version control system for this and now I’m a bit curious what they’re on about this time, so will probably get sucked in.

Yea, cryptocurrencies will never be known as crypto. The term was coined long ago as a short hand for cryptography.

God I hate the trend of using a prefix on its own as a stand in for '<prefix><thing>'. I think it's a symptom of politicians trying to sound stupid to avoid sounding elitist.

What do you think will have more impact on the economy, crypto or cyber?

I think using the shorten version is perfectly valid only provided the context is correct.

If you are talking to someone about cryptocurrency, referring to it as crypto later in the conversation in context is perfectly valid and doesn't lessen the meaning.

I do however agree with you when outside of it's context that these shortened names are horrible and effectively buzzwords.

"differential" and "differentiable" are different words. Both are being used correctly. Is the problem only that the two words look kind of similar? That seems like an impractical requirement.

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