alt Hacker News> This is the same shape as many other life-cycle bugs [...]
Claude-ism detected. IME with Claude Code an object does not have a type or definition, apparently, but rather a shape (or at least it reaches for that word before more technically-accurate ones). Problems are not of a similar class or type, but of the same shape. Functions are not defined by their signatures but by their shape. Who talks like this and how did it make its way into the training data so pervasively?
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We apologize for the confusion. We used AI to run final grammar pass and didn't noticed it changed some wording (shape is one of them). Will be more careful in the future
No this is normal programming terminology. Here I am using 'shape' in this sense back in 2021:
https://www.marginalia.nu/log/40-wasted-resources/
and even more similar usage again in 2023 'the shape of the algorithm' (which was post-claude I guess, but this was before I even tested any LLM):
When working in Elixir, everything is about the shape of things. I have now taken that word usage from that ecosystem because I find it useful.
I've used phrasing like this from time to time before, like when trying to compare two ideas that are unalike but have some fuzzy similarities. I wouldn't use it to describe functions but "problems", "solutions", and other fuzzy things.
Isn't this just observation bias? "If I haven't encountered something, then it must not be real?" (Paraphrasing)
Except that working with Claude has me saying things like shape lately. I think I like it.
talking about data and function shapes is quite common in functional programming world
https://blog.jle.im/entry/functors-to-monads-a-story-of-shap...
I think you're probably right that the article was AI-assisted, but (if so) it's important not to confuse that with the thing the article is about. Google wouldn't pay $90k for a hallucination.
I don't mean that as a criticism—the question of how to receive AI-processed content is chaotic right now. I'm working on a post about that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48887149.
Btw, Nebula Sec is a YC startup in the current batch. We've been working with them on how to launch on HN, and one of the things I've been trying to explain is that the HN audience won't respond well to LLM-generated reports. The underlying work, though, is impressive. These guys know what they're doing—the OP is by no means their only significant find—and the fact that they're doing it with an agent, rather than the traditional way, is significant.