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Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

dmitrybrant.com

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Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#331

Post by jama211 »

jampekka wrote: post #163
jama211 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying boilerplate shouldn’t exist is like saying we shouldn’t need nails or screws if we just designed furniture to be cut perfectly as one piece from the tree. The response is “I mean, sure, that’d be great, not sure how you’ll actually accomplish that though”.

Saying boilerplate should exist is like saying every nail should have its own hammer. Some amount of boilerplate probably needs to exist, but in general it would be better off minimized. For a decade or so there's sadly been a trend of deliberately increasing it.

I didn’t say it should exist, only implied it’s a practical inevitability for the moment.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#332

Post by jama211 »

kazinator wrote: post #291
jama211 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying boilerplate shouldn’t exist is like saying we shouldn’t need nails or screws if we just designed furniture to be cut perfectly as one piece from the tree. The response is “I mean, sure, that’d be great, not sure how you’ll actually accomplish that though”.

Since we invented the tree and control its parameters and features, this is actually correct.

We’re limited by the limits of our invention though. We can’t set the parameters and features to whatever we want, or we’d set them to “infinitely powerful” and “infinitely simple” - it doesn’t work like that however.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#333

Post by jama211 »

coldtea wrote: post #299
jama211 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying boilerplate shouldn’t exist is like saying we shouldn’t need nails or screws if we just designed furniture to be cut perfectly as one piece from the tree. The response is “I mean, sure, that’d be great, not sure how you’ll actually accomplish that though”.

I can tell you about 1000 ways, the problem is there are no corporate monetary incentives to follow them, and not much late-90s-era FOSS ethos going around either...

By that, you must admit that at least in a sense you imply they’re not cost effective, or practical.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#334

Post by kazinator »

jama211 wrote: post #332
kazinator wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since we invented the tree and control its parameters and features, this is actually correct.

We’re limited by the limits of our invention though. We can’t set the parameters and features to whatever we want, or we’d set them to “infinitely powerful” and “infinitely simple” - it doesn’t work like that however.

Those parameters of the invention that limit people from just doing away with boilerplate are ones they won't change, not can't.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#335

Post by jama211 »

kazinator wrote: post #334
jama211 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re limited by the limits of our invention though. We can’t set the parameters and features to whatever we want, or we’d set them to “infinitely powerful” and “infinitely simple” - it doesn’t work like that however.

Those parameters of the invention that limit people from just doing away with boilerplate are ones they won't change, not can't .

Well, depending on the value proposition, or the required goals, that’s not necessarily true. There are pros and cons to different approaches, and pretending there aren’t downsides to such a switch is problematic.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#336

Post by jama211 »

coldtea wrote: post #300
jampekka wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying boilerplate should exist is like saying every nail should have its own hammer. Some amount of boilerplate probably needs to exist, but in general it would be better off minimized. For a decade or so there's sadly been a trend of deliberately increasing it.

> Saying boilerplate should exist is like saying every nail should have its own hammer It's rather saying that we should have parts that join without nailing by now, especially for things we do again and again and again and again.

Did you read shouldn’t when they wrote should?

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#337

Post by abathologist »

jama211 wrote: post #86
abathologist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the glaring fallacy! We are turning to unreliable stochastic agents to churn out boilerplate and do toil that should just be abstracted or automated away by fully deterministic, reliably correct programs. This is, prima facie, a degenerative and wasteful way to develop software.

Saying boilerplate shouldn’t exist is like saying we shouldn’t need nails or screws if we just designed furniture to be cut perfectly as one piece from the tree. The response is “I mean, sure, that’d be great, not sure how you’ll actually accomplish that though”.

This is a terribly confused analogy, afaict. But maybe if you could explain in what sense boilerplate, as defined in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boilerplate_text, is anything like a nail, it could be less confusing.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#338

Post by abathologist »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #100
abathologist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the glaring fallacy! We are turning to unreliable stochastic agents to churn out boilerplate and do toil that should just be abstracted or automated away by fully deterministic, reliably correct programs. This is, prima facie, a degenerative and wasteful way to develop software.

Yes and its why AI fills me with impending doom: handing over the reigns to an AI that can deal with the bullshit for us means we will get stuck in a groundhog day scenario of waking up with the same shitty architecture for the foreseeable future. Automation is the opposite of plasticity.

Ground Hog day is optimistic, I think. It will be like "The Butterfly Effect": every attempt to fix the systems using the same dumb, wrote solutions will make the next iteration of the architecture worse and more shitty.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#339

Post by abathologist »

peteforde wrote: post #189
nickserv wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for me when woodworking, the cutting, nailing, and gluing are the fun bits. The sanding and finishing is the grunt work/boilerplate.

The AI BAD folks camping in this thread would be angry that you're still producing work that requires sanding.

Not me, because I know how to avoid falling into nonsense speculation based on worthless analogies :D

Sand away! Enjoy copying and pasting your nails, or having LLMs apply your varnish or whatever. I hope it brings happiness.

Re: Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

#340

Post by abathologist »

nurettin wrote: post #84
abathologist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the glaring fallacy! We are turning to unreliable stochastic agents to churn out boilerplate and do toil that should just be abstracted or automated away by fully deterministic, reliably correct programs. This is, prima facie, a degenerative and wasteful way to develop software.

Great point, but there is absolutely no way of doing this for every framework and then maintain it for ages. It is logistically impossible.

How big a dent do you think we could make if poured $252 billion dollars[0] just into paying down all our towers of tech debt and developing clean abstractions for all these known problems?

[0]: https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report/econo...

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