A readable log is part of the experiment

A log is useful when it lets the next person reconstruct a decision. That next person might be a collaborator—or you, two months from now. The code on this page is a self-contained formatting example, not a record of a production system.

Keep the boundary small

This Python function validates three mixture weights before normalizing them. It is short enough to inspect without collapsing the code block.

from math import isfinite

def normalize(weights: list[float]) -> list[float]:
    """Normalize finite, non-negative weights with a positive sum."""
    if not weights or any(not isfinite(w) or w < 0 for w in weights):
        raise ValueError("Weights must be finite and non-negative.")
    total = sum(weights)
    if total <= 0:
        raise ValueError("At least one weight must be positive.")
    return [weight / total for weight in weights]

assert normalize([2.0, 3.0, 5.0]) == [0.2, 0.3, 0.5]

Try the copy button with a keyboard. Then paste into a plain-text editor: presentation should not add line numbers or hide part of the source.

Show the change

A diff should be recognizable from both the sign and the background—not from color alone.

- print(result)
+ print({"result": result, "seed": seed, "config": config})

The build also supports Shiki’s line annotations:

const attempts = 3;
const timeoutMs = 20_000; 
const run = { attempts, timeoutMs, synthetic: true };
console.log(run);

Let long lines scroll

The next line is intentionally long. It should scroll inside its own code block instead of stretching the article beyond the phone screen.

python train.py --dataset ./data/illustrative-training-mixture.jsonl --output ./runs/formatting-specimen --seed 42 --total-tokens 1000000 --log-interval 100 --save-configuration-before-start

Make tables navigable

A wide table is a good reason for local horizontal scrolling. It is not a good reason to shrink every word in the article.

A deliberately ordinary finish

A readable engineering note does not need a different visual treatment for every paragraph. A few headings, good code blocks, and an explicit limitation often do more.

For equations and references, see a small experiment. For text rather than implementation, visit the reading room.