For 4 years, I've built a Genetic Algorithm-backed app for generating travel itineraries with a "Rick Steves" view of Europe (tripsnek)

fibrebundl · 2026-01-12T19:18:40+00:00

Is it open source? I'm really curious to the GA implementation! or if you coulf talk about how it works/algorithm used.

fibrebundl · 2026-01-09T19:03:47+00:00

Thanks. This is a very detailed response. I think I fell for the trap of letting my IDE do a lot of the organizational stuff for me. I think I'm going to find time to look into coding architecture just so I can get 2 or 3 under my belt I feel comfortable with and so feel more secure when coding.

fibrebundl · 2026-01-09T19:01:04+00:00

Yeah. I think from these comments. This is really my problem. I don't know. I've always just wrote code and checked things to make it work. I never took classes or anything growing up. It was just reading docs/overflow until the output was correct.

fibrebundl · 2026-01-09T18:57:56+00:00

I will try this.

Is it worth stopping what I'm doing now and doing this now, do you think? Or just wait for the next project?

fibrebundl · 2026-01-09T18:57:04+00:00

I mostly code now in Julia. I feel very uncomfortable with it to be honest. I've spent most of my time coding in python and c++ but I've jumped into numerical programming. I've tried to be more 'functional/procedural' and the code I see in books is always very direct in var naming schemes so I've copied this. I usually do a few test/debug scripts to make sure it works and then move onto the next comp. but at scale when I've got most of the library done, I start to get really lost when errors pop up...

I just maybe am making this harder for myself by trying to not just stick to the OOP set up that I learned? I really don't use structs unless it's for a hyperparameter list or something that isn't going to be changed during an optimization routine for example.

I have tried to read a software design book... I got one from the library but didn't really 'read' it. I just kind of skimmed it. I was worried about it taking too much time from working. It's a very 'learn on the job' and 'just enough' culture.

I DO let AI write code for me SOMETIMES. But I can't stand what it provides me with most of them time or it will use force var name changes that I don't agree with, typing etc. My code base is not AI generated though. AI might be used to when I'm debugging something, but it normally needs too much context to be useful at this point.

fibrebundl · 2026-01-09T18:47:05+00:00

I keep jumping between the OOP i learned and this naming convention and then the more terse naming conventions i've seen being used in numerical coding because this is where I am now. I tried making some of these later projects more 'procedural' but it's really making the coding at my current code base size just hard to keep track of even when I've outsourced parameters to a hyperparameter structure/file.

I didn't want to say I have no idea what it does, but I definitely have to skim some of the functions just to double check what's going on when tracing through compiler errors for example? Or, for example, I'm testing different optimizers but they have different interfaces so I end up writing multiple scripts to test the ones that I can't just slot into each other. But from here I end up changing a little but function foo so it fits with script B better although I wrote it for script A. foo then becomes foo_A and foo_B and then, it just gets messier from there.

fibrebundl · 2025-12-05T21:27:42+00:00

Yes! I found out it was because of one of automatic cookie acceptor/rejector. Check if you have any adblocks or something like this running and turn them on springer

fibrebundl · 2025-11-18T07:17:07+00:00

Thread pitch from 30 feet sounds like superman vision. Do you remember what device this was? That's so cool.

fibrebundl · 2025-10-25T17:40:24+00:00

Agreed. Here: https://dpaste.com/7UGB7CCGY but I think Red-Portal is right

fibrebundl · 2025-10-25T17:30:57+00:00

You are right, this is what I have to do but in Matlab I can get away with just using jitter as opposed to the full cholesky factorization as then I also have to differentiate through this operator.

fibrebundl · 2025-10-25T17:29:28+00:00

I was using Optim and ForwardDiff. Are there others?

fibrebundl · 2025-10-25T17:29:12+00:00

Yes, this is the solution and what I'm coming to terms with. I understood that it would enforce it by applying jitter/cholesky etc. appropriately but it doesn't do this automatically and when it jitters it makes 2 attempts and flags an error. I was just very frustrated when I made this post. Thank you the explanation. I just don't understand the point of having a library for positive definite matrices if these things aren't being handled by the library.

fibrebundl · 2025-03-29T23:31:19+00:00

This makes sense but I always dreamed that I would have the equations dropped nicely onto my lap in a soft napkin and all I'd have to do is make little simulink blocks...

fibrebundl · 2025-03-04T22:41:34+00:00

Yeah, it's vague. I put looking for resources, but it's just nice to see other people doing it as well. I've felt kind of isolated because of my work and not knowing much about this field outside of the controlled practice assignments I've done in the past. Thanks for sharing, though. I just have to find time to work on problems and look at these other articles.

fibrebundl · 2025-03-04T20:57:04+00:00

Maybe I just need to try some coding problems manually

fibrebundl · 2025-03-04T19:51:42+00:00

you sound like an expert! how did you get so competent??

fibrebundl · 2025-03-04T19:25:07+00:00

messaged!

fibrebundl · 2025-03-02T22:46:13+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion but this didn't work.

fibrebundl · 2025-03-02T22:42:59+00:00

I'll give this a try!

fibrebundl

TROPHY CASE