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Automatic Programming

antirez.com

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Re: Automatic Programming

#221

Post by iamsaitam »

norir wrote: post #61

> I'm a programmer, and I use automatic programming. The code I generate in this way is mine. My code, my output, my production. I, and you, can be proud. I disagree. The code you wrote is a collaboration with the model you used. To frame it this way, you are taking credit for the work the model did on your behalf. There is a difference between I wrote this code entirely by myself and I wrote the code with a partner.…

Or for another analogy, just substitute the LLM for an outsourced firm. Instead of hiring a firm to do the work, you're hiring a LLM.

Re: Automatic Programming

#222

Post by janstice »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #210
aglavine wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Agile core is the feedback loop. I can't believe people still don't get it. Feedback from reality is always faster than guessing on the air. Waterfall is never great. The only time when you need something else than Agile is when lives are at stake, you need there formal specifications and rigorous testing. SDD allows better output than traditional programming. It is similar to waterfall in the sense that the mode…

> Feedback from reality is always faster than guessing on the air Only if you have no idea what the results will be. Professional engineering takes parts with specific tolerances, tested for a specific application, using a tried-and-true design, combines them into the solution that other people have already made, and watches it work, exactly as predicted. That's how we can build a skyscraper "the first time" and have…

But when you build a skyscraper you don’t one shot a completed building that stays static its entire life - you build a set of empty floors that someone else designs & fits out, sometimes years after the building as a whole is commissioned, usually several times in the lifespan of the superstructure.

And in the fitting out there often are things that exist only to get customer feedback (of sales), such as model apartments, sample cubicle layouts etc.

So yes, you are right that engineering can guide us to building something right first time - the hard part from software perspective is usually building the right thing, no the thing right.

An interesting analogy I came across once but could never find again is that with software systems, we’re not building a building, we’re designing a factory that produces an output - the example was a mattress factory that took in raw rubber feedstock & cloth and produced mattresses.

Re: Automatic Programming

#223

Post by imtringued »

aglavine wrote: post #52
AdamN wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waterfall can work great when: 1/ the focus is long-term both in terms of knowing that she company can take a few years to get the thing live but also that it will be around for many more years, 2/ the people writing the spec and the code are largely the same people. Agile was really pushing to make sure companies could get software live before they died (number 1) and to remedy the anti-pattern that appeared with nu…

No. Agile core is the feedback loop. I can't believe people still don't get it. Feedback from reality is always faster than guessing on the air. Waterfall is never great. The only time when you need something else than Agile is when lives are at stake, you need there formal specifications and rigorous testing. SDD allows better output than traditional programming. It is similar to waterfall in the sense that the mode…

This is correct. Agile is control theory applied to software engineering.

The plant to control here isn't something simple like a valve. You're performing cascaded control of another process where the code base is the interface to the plant you're controlling.

Re: Automatic Programming

#224

Post by falloutx »

motoboi wrote: post #93

We maybe witnessing the last generation of master software artisans like antirez. This is beautiful to see, their mastery harnessing the power of the intelligent machine tools to design, understand and build. This is like seeing a master of image & light like michelangelo receiving a camera, photoshop and a printer. It's an exponential elevation of the art. But to become a master like michelangelo one had to dedicate…

> We maybe witnessing the last generation of master software artisans like antirez

What? He is mostly a AI influencer at this stage, even without getting paid for it (I think). There are always gonna be people writing code, people writing music, just because a machine can write code doesnt change the fact coding itself is a fun exercise.

Re: Automatic Programming

#225

Post by lou1306 »

logicprog wrote: post #72
lou1306 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are so adamant about this, why don't you release all your own code in the public domain? Aren't you gatekeeping knowledge too?

I agree with GP, and so, yes, I release everything I do — code and the hundreds of thousands of painstakingly researched, drafted, deeply thought through words of writing that I do — using a public domain equivalent license (to ensure it's as free as possible), the zero clause BSD.

That's commendable, but unfortunately I asked GP.

Re: Automatic Programming

#226

Post by EliRivers »

dugmartin wrote: post #21

I have 30+ years of industry experience and I've been leaning heavily into spec driven development at work and it is a game changer. I love programming and now I get to program at one level higher: the spec. I spend hours on a spec, working with Claude Code to first generate and iterate on all the requirements, going over the requirements using self-reviews in Claude first using Opus 4.5 and then CoPilot using GPT-5.…

About 15 years ago, I worked on code that delivered working versions to customers, repeatedly, who used it an reported zero bugs. It simply did what it was meant to, what had been agreed, from the moment they started using it.

The key was this: "the requirements are polished and any questions answered by stakeholders"

We simply knew precisely what we were meant to be creating before we started creating it. I wonder to what degree the magic of "spec driven development" as you call it is just that, and using Claude code or some other similar is actually just the expression of being forced to understand and express clearly just what you actually want to create (compared to the much more prevalent model of just making things in the general direction and seeing how it goes).

Re: Automatic Programming

#227

Post by EliRivers »

aglavine wrote: post #52
AdamN wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waterfall can work great when: 1/ the focus is long-term both in terms of knowing that she company can take a few years to get the thing live but also that it will be around for many more years, 2/ the people writing the spec and the code are largely the same people. Agile was really pushing to make sure companies could get software live before they died (number 1) and to remedy the anti-pattern that appeared with nu…

No. Agile core is the feedback loop. I can't believe people still don't get it. Feedback from reality is always faster than guessing on the air. Waterfall is never great. The only time when you need something else than Agile is when lives are at stake, you need there formal specifications and rigorous testing. SDD allows better output than traditional programming. It is similar to waterfall in the sense that the mode…

"Waterfall is never great."

The only software I ever worked on that delivered on time, under budget, and with users reporting zero bugs over multiple deliveries, was done with heavy waterfall. The key was knowing in advance what we were meant to be making, before we made it. This did demand high-quality customers; most customers are just not good enough.

Re: Automatic Programming

#228

Post by wasmainiac »

lII1lIlI11ll wrote: post #182
dugmartin wrote: post #21

I have 30+ years of industry experience and I've been leaning heavily into spec driven development at work and it is a game changer. I love programming and now I get to program at one level higher: the spec. I spend hours on a spec, working with Claude Code to first generate and iterate on all the requirements, going over the requirements using self-reviews in Claude first using Opus 4.5 and then CoPilot using GPT-5.…

How does the resulting code look like though? I found that while can spit out barely working C++ code fast, I then have to spend 10x time prodding it to refactor the code to look at least somewhat acceptable. No matter how much I tell it that it is a "professional experienced 10x developer versed in modern C++, a second coming of Stroustrup" in per-project or global config files it still keeps spewing the same crap b…

This. I feel like the sentiment on HN is very binomial. For me my experience with LLMs is very much what you experience. Anything outside of generic tasks fails miserably. I’m really curious how people make it work so well.

Re: Automatic Programming

#229

Post by wasmainiac »

amelius wrote: post #197
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is not a gift if it was stolen. Yeah, I had a visceral reaction to that statement.

Yet nobody is changing their licenses to exclude AI use. So I assume they are OK with it.

I would and people do but no one respects the license because it is largely uninforceable

Re: Automatic Programming

#230

Post by wasmainiac »

rellfy wrote: post #109

I arrived at a very similar conclusion since trying Claude Code with Opus 4.5 (a huge paradigm shift in terms of tech and tools). I've been calling it "zen coding", where you treat the codebase like a zen garden. You maintain a mental map of the codebase, spec everything before prompting for the implementation, and review every diff line by line. The AI is a tool to implement the system design, not the system designe…

> Zen coders

Please don’t, it’s just my day job.

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