Linux

10179 readers

758 users here now

A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)

Also, check out:

Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Ategon@programming.dev

anzo@programming.dev

dwraf_of_ignorance@programming.dev

406

Linus Torvalds is OK with vibe coding as long as it's not used for anything that matters (www.theregister.com)

submitted 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) by cm0002@toast.ooo to c/linux@programming.dev

32 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Linux and Git inventor Linus Torvalds discussed AI in software development in an interview earlier this month, describing himself as "fairly positive" about vibe coding, but as a way into computing, not for production coding where it would likely be horrible to maintain.

Torvalds was interviewed by Dirk Hohndel, head of open source at Verizon, at the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit in Seoul, South Korea, earlier this month.

Torvalds is technical lead and maintainer of the Linux kernel, but said that "for the last almost 20 years, I've not been a programmer." As for Git, which he invented, "I really just look at it from the side."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] eah@programming.dev 2 points 2 hours ago

Using it for writing tests is attractive because the way we generally test software sucks. Programs are written abstractly for an unimaginably large number of cases, but only tested for a finite few. It's so ugly and boring and inexact. I'd be so giddy if a language/system came along that did formal methods properly, enabling me to formally prove correctness in every case. Programming is fun. Proofs are fun. Tests are not fun. And I'm here on Earth to have the most fun.

This is all to say that using LLMs to do the boring work of writing tests is a suboptimal solution for testing software. It fits a general pattern. Yes, you can learn X by having a conversation with an LLM, but I believe it will be a subpar experience compared to forcing yourself to read a professionally-written book on the subject.