Comment by mindwok

6 days ago

This is just semantics. What's the difference between a "human interpretation of a good program" and a "good program" when we (humans) are the ones using it? If the model can write code that passes tests, and meets my requirements, then it's a good programmer. I would expect nothing more or less out of a human programmer.

> What's the difference between a "human interpretation of a good program" and a "good program" when we (humans) are the ones using it?

Correctness.

> and meets my requirements

It can't do that. "My requirements" wasn't part of the training set.

  • "Correctness" in what sense? It sounds like it's being expanded to an abstract academic definition here. For practical purposes, correct means whatever the person using it deems to be correct.

    > It can't do that. "My requirements" wasn't part of the training set.

    Neither are mine, the art of building these models is that they are generalisable enough that they can tackle tasks that aren't in their dataset. They have proven, at least for some classes of tasks, they can do exactly that.

    •   > to an abstract academic definition here
      

      Besides the fact that your statement is self contradicting, there is actually a solid definition [0]. You should click the link on specification too. Or better yet, go talk to one of those guys that did their PhD in programming languages.

        > They have proven
      

      Have they?

      Or did you just assume?

      Yeah, I know they got good scores on those benchmarks but did you look at the benchmarks? Look at the question and look what is required to pass it. Then take a moment and think. For the love of God, take a moment and think about how you can pass those tests. Don't just take a pass at face value and move on. If you do, well I got a bridge to sell you.

      [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correctness_(computer_science)

      6 replies →

Is your grandma qualified to determine what is good code?

  > If the model can write code that passes tests

You think tests make code good? Oh my sweet summer child. TDD has been tried many times and each time it failed worse than the last.