what is the name for this kind of pointless, lazy, selective, quoting that willfully misconstrues what's being quoted? the answer to this question is incredibly clear: for the developer that created this tool. if that makes you unhappy enough to malign them then maybe you should just not use it?
> pointless, lazy, selective, quoting that willfully misconstrues what's being quoted
They quoted the part they were replying to. The point was to show what they were asking about. If your question pertains to only a part of the text, it only makes sense to be selective. That's not wilfully misconstruing anything; that’s communicating in a clear, easy-to-follow way. The context is still right up there for reading, for anyone who needs to review it.
> the answer to this question is incredibly clear: for the developer that created this tool
Questions aren’t only ever asked out of pure curiosity; sometimes they’re asked to make the other person give them more consideration. The question you quote was accompanied by an explanation of how the commenter found the approach less simple for them as a user, suggesting that perhaps they think the developer would have done better to consider that a higher priority. (I might add that you, too, chose to selectively omit this context from your quoting—which I personally don’t see as problematic on its own, but the context does require consideration, too.)
> if that makes you unhappy enough to malign them then maybe you should just not use it?
The author of the extension chose to share what they made for others to use. They asked for feedback on user experience and expressed doubt about their design decisions. If someone finds they might not want to use it because of what they consider fundamentally flawed design, why couldn’t they tell the author? It’s not like they were rude or accused them of any wrong-doing (other than possibly making poor design choices).
lol thank you, I was just going to respond to them. One thing I should mention too is that if it were at all practical to build without using generative AI, someone would have built something similar years ago before LLMs.
If there’s any amount of irony in your comment, I’m missing it - and I apologize for that.
That said, people have built this without LLMs years, even decades, ago. But UX has fallen by the wayside for quite some time in the companies that used to build IDEs. Then some fresher devs come along and begin a project without the benefit of experience in a codebase with a given feature … and after some time someone writes a plugin for VSCode to provide documentation tooltips generated by LLM because “there is just no other way it can be done.”
We have language servers for most programming languages. Those language servers provide the tokens one needs to use when referencing the documentation. And it would be so much faster than waiting for an LLM to get back to you.
TBH, if anyone’s excuse is “an LLM is the only way to implement feature Q,” then they’re definitely in need of some experience in software creation.
I don't think you're wrong, but question: it's the weekend, you have an idea for something like this that you want to crank out. Is it really better for you to never ship because it takes a long time to build, or is it better to be able to ship using something like an LLM?
In my opinion the shipped product is better than the unshipped product. While of course I would prefer the version that you have designed, I sure don't have time to build it, and I'm guessing you don't either.
If this was our day jobs and we were being paid for it, it would be a much different story, but this is a hobby project made open source for the world.
Please post here once you have something working, or what you find if you struggle. I would be interested to see if you could get something working and would love to be wrong, as it would be nice to have something similar that does not use an LLM. It would be really cool if something more useful comes out of my experiment. I don't think you could reuse much from my codebase, but feel free to take anything from it that you want.
Some things that might be useful to know to speed you up:
1. Most code blocks on the internet are easy to find in a webpage. They generally are surrounded by `<code/>` tags. You can query for these using the method in my extension. Then you will need to filter out any code block that has a `<span/>` count <= 1, as code blocks are used to highlight arbitrary stuff on the internet and you would really just want to find the blocks of code.
2. You will need a method to identify when to generate documentation for a code block even with your implementation, as some documentation websites are one really long page. You can do this with two types of observers that I use in my codebase. One will identify when a code block is in view and the other will keep track of mutations to code blocks. You need to keep track of mutations because sites like ChatGPT continuously edit a code block while streaming a response. You want to generate documentation once it's done, as that's when the code is well formed. I have a janky example of how to do this in my extension. Claude should be able to find the code.
3. LLMs were useful for building this, but they struggled with design decisions, especially around UX. This project seems out of distribution for them. Claude probably won't suggest the right solution a lot of the time, but if you have it list out multiple options, it can usually identify which one is best.
I will probably check back here in a couple weeks if I don't hear anything from you. I would be really impressed if you can get something working in a weekend that is *not just hard coded for a specific use case, but scales well.*
Oh, one more thing: I should mention that you’ll probably want to fetch documentation only after a code block has been in view for n milliseconds (like what I do in my extension). Otherwise, you risk throttling if a user scrolls very quickly through a webpage. It should only fetch documentation once the user pauses on a block.
I agree that parsing codebases and linking code to documentation is a solved problem. I think @ramon156's suggestion to use tree-sitter or something similar to parse an abstract syntax tree makes sense.
