Why the specific application to install scripts? Doesn't your argument apply to software in general?

(I have my own answer to this but I'd like to hear yours first!)

It does, and possibly this launch is a little window into the future!

Install scripts are a simple example that current generation LLMs are more than capable of executing correctly with a reasonably descriptive prompt.

More generally, though, there's something fascinating about the idea that the way you describe a program can _be_ the program that tbh I haven't fully wrapped my head around, but it's not crazy to think that in time more and more software will be exchanged by passing prompts around rather than compiled code.

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4b11b4 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> "the way you describe a program _can_ be the program"

One follow-up thought I had was... It may actually be... more difficult(?) to go from a program to a great description

	▲	dang an hour ago \| parent [-]
		That's a chance to plump Peter Naur's classic "Programming as Theory Building"! https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... What Naur meant by "theory" was the mental model of the original programmers who understood why they wrote it that way. He argued the real program was is theory, not the code. The translation of the theory into code is lossy: you can't reconstruct the former from the latter. Naur said that this explains why software teams don't do as well when they lose access to the original programmers, because they were the only ones with the theory. If we take "a great description" to mean a writeup of the thinking behind the program, i.e. the theory, then your comment is in keeping with Naur: you can go one way (theory to code) but not the other (code to theory). The big question is whether/how LLMs might change this equation.

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blast 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's basically what I was thinking too: installation is a constrained domain with tons of previous examples to train on, so current agents should be pretty good at it.