← Back to context

Comment by inatreecrown2

11 hours ago

This is a huge book! I would like to know if a LLM was involved in the writing process or if this is the product of a human.

I am pretty sure he's been working on this book since before LLMs were a thing. He's also not the kind of person who'd just delegate his passion to a machine.

"The English version is the original and authoritative version of the book. The Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish editions were translated using AI and have not yet undergone a full human technical review. They are published to make the material accessible to more readers, but they may contain translation mistakes, awkward wording, or technical inaccuracies introduced during translation.

If something in a translated edition seems unclear, inconsistent, or technically questionable, please refer to the English version as the source of truth. Help with reviewing and improving the translations is very welcome (see Contributing below)."

---

This doesn't directly answer your question though.

Even if it was, the author is not a random person and is part of the FreeBSD team and I'd rather trust them to write the book than someone else outside of the organization.

So I would expect that they would thoroughly check the book for inaccuracies, errors and issues before releasing it after proof-reading, otherwise it would say a lot about how they use LLMs and not checking over it would hurt their own reputation.

There is nothing wrong with using an LLM so long as a human takes ownership for the artefact (be that books, code etc).

I would rather the author automate the mundane and focus on conveying their ideas clearly.

As an aside, is there a Linux version for this ?

  • There is something wrong with it because LLMs are really not capable of writing a useful book, and this book is 100% LLM slop.

    Look at this totally useless """introduction""" to C: https://github.com/ebrandi/FDD-book/blob/main/content/chapte...

    First of all this is an entire book, it's 76,000 words. But look at the first nontrivial example of C after "hello world," under "Bonus learning point about C return values"

      exec_map_first_page(struct image_params *imgp)
     {
            vm_object_t object;
            vm_page_t m;
            int error;
    
            if (imgp->firstpage != NULL)
                    exec_unmap_first_page(imgp);
                    
            object = imgp->vp->v_object;
            if (object == NULL)
                    return (EACCES);
     #if VM_NRESERVLEVEL > 0
            if ((object->flags & OBJ_COLORED) == 0) {
                    VM_OBJECT_WLOCK(object);
                    vm_object_color(object, 0);
                    VM_OBJECT_WUNLOCK(object);
            }
     #endif
            error = vm_page_grab_valid_unlocked(&m, object, 0,
                VM_ALLOC_COUNT(VM_INITIAL_PAGEIN) |
                VM_ALLOC_NORMAL | VM_ALLOC_NOBUSY | VM_ALLOC_WIRED);
    
            if (error != VM_PAGER_OK)
                    return (EIO);
            imgp->firstpage = sf_buf_alloc(m, 0);
            imgp->image_header = (char *)sf_buf_kva(imgp->firstpage);
    
            return (0);
     }
    

    This teaches nobody anything. I am sorry but this project is completely useless and there's no way Brandi read a single word of it. This entire book is a dishonest AI scam. I hate LLMs. It is hard to think of another computer technology that has done so much damage for so little good.

    Edit: I mean look at the intro to for loops. This is supposed to be for total beginners. Example 1:

      for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
         printf("%d\n", i);
       }
    

    >> Start at i = 0

    >> Repeat while i < 10

    >> Increment i each time by 1 (i++)

    Example 2:

      for (i = 0; n > 0 && i < IFLIB_MAX_RX_REFRESH; n--, i++) {
         struct netmap_slot *slot = &ring->slot[nm_i];
         uint64_t paddr;
         void *addr = PNMB(na, slot, &paddr);
         /\* ... work per buffer ... \*/
         nm_i = nm_next(nm_i, lim);
         nic_i = nm_next(nic_i, lim);
       }
    

    >> What this loop does

    >> * The driver is refilling receive buffers so the NIC can keep receiving packets.

    >> * It processes buffers in batches: up to IFLIB_MAX_RX_REFRESH each time.

    >> * i counts how many buffers we've handled in this batch. n is the total remaining buffers to refill; it decrements every iteration.

    >> * For each buffer, the code grabs its slot, figures out the physical address, readies it for DMA, then advances the ring indices (nm_i, nic_i).

    >> * The loop stops when either the batch is full (i hits the max) or there's nothing left to do (n == 0). The batch is then "published" to the NIC by the code right after the loop.

    >> In essence, a for loop is the go-to choice when you have a clear limit on how many times something should run. It packages initialisation, condition checking, and iteration updates into a single, compact header, making the flow easy to follow.

    Total garbage. This has literally zero educational value. I assume Brandi is just trying to make a quick buck, he truly has not even glanced at the output. He should be ashamed of himself.

    • its FREE. no ads nothing. you are realy anti LLM and thats fine but dont let yourself be total blinded.

      you yourself chose to spend time on something to your own frustration even though at that point you already knew it wasnt for you. frustrating yourself further trying to find examples to help frustrate others too.

      look at how you are behaving and then realise you are saying someone else should be ashamed of themselves.

      If you disagree with the book a simple excerpt and note would suffice. if it's 'super clearly bad' it does not need to contain a load of emotions to transmit that message.