[chuckledog]

> “As an aside, I think there may be an increased reason to use dynamic interpreted languages for the intermediate product. I think it will likely become mainstream in future LLM programming systems to make live changes to a running interpreted program based on prompts.”

Curious whether the author is envisioning changing configuration of running code on the fly (which shouldn’t require an interpreted language)? Or whether they are referring to changing behavior on the fly?

Assuming the latter, and maybe setting the LLM aspect aside: is there any standard safe programming paradigm that would enable this? I’m aware of Erlang (message passing) and actor pattern systems, but interpreted languages like Python don’t seem to be ideal for these sorts of systems. I could be totally wrong here, just trying to imagine what the author is envisioning.

[handoflixue]

I think at some point in the future, you'll be able to reconfigure programs just by talking to your LLM-OS: Want the System Clock to show seconds? Just ask your OS to make the change. Need a calculator app that can do derivatives? Just ask your OS to add that feature.

"Configuration" implies a preset, limited number of choices; dynamic languages allow you to rewrite the entire application in real time.

[8organicbits]

Maybe I'm missing it, but when my calculator app gets a new derivatives feature, how am I supposed to check that it's implemented correctly? End user one-shot of bug free code seems like a different technology than what LLMs offer.

[seanw444]

Yeah I don't see how LLMs are ever supposed to be reliable enough for this, but they did say "at some point in the future", which leaves room for another (better) technology.

[jimbokun]

I agree that as LLMs approach the capabilities of human programmers, the entire software paradigm needs to change radically. Humans at that point should just ask their computers in human language to introduce a new visualization or report or input screen and the computer just creates it near instantly.

Of course this requires a huge architecture change from OS level and up.

[aardvark179]

Smalltalk, Lisp, and other image based languages allowed this. I would not recommend it beyond a very restricted idea of patching.

[WoodenChair]

I was envisioning the latter (changing behavior on the fly). Think the hot-reload that Flutter/Dart provides, but on steroids and guided by an LLM.

Interpretation isn’t strictly required, but I think runtimes that support hot-swap / reloadable boundaries (often via interpretation or JIT) make this much easier in practice.

[savolai]

Smalltalk, mumps?