Webtagr - Technology News Summarizer

Local LLMs vs. Offline Wikipedia: A Size Comparison

2025-07-20

An article in MIT Technology Review sparked a discussion about using offline LLMs in an apocalyptic scenario. This prompted the author to compare the sizes of local LLMs and offline Wikipedia downloads. The results showed that smaller local LLMs (like Llama 3.2 3B) are roughly comparable in size to a selection of 50,000 Wikipedia articles, while the full Wikipedia is much larger than even the largest LLMs. Although their purposes differ, this comparison reveals an interesting contrast in storage space between local LLMs and offline knowledge bases.

(evanhahn.com)

AI

Building Software Fast: Lessons Learned

2025-07-14

This post details lessons learned about building software quickly. The author advocates for setting realistic quality goals based on project needs, emphasizing a 'rough draft' approach where a functional prototype is built first, then refined. Strategies include simplifying requirements, avoiding distractions, and making small, focused code changes. The author also highlights valuable skills like code reading, data modeling, scripting, and debugging, and the effective use of LLMs to accelerate development. It's a practical guide for developers aiming to improve efficiency and deliver high-quality software.

(evanhahn.com)

Development

Why Scripts Beat Aliases (Most of the Time)

2025-03-05

The author initially relied heavily on shell aliases for common commands like shortening `git` to `g`. However, they transitioned to using scripts within their `$PATH` for several key advantages. Scripts offer immediate updates without requiring shell restarts, support multiple programming languages, handle complex logic more effectively, and provide greater portability across different systems. While aliases excel in specific niche cases (e.g., modifying `cd`, conditional definitions) and offer slight performance benefits, the author prefers scripts for their flexibility and extensibility in everyday command aliases.

(evanhahn.com)

Development Shell scripting command aliases

Failed Attempt: Shrinking npm Packages with Zopfli

2025-01-27

The author attempted to reduce the size of npm packages by using the Zopfli compressor to improve performance and reduce storage costs. While Zopfli produces smaller files than gzip, it's significantly slower. The author successfully tested this on their own projects and submitted a proposal to npm maintainers. However, due to the slower publishing speed introduced by Zopfli and incompatibility with the npm lockfile, the proposal was ultimately rejected. Despite the failure, the author gained valuable experience and considers it a worthwhile endeavor.

(evanhahn.com)

Development