Post #3989370
2026-07-21 15:43 UTC
I think there’s something to the compilers analogy, in the sense that if you used a C compiler through a chat interface to insert snippets into assembly without keeping the source code, it would probably be slower than just writing in assembly yourself.
That LLMs have a number of extremely undesirable properties as “compilers” (from nondeterminism to plagiarism) does not make the dumb ass chat interface any less fundamentally shit.
Replies (1)
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@x0rcist@awful.systems 2026-07-21 16:46
There is one narrow case in which I’ve found the compiler analogy useful: explaining my frustrations with LLM-assisted design/architecture doc generation. Here, it’s useful because handing someone a design document that was output by an LLM is a lot like handing someone a binary and asking them for a code review. I’d much rather work with whatever disorganized soup of thoughts someone fed into the machine, because those at least contain intent, rather than a document that actively obscures what the designer wanted in a barrage of detail.