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by archagon 78 days ago
Compilers are an abstraction. AI coding is not an abstraction by any reasonable definition.
1 comments

You're only thinking that because we're mostly still at the imperative, REPL stage.

We're telling them what to do in a loop. Instead we should be declaring what we want to be true.

You’re describing a hypothetical that doesn’t exist. Even if we assume it will exist someday we can’t reasonably compare it to what exists today.
It exists today, please message me if you’d like to try it
The value is in the imperative, the computer does what you tell it do, The control is very powerful and is arguably a major reason computer technology is as power and popular as it is today. Bits don't generally speaking argue with you the same way analog programming if by electronics or mechanical means did before the transistor.

You can certainly write in imperative or functional but you are still telling the computer what you want. LLM use impercise language can generate loose binding the actual reality people one. They have there use cases too but they have a radically different locus of control. Compilers don't ask you to give up percision either they will do what you tell them to do. AI can do whatever it thinks is the most likely next token which is foundationally different from what we do when we engage in programming or writing in general