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A sufficiently detailed spec is code

haskellforall.com

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Re: A sufficiently detailed spec is code

#81

Post by mfabbri77 »

baxtr wrote: post #69
mfabbri77 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This happens because the training data contains countless SotA "to-do" apps. This argument does not scale well to other types of software.

Isn’t most standard software these days a permutation of things already done before?

In my experience, the further you move away from the user and toward the hardware and fundamental theoretical algorithms, the less true this becomes.

This is very true for an email client, but very untrue for an innovative 3D rendering engine technology (just an example).

Re: A sufficiently detailed spec is code

#82

Post by 9rx »

quotemstr wrote: post #68

No, a spec is not code. It's possible to describe simple behavior that's nevertheless difficult to implement. Consider, say, fn sin(x: f16) -> f16 There are only 64k different f16s. Easy enough to test them all. A given sin() is either correct or it's not. Yet sin() here can have a large number of different implementations. The spec alone under-determines the actual code.

It says a sufficiently detailed spec is code. Your spec lacks details that could be added.

Re: A sufficiently detailed spec is code

#83

Post by nostrademons »

wongarsu wrote: post #77
mfabbri77 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This happens because the training data contains countless SotA "to-do" apps. This argument does not scale well to other types of software.

Most software written today (or 10 years ago, or 50 years ago) is not particularly unique. And even in that software that is unusual you usually find a lot of run-of-the-mill code for the more mundane aspects

Most of the economically valuable software written is pretty unique, or at least is one of few competitors in a new and growing niche. This is because software that is not particularly unique is by definition a commodity, with few differentiators. Commodity software gets its margins competed away, because if you try to price high, everybody just uses a competitor.

So goes the AI paradox: it's really effective at writing lots and lots of software that is low value and probably never needed to get written anyway. But at least right now (this is changing rapidly), executives are very willing to hire lots of coders to write software that is low value and probably doesn't need to be written, and VCs are willing to fund lots of startups to automate the writing of lots of software that is low value and probably doesn't need to be written.

Re: A sufficiently detailed spec is code

#85

Post by roarcher »

baxtr wrote: post #69
mfabbri77 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This happens because the training data contains countless SotA "to-do" apps. This argument does not scale well to other types of software.

Isn’t most standard software these days a permutation of things already done before?

I'd say that's pretty much the definition of standard, yeah. And it's why you can't make a profit selling a simple ToDo app. If you expect people to pay for what you build, you have to build something that doesn't have a thousand free clones on the app store.

Re: A sufficiently detailed spec is code

#88

Post by lunar_mycroft »

naruhodo wrote: post #72
Panzerschrek wrote: post #40

I am developing my own programming language, but I have no specification written for it. When people tell me that I need a specification, I reply that I already have one - the source code of the language compiler.

The source code does what it does, including bugs. So unless you want bugs to be your specification, you actually need to specify what you want.

A corollary to the linked article is that a specification can also have bugs. Having a specification means that you can (in theory) be sure you have removed all inconsistencies between that specification and the source code, but it does not mean you can know you have removed all bugs, since both the spec and the source code could have the same bug.

Re: A sufficiently detailed spec is code

#89

Post by baxtr »

roarcher wrote: post #85
baxtr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t most standard software these days a permutation of things already done before?

I'd say that's pretty much the definition of standard, yeah. And it's why you can't make a profit selling a simple ToDo app. If you expect people to pay for what you build, you have to build something that doesn't have a thousand free clones on the app store.

I politely disagree.

I think you’re conflating software and product.

A product can be a recombination of standard software components and yet be something completely new.

Re: A sufficiently detailed spec is code

#90

Post by philipp-gayret »

nostrademons wrote: post #83
wongarsu wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most software written today (or 10 years ago, or 50 years ago) is not particularly unique. And even in that software that is unusual you usually find a lot of run-of-the-mill code for the more mundane aspects

Most of the economically valuable software written is pretty unique, or at least is one of few competitors in a new and growing niche. This is because software that is not particularly unique is by definition a commodity, with few differentiators. Commodity software gets its margins competed away, because if you try to price high, everybody just uses a competitor. So goes the AI paradox: it's really effective at writ…

Could you give some examples? I can only imagine completely proprietary technology like trading or developing medicine. I have worked in software for many years and was always paid well for it. None of it was particularly unique in any way. Some of it better than others, but if you could show that there exists software people pay well for that AI cannot make I would be really impressed. With my limited view as software engineer it seems to me that the data in the product / its users is what makes it valuable. For example Google Maps, Twitter, AirBnB or HN.
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