logoalt Hacker News

madroxyesterday at 7:51 PM3 repliesview on HN

I encourage everyone to RTFA and not just respond to the headline. This really is a glimpse into where the future is going.

I've been saying "the last job to be automated will be QA" and it feels more true every day. It's one thing to be a product engineer in this era. It's another to be working at the level the author is, where code needs to be verifiable. However, once people stop vibing apps and start vibing kernels, it really does fundamentally change the game.

I also have another saying: "any sufficiently advanced agent is indistinguishable from a DSL." I hadn't considered Lean in this equation, but I put these two ideas together and I feel like we're approaching some world where Lean eats the entire agentic framework stack and the entire operating system disappears.

If you're thinking about building something today that will still be relevant in 10 years, this is insightful.


Replies

bwestergardyesterday at 10:36 PM

I am as enthusiastic about formal methods as the next guy, but I very much doubt any LLM-based technique will make it economical to write a substantial fraction of application software in Lean. The LLM can play a powerful heuristic role in searching for proof-bearing code in areas where there is good training data. Unfortunately those areas are few and far between.

Moreover, humans will still need to read even rigorously proved code if only to suss out performance issues. And training people to read Lean will continue to be costly.

Though, as the OP says, this is a very exciting time for developing provably correct systems programming.

show 2 replies
fmbbyesterday at 10:51 PM

There are still no successful useful vibe codes apps. Kernels are pretty far away I think.

show 3 replies
charlieflowersyesterday at 9:08 PM

> "any sufficiently advanced agent is indistinguishable from a DSL."

I don't quite follow but I'd love to hear more about that.

show 4 replies