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Code generating LLMs are simply a form of higher-level language. The commercial practice of software development (C++, Java, etc) is very far from the frontier

• akavi 3y ago
  There's a huge difference between LLMs and "higher level languages": Determinism The same C++ or Java or Haskell code run with the same inputs twice, will cause the same result[0]. This repeatability is the magic that enables us to build the towering abstractions that are modern software. And to a certain mind (eg, mine), that's one of the deepest joys of programming. The fact that you can construct an unimaginably complex system by building up layer by layer these deterministic blocks. Being able to truly understand a system up to abstraction boundaries far sharper than anything in the world of atoms. LLMs based "programming" threatens to remove this determinism and, sadly for people like me, devalue the skill of being able to understand and construct such systems. [0]Yes, there are exceptions (issues around concurrency, latency, memory usage), but as a profession we struggle mightily to tame these exceptions back to being deterministic because there's so much value in it.