>A compiler almost never produces a wrong output

back log of compiler's bugs can be pretty large

armchairhacker 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In a production-grade compiler like LLVM they are rare enough that it compiles giant projects like Linux and Chromium without detectable issues.

Maybe eventually Claude can, since it can write tests, but compilers / (deductive) algorithms have other advantages like efficiency and predictability.

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Lerc 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I guess we can come back in 20 years and see if Claude is as reliable as LLVM is today. That would give a comparison between similar aged products.

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skydhash 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Not really. As the C language was created around 1972 and by 1973, Unix was rewritten in it. By 1975, Unix was released commercially. That’s like 3 years between design and commercial usage.

	▲	Lerc 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Have a go at writing something in 1975's C. x=-5 Is not x = -5 There's no unsigned int. It's a better comparison to the usability of Claude than you might think. It's doable, but hardly ideal.

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budman1 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

we could make a similar observation about determinism. given a set of inputs, the compiler will create the same output each time.

not always true. but very close (pathological coding defects and explicit randomization excluded)

very different than an LLM.

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doubled112 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> almost never

But not never. "Almost" is doing a lot of work there.