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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   2289 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 1, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Why Chomsky generative grammars is considered a major scientific contribution? What does this add to knowledge?

Ummm.... computer science wouldn't exist without this formalism. Compilers use grammars to define/parse the syntax of programming languages. More recently, LLMs use grammars to enforce structured output (like returning JSON). Tiny models on a raspberry pi + good grammar will beat frontier models on many tasks.

Without Chomsky, we'd all write in assembly language and programs be a lot faster /s Well, math syntax with indefinitely nesting parentheses existed long before Chomsky, so I dunno how it's relevant to programming languages. C grammar is ugly as hell. (would be hilarious if Chomsky also shared this opinion).

Tiny models on a raspberry pi + good grammar will beat frontier models on many tasks.

Is this due to grammar or just them be more specialized ones?

It is due to grammar. Here's a github issue that will give you lots of links to follow down if you're really interested in gory details: https://github.com/ggml-org/llama.cpp/pull/1773

Uh I feel it would take many time and this is does not really answer my question. Chomsky was considered a major scientist long before LLMs appeared. My question is more about 60ths-80ths. BTW, functions in C, most significant programming language for decades, cannot be nested... (at least they cannot be in most widely used implementations) and the C grammar is not context free

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