---
layout: post
title: "Pruning and Growing"
date: 2026-01-26
---

[Gwern](https://gwern.net/) has one of the most amazing websites of the
internet. The level of attention to detail, thought, customization, navigation,
and overall information architecture is astonishing.

First, you can (almost) always add `.md` to the url and get its source code.
Try it out: [The End to End
Principle](https://gwern.net/doc/cs/end-to-end-principle/index) and [doc/cs/end-to-end-principle/index.md](https://gwern.net/doc/cs/end-to-end-principle/index.md), its source code. I love this
feature, and I wish a lot more pages would support this natively. For AI/LLM
ingestion, it's great. It's honest, transparent. For saving bandwith, it's
amazing. If you've seen a previous page, this markdown is compressing exactly
the information you would need to "reassemble" the new page.

Then, there are the subscripts and superscripts. Most links have a "little
sign" suffixed to them that efficient and effectively hints where would that
link take you to: another page, a wikipedia article, to a PDF file, a footnote,
among others. But it also sponsors "clarifiers", like for example, any price of
something carries a tag that automatically corrects for inflation. This is a
tool that I would like to have in many other contexts. Reminds me of
[Cambria](https://www.inkandswitch.com/cambria/) by Ink & Switch.

And then, it is all [explained](https://gwern.net/design) and [open
source](https://github.com/gwern/gwern.net/)

---

{% quote franklin-write-something %}

**Gwern says:** Why not both?