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this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
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Compilers are deterministic and you can reason about how they came to their results, and because of that they are useful.
No, they're useful because they produce useful machine code.
That's a distinction without a difference. The code is useful because we can reason how it was made and we can then make deterministic changes. Try using a compiler that gives you a qualitatively different result each time it runs even though the inputs are the same.
It's useful because it does the stuff we want it to do.
You're focusing on a very high level philosophical meaning of "usefulness." I'm focusing on what actually does what I need it to do.
I'm providing explicit examples of compilers doing "the stuff we want it to do". LLMs do what the want 50% of the time and it still needs modifications afterwards. Imagine having to correct a compiler output and calling that compiler "useful".
So if something isn't perfect it's not "useful?"
I use LLMs when programming. Despite their imperfection they save me an enormous amount of time. I can confidently confirm that LLMs are useful from personal direct experience.