To clarify my earlier point, I wasn't suggesting this is impossible, just that it's not *practical* to build a universal LSP that works with every language and framework out of the box without anything local to index. I don't think an reusing an LSP would be a great fit here either, since LSPs rely on having full project context, dependencies, and type information. These aren't available when analyzing code snippets on arbitrary webpages.
Parsing was never my major concern though. It's the "map tokens to URLs" part. A universal mapping for every token to every piece of documentation on the internet is *impractical* and difficult to maintain. To achieve parity without LLMs, I'd need to write and maintain parsers for every documentation website, and that assumes documentation even exists for most tokens (which it doesn't).
I think kristopolous's suggestion of grounding the LLM with data sources that keep a serialized database of documentation from many different places makes the most sense. That way, the LLM is just extracting and presenting key information from real documentation rather than generating from scratch.
There are probably ways to make this easier. Maybe an offline job that uses LLMs to keep mappings up to date. The project could also be scoped down to a single ecosystem like Rust where documentation is centralized, though that falls apart once you try to scale beyond one language as mentioned above. Maybe I could use raw definition on GitHub combined with an LSP to generate information?
Open to other suggestions on how to bridge this gap.
Soon was wrong. I should have said it is already happening. Google Gemini already uses their own TPU chips. Nvidia just dropped $20B to buy the IP for Groq's LPU (custom silicon for inference). $20B says Nvidia sees the writing on the wall for GPU-based inference. https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/nv...
> and you can basically forget about ever meaningfully refactoring that codebase.
Ummm why? Breaking changes aren't the end of the world? Deprecate and communicate clearly and people are usually fine with them (if it's meaningful progress instead of churn).
They are. Every breaking change is a pain point for your users/customers. Every time they have to do something to work around your breaking change, it's an opportunity to reconsider whether they need you or whether using your product is worth the trouble.
Lol if you say so. I contribute to an OSS project with thousands of industry users and we break downstreams all the time - we literally have no stability guarantee. In the 2 years I've been a contributor I've seen exactly once when someone got upset about a breakage.
They are considering banning the largest opposition party, are using wiretaps and informants against it [1], have banned (ban since lifted) a magazine [2], and opened a criminal investigation into someone calling a fat politician fat online [3]. They are openly planning even worse [4] (if you dislike the author, keep in mind every claim is sourced, so take it up with the sources).
[4] Germany announces wide-ranging plans to restrict the speech, travel and economic activity of political dissidents, in order to better control the "thought and speech patterns" of its own people - https://www.eugyppius.com/p/germany-announces-wide-ranging-p...
Edit as reply to nosianu, because I am "posting too fast":
> Liar. Some demand it - but it is not considered by those with the power to actually do it, not even close.
On Monday, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which is currently serving as the junior coalition partner in Berlin’s conservative-led government, voted unanimously to begin efforts to outlaw [AfD]. - https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/06/europe/germany-afd-ban-po...
> He also had connections to the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) and the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) parties.
Following the source wikipedia gives [1], we see the extent of that "connection" was that the killer donated €150 to the AfD, and that the AfD had previously criticized the victim (by sharing the victim's exact own words online).
Let's apply your standard evenly then, shall we? A writer for the state-funded left-wing Amadeu Antonio Foundation, armed with hammers and pepper spray, attacked a right-wing activist [2]. This attack was one of many [3]. So by your standard the German state sponsors and endorses terrorists. The US Democrat party wants to create an ICE tracker [4]. ICE agents have been the targets of attacks and ambushes [5,6,6a]. And of course it was hateful rhetoric [7] against Trump and Kirk that led to their (attempted) assassinations by the left. By your standard, the Democrat party engages in stochastic terrorism.
Of course that's just guilt by (vague) association. Enough for you, but I have higher standards. Bill Clinton pardoned a terrorist who (among other things) bombed the Senate. She now sits on the board of BLM [8,9]. An axe-wielding maniac attacked a Republican senator's home. Democrat politicians then donated money to the attacker [10]. The founder of the terrorist group Weather Underground [11], Bill Ayers, is now a distinguished professor at the state-funded University of Illinois [12], so we can add them to terrorists as well. As well as the University of California, where the terrorist Angela Davis is also a distinguished professor. "Terrorist" can be a vague term, so let me be specific: she bought the shotgun seen here taped to the neck of Judge Harold Haley, and helped plan the attack that killed him [13].
"In an op-ed piece after the election, Ayers denied any close association with Obama, and criticized the Republican campaign for its use of guilt by association tactics." - perhaps you should reflect on this.
So now what? Will you reconsider calling AfD terrorists? Will you instead also call the US Democratic and the German CDU parties terrorists? Maybe even apply more skepticism to the news sources that have so deceived you by cherry-picking what they show you?
