progression.fyi

A collection of open source frameworks for helping designers and engineers to grow at work

Thinking Frameworks | 2021

Sharing out the best meta-thinking tools I’ve learned this year

What is a framework? Understanding their purpose, value, development and use

Many frameworks exist across the sciences and science-policy interface, but it is not always clear how they are developed or can be applied. It is also often vague how new or existing frameworks are positioned in a theory of science to advance a specific theory or paradigm. This article examines these questions and positions the role of frameworks as integral but often vague scientific tools, highlighting benefits and critiques. While frameworks can be useful for synthesizing and communicating core concepts in a field, they often lack transparency in how they were developed and how they can be applied. Positioning frameworks within a theory of science can aid in knowing the purpose and value of framework use. This article provides a meta-framework for visualizing and engaging the four mediating processes for framework development and application: (1) empirical generalization, (2) theoretical fitting, (3) application, and (4) hypothesizing. Guiding points for scholars and policymakers using or developing frameworks in their research are provided in closing.

Opinion | The A.I. Disruption Has Arrived, and It Sure Is Fun

We’re entering a new renaissance of software development. We should all be excited, despite the uncertainties that lie ahead.

Opinion | The A.I. Disruption Has Arrived, and It Sure Is Fun

We’re entering a new renaissance of software development. We should all be excited, despite the uncertainties that lie ahead.

How I stopped worrying and learned to love the easy fix

On the balance between perfect solutions and pragmatic fixes in software engineering

Frameworks v0.2

FRAMEWORKS v0.2 Many of the thoughts in this document draw on and synthesize concepts from economics, math, physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology. Here are a handful of core concepts that are often relied on as inputs: Activation energy Behavioral economics Cognitive biases Darwinism En...

Building a UI framework

Building a UI Framework Ian Hickson (ian@hixie.ch) — 2025 — First Edition — https://software.hixie.ch/ui-frameworksTo leave comments, use the edit version. Introduction This document examines important design decisions for creating a new graphical UI framework. It was commissioned to answer the...

The End of Mathematics — Daniel Litt

I'm currently returning to Toronto from a summit on the future of mathematics, at OpenAI. Sebastian Bubeck asked me to talk a bit about the future we'd all like to avoid, where humans are mathematically disempowered. Jacob Tsimerman advised us to try to prioritize detail over correctness, and I have no doubt that I succeeded in deprioritizing correctness.

A quote from Andrew Quinn

One could say in the first quarter-century of my life, that while I was always fascinated by programming, I could never overcome the guilt of not really knowing whether the …

the void — LessWrong

Comment by nostalgebraist - Thanks for the reply!  I'll check out the project description you linked when I get a chance. [...] Yeah, I had mentally flagged this as a potentially frustrating aspect of the post – and yes, I did worry a little bit about the thing you mention in your last sentence, that I'm inevitably "reifying" the thing I describe a bit more just by describing it. FWIW, I think of this post as purely about "identifying and understanding the problem" as opposed to "proposing solutions."  Which is frustrating, yes, but the former is a helpful and often necessary step toward the latter. And although the post ends on a doom-y note, I meant there to be an implicit sense of optimism underneath that[1] – like, "behold, a neglected + important cause area that for all we know could be very tractable! It's under-studied, it could even be easy!  What is true is already so; the worrying signs we see even in today's LLMs were already there, you already knew about them – but they might be more amenable to solution than you had ever appreciated!  Go forth, study these problems with fresh eyes, and fix them once and for all!" I might write a full post on potential solutions sometime.  For now, here's the gist of (incomplete, work-in-process) thoughts. ---------------------------------------- In a recent post, I wrote the following (while talking about writing a Claude 4 Opus prompt that specified a counterfactual but realistic scenario): [...] And I feel that the right way to engage with persistent LLM personas is basically just this, except generalized to the fullest possible extent. "Imagine the being you want to create, and the kind of relationship you want to have (and want others to have) with that being. "And then shape all model-visible 'context' (prompts, but also the way training works, the verbal framing we use for the LLM-persona-creation process, etc.) for consistency with that intent – up to, and including, authentically acting out that 'relationship you want to have' w