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Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

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Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#121

Post by rco8786 »

dist-epoch wrote: post #93
the_duke wrote: post #19

This doesn't make too much sense to me. * This isn't a language, it's some tooling to map specs to code and re-generate * Models aren't deterministic - every time you would try to re-apply you'd likely get different output (without feeding the current code into the re-apply and let it just recommend changes) * Models are evolving rapidly, this months flavour of Codex/Sonnet/etc would very likely generate different co…

> Models aren't deterministic - every time you would try to re-apply you'd likely get different output So like when you give the same spec to 2 different programmers.

Yes, if you had each programmer rewrite the code from scratch each time you updated the spec.

Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#122

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

kennywinker wrote: post #109
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The end is whether the code meets the functional and non functional requirements. And guess how much shoe companies make who manufacture shoes in sweatshop conditions versus the ones who make artisanal handcrafted shoes?

Ah yes - we should all strive to maximize shareholder value - triangle shirtwaist be damnned. Btw in my metaphor, we - the programmers - are the kids in the sweatshop.

If you are a “programmer” you are going to be the kids in the sweatshop. On the enterprise dev side where most developers work, it’s been headed in that direction for at least a decade where it was easy enough to become a “good enough” generic full stack/mobile/web etc dev.

Even on the BigTech side being able to reverse a btree on the whiteboard and having on your resume that you were a mid level developer isn’t enough either anymore

If you look at the comp on that side, it’s also stagnated for decade. AI has just accelerated that trend.

While my job has been at various percentages to produce code for 30 years, it’s been well over a decade since I had to sell myself on “I codez real gud”. I sell myself as a “software engineer” who can go from ambiguous business and technical requirements, deal with politics, XYProblems, etc

Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#123

Post by sutterd »

I am trying a similar spec driven development idea in a project I am working on. One big difference is that my specifications are not formalized that much. Tney are in plain language and are read directly by the LLM to convert to code. That seems like the kind of thing the LLM is good at. One other feature of this is that it allows me to nudge the implmentation a little with text in the spec outside of the formal requirements. I view it two ways, as spec-to-code but also as a saved prompt. I haven't spent enough time with it to say how successfuly it is, yet.

Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#124

Post by pjmlp »

tomtomtom777 wrote: post #110
onion2k wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Models aren't deterministic - every time you would try to re-apply you'd likely get different output (without feeding the current code into the re-apply and let it just recommend changes) If the result is always provably correct it doesn't matter whether or not it's different at the code level. People interested in systems like this believe that the outcome of what the code does is infinity more important than the co…

> If the result is always provably correct it doesn't matter whether or not it's different at the code level. People interested in systems like this believe that the outcome of what the code does is infinity more important than the code itself. If the spec is so complete that it covers everything, you might as well write the code. The benefit of writing a spec and having the LLM code it, is that the LLM will fill in…

> If the spec is so complete that it covers everything, you might as well write the code.

Welcome to the usual offshoring experience.

Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#126

Post by pjmlp »

kennywinker wrote: post #96
__loam wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The code is what the code does.

The shoe is what the shoe does. Except one shoe is made by children in a fire-trap sweatshop with no breaks, and the other was made by a well paid adult in good working conditions. The ends don’t justify the means. The process of making impacts the output in ways that are subtle and important, but even holding the output as a fixed thing - the process of making still matters, at least to the people making it.

Yet the people voting with their wallets seem to go with cheaper option, regardless of what hides behind it.

Being shoes, offshoring, Webwidgets or AI generated code.

Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#127

Post by pjmlp »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #122
kennywinker wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes - we should all strive to maximize shareholder value - triangle shirtwaist be damnned. Btw in my metaphor, we - the programmers - are the kids in the sweatshop.

If you are a “programmer” you are going to be the kids in the sweatshop. On the enterprise dev side where most developers work, it’s been headed in that direction for at least a decade where it was easy enough to become a “good enough” generic full stack/mobile/web etc dev. Even on the BigTech side being able to reverse a btree on the whiteboard and having on your resume that you were a mid level developer isn’t enou…

What do you think programmers in offshoring consulting shops are? Sadly.

Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#128

Post by pron »

the_duke wrote: post #19

This doesn't make too much sense to me. * This isn't a language, it's some tooling to map specs to code and re-generate * Models aren't deterministic - every time you would try to re-apply you'd likely get different output (without feeding the current code into the re-apply and let it just recommend changes) * Models are evolving rapidly, this months flavour of Codex/Sonnet/etc would very likely generate different co…

If what you're after is determinism, then your solution doesn't offer it. Both the formal specification and the code generated from it would be different each time. Formal specifications are useful when they're succinct, which is possible when they specify at a higher level of abstraction than code, which admits many different implemementations.

Re: Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

#130

Post by koolala »

fnord77 wrote: post #71
the_duke wrote: post #19

This doesn't make too much sense to me. * This isn't a language, it's some tooling to map specs to code and re-generate * Models aren't deterministic - every time you would try to re-apply you'd likely get different output (without feeding the current code into the re-apply and let it just recommend changes) * Models are evolving rapidly, this months flavour of Codex/Sonnet/etc would very likely generate different co…

[delete]

It isn't a formal language, look at the goose example:

https://codespeak.dev/blog/greenfield-project-tutorial-20260...

It is a formal "way" aka like using json or xml like tons of people are already doing.

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