[jumploops]

LLMs are the new compilers.

As a student, you should continue to focus on fundamentals, but also adapt LLMs into your workflow where you can.

Skip writing the assembly (now curly braces and semicolons), and focus on what the software you’re building actually does, who it serves, and how it works.

Programming is both changing a lot, and not at all. The mechanics may look different, but the purpose is still the same: effectively telling computers what to do.

[inciampati]

LLMs are actually the new computers. Compilation is only one program they can run.

[jumploops]

LLMs are the way computers were always supposed to work!

[unification_fan]

> LLMs are the new compilers.

This shows a grave misunderstanding of what compilers and LLMs are. They're fundamentally opposite concepts.

Compilers are about optimizing abstract code down to the most efficient representation possible for some hardware. LLMs are about wasting petaflops (made possible by compiler engineers) to produce random statements that don't have any static guarantees.

[jumploops]

How can you trust that the compiler has written the most efficient assembly, if you’re not double checking it by hand?

Jokes aside, I understand your point.

In the history of computing, LLMs and compilers are closer than one might think.

Compilers weren’t first created to optimize “abstract code down to the most efficient” assembly as possible, even if that is the goal of a compiler writer today.

Compilers were created to enable the use of higher-level languages. Abstraction, efficiency, portability, error reduction, and most importantly: saving time.

They allowed humans to create more software, faster.

[kandesbunzler]

- a coping Software engineer