Or will you reconsider nothing, and just hope the next person you lie to is less informed? Rhetorical question.
[7] That some of this rhetoric was true makes no difference - the charge of "stochastic terrorism" had no exceptions for truth when used against the right. And indeed the AfD's statements about the victim in the case you linked are not even alleged to be untrue.
[11] At one point, the Weathermen adopted the belief that all white babies were "tainted with the original sin of "skin privilege", declaring "all white babies are pigs" with one Weatherwoman telling feminist poet Robin Morgan "You have no right to that pig male baby" after she saw Morgan breastfeeding her son and told Morgan to put the baby in the garbage. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground
These statements are meaningless without considering who is being targeted by these rules. For context, Germany has a long-standing constitutional ban on Nazis. This isn't anything new; what is new is that one party (the AfD) is trying to find ways around the ban.
If you're arguing that the AfD aren't Nazis, I'm not sure I agree. They're already privately talking about deporting German citizens.
If you are arguing that banning a political party[0] is inherently wrong... sure. I'll agree with you, with one caveat. How do you meaningfully stop people from doing that? Just saying "Well, that would be illegal, so just disobey the illegal order" is not good enough. That's what you do for otherwise normal politicians that fuck up drafting the law[1]. But the people who are doing this shit are malicious. They need to be removed from power or they will just keep trying until they get their way. And that effectively means banning the political party trying to ban everyone else. Only a stand user can beat another stand user. Hence, the constitutional ban on Nazis.
[0] I should not have to explain to people that the Nazis banned other political parties.
[1] see also, the US 1st Amendment, which prohibits laws that restrict speech without specifying any meaningful punishment for politicians that attempt to restrict speech.
>They're already privately talking about deporting German citizens.
That's not specifically a Nazi policy.
In fact, remigration is an increasingly popular political idea in various Western countries that don't have any specific Nazi past (US, the UK, Australia, etc.)
(Remigration is also frequently done by non-Western countries as well.)
Citizenship has to be irreversible, or very close to it, for one simple reason: revoking citizenship is equivalent to stripping someone of their constitutionally-protected rights. Even if you have a well-defined and protected concept of free speech in the law, if the administration or government can just identify and deport people saying things they don't like, then their free speech is meaningless. Punishment and reprisal is an adequate substitute for silencing. You don't have freedoms anymore, you have franchise, a thing that can be taken away at the whim of the state[0].
Reversing a change to visa policy or not granting citizenship to migrants in the future is a different question. But it's far less problematic to not grant citizenship or visas than it is to revoke them after the fact.
As for "granting citizenship willy nilly", that wasn't done by "one side". The law is such that the choice of whether or not to admit an asylum seeker is a purely legalistic one with no political control afforded. The only thing Merkel (for better and for worse) did was smile and wave at the migrants you don't like. She had no power to stop them either. The reason why the law works this way is, again, because of WWII and Nazis. People fleeing Hitler were stopped by immigration policies at every turn. So we got every country to sign a bunch of international agreements that basically say "we will not attempt to stop people fleeing despotic regimes from entering our country".
Now, I get the feeling you want to shit on this policy, and I actually do think there's a valid critique of it. Specifically, only admitting immigrants during a time of crisis is almost guaranteed to generate resentment, both from the native-born and immigrant populations. You see, while Germany pledged to hand out passports like candy to asylum seekers, the rest of German immigration policy is rigidly inflexible and their society even more so[1].
The AfD getting banned under Germany's anti-Nazi policy is not at all unprecedented. Actually, they've had to use that same policy against the immigrants they're admitting. There's biker gangs run by Turkish immigrants that are illegal in Germany because they're too far-right. The case of Turkish immigrants to Germany is particularly illuminating. Turks in Germany have a higher rate of support for Erdogan than they do in Turkiye. Germany has managed to create a society that reliably turns poor immigrants into far-right stooges.
Do you want to know what country turns Turkish immigrants away from Islamist dictators? America.
Trump regime notwithstanding[2], the USA immigration system is unusually flexible and permissive for a rich country, and it has very generous family reunification visa programs. The family visas are, effectively, outsourcing the decision of what immigrants to admit to citizens that know the people they're sponsoring. It's an invite system. And since we've been doing this consistently for 50 years, we have immigrant communities from basically every country on the planet. So there's a very smooth gradient to integration. The "marginal cost" of an additional immigrant is basically zero. We imported the third world, but the third world became us.
> The bar for branding someone a Nazi is low, and ~80% or more of the allied forces that fought in WWII would be Nazis under today's definition:
This isn't related to the merits of the German constitutional ban on Nazis at all, but since I just spent a paragraph glazing modern American immigration policy, I feel obligated to completely dynamite America's moral foundations. I mean, even the family visas weren't intended to do what they're doing. Actually, they were created specifically to give white immigrants a fast lane through the system! The prior policy was basically "white immigrants only" and this was meant to appease people who opposed deracializing the immigration system.
