This specification argument seems to boil down to: what if we used Haskell to describe systems to LLMs?

Many of our traditional functional languages, ML family in particular, let you write hyper concise expressions (pure math if you’re in to that sort of thing), craft DSLs of unlimited specifiable power (‘makeTpsReportWith “new cover page format”’), and also in natural language (function names like `emptied cart should have zero items`).

I think if we did that and leveraged the type systems of those languages and the systematic improvements we see from ADTs and pattern matching in those languages, combined with a specification first approach like TDD, that we’d have a great starting point to have an LLM generate the rest of the system perfectly.

… yes, that is just writing Haskell/OCaml/F# with extra steps.

… yes, that level of specification is also the point with those languages where your exploratory type-diddling suddenly goes ‘presto’ and you magically have a fully functioning system.

I guess I’m old-fashioned, but sometimes I wonder if compilers are good for what they’re good for.