alt Hacker NewsAssembly experts still write code that runs faster than code produced by compilers. Being slower is predictable and solved with better hardware, or just waiting. This is fine for most so we switched to easier or portable languages. Output of the program remains the same.
Impact of having 1.7x more bugs is difficult to assess and is not solved that easily. Comparison would work if that was about optimisations: code that is 1.7x slower / memory hungry.
> Assembly experts still write code that runs faster than code produced by compilers.
They sometimes can, but this is no longer a guaranteed outcome. Supercompilation optimizers can often put manual assembly to shame.
> Impact of having 1.7x more bugs is difficult to assess and is not solved that easily.
Time will tell. Arguably the number of bugs produced by AI 2 years ago was much higher than 1.7x. In 2 more years it might only be 1.2x bugs. In 4 years time it might be barely measurable. The trend over the next couple of years will judge whether this is a viable way forward.