alt Hacker NewsI feel like this is kind of missing the point of the argument around this. People love to say "Well you don't check your compiler output do you?" (never mind that some of us actually do for various reasons). When's the last time a compiler introduced a bug into your code? When's the last time an LLM introduced a bug into your code? There you go.
Replies
Excuse me. I curse at compiler writer's on a regular goddamn basis. There are these things called "optimizations" that I assume they spend a bunch of time hmmming and hawwwing over, but will regularly take a shit on how the structure of how the resulting assembly comes out. It is downright infuriating.
Maybe you don't build or tinker with things enough to have warranted making a dartboard out of the gcc contributor graph, but damnit, some of us do. That compiler is not magic, continually floats around, and when you're just trying to get something from the stage of "doesn't exist at all" to "exists", does absolutely throw curve balls your way. I start wit -O0 -g and then crank up the optimization level once everything works. Otherwise come debug time, shit's missing, stuff happens at weird times, etc. If you don't treat the compiler as spooky, you haven't paid enough attention to it.
> When's the last time a compiler introduced a bug into your code?
A compiler, making my job harder by being unpredictable? All the time.
So did other programmers, users with creative input, random parallel processes running at the same time.
LLMs are actually kind of tame in comparison.