To be frank, America's the country Hitler got all his worst ideas from. WWII happened right after the nadir of American race relations. The """liberal""" business establishment was planning assassinations and coups against the President. Hell, we were not that far off from joining the Axis. FDR had to bait Japan into attacking us to get the American people on board with fighting WWII. And even then he couldn't resist throwing shittons of Japanese immigrants into concentration camps in a blatant land grab.
There's a funny (in the "two nickels" sense) quirk of American history in that America will absolutely tolerate and engage in morally detestable bullshit until a war or other crisis makes it undeniably wrong. Lincoln ran on an abolitionist platform, but the actual moral opinion didn't change against slavery until Union soldiers were marching on plantations and actually seeing the horrors of slavery with their own eyes. Likewise, while we were nominally fighting an evil tyrant, that didn't hit home for a lot of soldiers until they were literally marching on Auschwitz and smelling dead bodies.
[0] The root word of "franchise" is "French", as in, the process of making one into a Frenchman. The linguistic association between France and temporary / revocable permission is because that's how freedom worked there at one point. Probably under a king named Louis.
[1] This is the same country where an announced rail detour becomes a passenger kidnapping because the driver couldn't be arsed to clear the extra stops up the chain.
[2] Part of the reason why the Trump regime is so polarizing in America is because European-style immigration enforcement is so alien to us.
>Citizenship has to be irreversible, or very close to it,
Australia at least states that expulsion is compatible with human rights.
"The Bill is compatible with human rights because, to the extent that it may limit some human rights, those limitations are reasonable, necessary and proportionate in achieving the legitimate objective of protecting the Australian community."
Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Repudiation) Bill 2023
Attachment A Statement of Compatibility with Human Rights
We're talking about the same Australia that decided to just blanket-ban kids off social media? Because they're basically a puppet of the Murdoch news empire?
Why should I trust anything they say about human rights?
> The law is such that the choice of whether or not to admit an asylum seeker is a purely legalistic one with no political control afforded.
Right, and laws are not the result of politics, but are handed to us by God on stone tablets.
Your framing is also misleading - admitting refugees [0], and granting them citizenship, are very different. Relaxing citizenship requirements to a mere 5 years of residing in Germany (or just 3 with German language proficiency) is also very much political, as was the admission of 3 million explicitly economic migrant Turks.
We're asked to believe immigration and immigration policy is something that just happens, like the tides, in response to economic and geopolitical events, and politics can do nothing about it. Meanwhile Iran has deported 1.3 million Afghans, and plans to deport 2 million more [2]. So they are "afforded political control". As is China, which, despite being a growing economy and with significantly below-replacement fertility, has a population of just 0.1% immigrants [3].
[0] I wouldn't even call them that, since they passed through many safe countries before even reaching the EU, let alone Germany.
> They are considering banning the largest opposition party
Liar. Some demand it - but it is not considered by those with the power to actually do it, not even close. The AfD happily participates in state and federal elections and is in the federal parliament (Bundestag).
Why are you against freedom of speech??
People saying what they want is allowed! No action of that kind was or is taken. AfD and its members continues to participate in normal political life and getting elected, and they continue to participate in TV and media interviews.
What exactly is your complaint? You complain about some people's speech - while claiming to be for freedom of speech! Very peculiar.
If I understand it right, then OP likely believes that Germany has a draconian regime when it comes to freedom of speech (which is objectively just ridiculous give or take some German nuances).
OP thus wants to make fun of those (such as me) who are puzzled by a statement that Germany could be considered a draconian state with regards to freedom of speech. It is hard to engage OP because he likely isn't German and has no personal knowledge and experience at all if any of his speech would be censored in Germany. Calling OP disinformed maybe isn't quite correct, maybe misinformed would fit better.
I'm not OP but that seems like a pretty reasonable assumption. LLM dominance is basically a US thing (Europe is handicapped by the EU and China is handicapped by hardware), and there are only a few companies that are actually competitive in LLM's (OpenAI, Gemini, xAI, Meta, Anthropic). I think top 5 is a safer bet but top four isn't an unreasonable thing to say confidently
xAI has the largest GPU cluster for AI training in the world, and they regularly produce top-ranking models. Companies like mistral produce clever models but they’re functionally just not on the level of things like Grok
what is the name for this kind of pointless, lazy, selective, quoting that willfully misconstrues what's being quoted? the answer to this question is incredibly clear: for the developer that created this tool. if that makes you unhappy enough to malign them then maybe you should just not use it?