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Claude Is Not a Compiler

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Re: Claude Is Not a Compiler

#41

Post by armchairhacker »

tester756 wrote: post #27
armchairhacker wrote: post #22

A compiler is an algorithm and Claude isn't*. A compiler almost never produces a wrong output, even when compiling an extremely complicated program. But a compiler must be clearly defined and is limited to input/commands it's defined for. A compiler will "correctly" process input into unintuitive output, but that's not always what the user intended (e.g. omitting large sections of code that are undefined behavior). C…

>A compiler almost never produces a wrong output back log of compiler's bugs can be pretty large

In a production-grade compiler like LLVM they are rare enough that it compiles giant projects like Linux and Chromium without detectable issues.

Maybe eventually Claude can, since it can write tests, but compilers / (deductive) algorithms have other advantages like efficiency and predictability.

Re: Claude Is Not a Compiler

#42

Post by budman1 »

tester756 wrote: post #27
armchairhacker wrote: post #22

A compiler is an algorithm and Claude isn't*. A compiler almost never produces a wrong output, even when compiling an extremely complicated program. But a compiler must be clearly defined and is limited to input/commands it's defined for. A compiler will "correctly" process input into unintuitive output, but that's not always what the user intended (e.g. omitting large sections of code that are undefined behavior). C…

>A compiler almost never produces a wrong output back log of compiler's bugs can be pretty large

we could make a similar observation about determinism. given a set of inputs, the compiler will create the same output each time.

not always true. but very close (pathological coding defects and explicit randomization excluded)

very different than an LLM.

Re: Claude Is Not a Compiler

#43

Post by eigencoder »

torginus wrote: post #7

> But our VMs start fast, so fast that even if we created the DNS entries before creating the VM, our users still had to sit around waiting for DNS to propagate, which occasionally took minutes, not seconds. To my (limited) understanding, this is not a good idea, and is an unfixable problem from the server side. Companies, VPNs or ISPs or routers, often use their own DNS servers, and those can have caching logic, whi…

Usually when you create the VM, it gets its own DNS subdomain that looks like `my-new-vm-name.exe.xyz`. (I'm not affiliated with exe.dev, I just use their product). So I doubt there would be any cached requests for that particular subdomain before the VM is created.

Re: Claude Is Not a Compiler

#44

Post by orphea »

whiplash451 wrote: post #24
eraserj wrote: post #11

I'll go a step further and say Claude is an Interpreter. It even has just-in-time compilation: it can directly follow a spec and generate small snippets live. I'm pretty sure we'll soon see services (admittedly highly inefficient) built on Claude-as-a-backend.

Why inefficient? If Claude continuously makes the system more efficient based on demand, there's no reason for the system to be less efficient than if it was managed by humans.

  If Claude continuously makes the system more efficient based on demand
Yes, Claude, please make the system as efficient as possible. Make no mistakes

Re: Claude Is Not a Compiler

#46

Post by Valodim »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #38
xnorswap wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but it's at the point now where it can autocomplete a fragment of a sketch of an idea into a complete working product.

No, it isn't. It can autocomplete a fragment of a sketch of an idea into something that may or may not match the original vision and almost certainly has serious bugs which only manifest over time because they elude a cursory test.

You say that as if it wasn't true for anything human programmers ever produced

Re: Claude Is Not a Compiler

#47

Post by armchairhacker »

thomascgalvin wrote: post #35
armchairhacker wrote: post #22

A compiler is an algorithm and Claude isn't*. A compiler almost never produces a wrong output, even when compiling an extremely complicated program. But a compiler must be clearly defined and is limited to input/commands it's defined for. A compiler will "correctly" process input into unintuitive output, but that's not always what the user intended (e.g. omitting large sections of code that are undefined behavior). C…

> A compiler will "correctly" process input into unintuitive output, but that's not always what the user intended Importantly, this behavior is deterministic. If the compiler takes your code and spits out something you did not expect, it will always spit out that same result, given the same input. Once you figure out what went wrong, you've solved that problem. Generative AI is intentionally not deterministic, and th…

AI could be deterministic, only it requires sacrificing performance and nobody cares enough. Although algorithms are more predictable, and you can follow an algorithm's steps (even a complex algorithm can be broken into large sequences of steps, which may be broken further).

Re: Claude Is Not a Compiler

#48

Post by IronWolve »

And claude isnt a replacement for the chain of humans, you dont know what you dont know, thats why we have a person in a role to gatekeep each step.

Anyone using claude can see it misses steps that an engineer wouldnt, it can make bad choices that a sysadmin wouldnt, it can pick the wrong order a project manager wouldnt, it can pick wrong cost models that a bean counter wouldnt, etc etc etc

But, I'm pretending it is and living with those mistakes.

Re: Claude Is Not a Compiler

#50

Post by mcv »

qsort wrote: post #32
armchairhacker wrote: post #22

A compiler is an algorithm and Claude isn't*. A compiler almost never produces a wrong output, even when compiling an extremely complicated program. But a compiler must be clearly defined and is limited to input/commands it's defined for. A compiler will "correctly" process input into unintuitive output, but that's not always what the user intended (e.g. omitting large sections of code that are undefined behavior). C…

> A compiler is an algorithm and Claude isn't "Algorithm" is not a word with a definition, so I can't say that you're wrong, but I struggle to see how you conceptualize "algorithm" in a way that does include a compiler but does not include a language model. I think the distinction you're trying to draw is better captured by comparing inductive and deductive program synthesis.

A compiler is a deterministic algorithm. Clause is not.

Of course Claude is an algorithm, but it's a very vague, fuzzy and complex one, where you have no way to determine what's going on inside, and no way to know up front what's going to come out.

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