Using Claude Code to modernize a 25-year-old kernel driver

If we allow it

If it delivers what we need, isn't it a net positive?

And clearly define what we need with specs and thorough tests.

Do we need code generated from a stochastic model of previous code? I think we need actual people who are familiar with the kernel and hardware and are capable of reasoning about it.

We are constantly reminded that LLMs are the future despite the real world evidence to the contrary. Look at what happens when LLMs are trained on the output of other LLMs, such as the low quality code flooding the internet. It is all a self-solving problem set in motion.

As sad as it makes some version of me to say, the majority of code that gets written every day doesn't need to be good code. I am doing a pet side project right now, completely with copilot. I haven't written a line of code, documentation or anything else. The code is pretty poor but I don't care because I just need it to take a specific input and produce a specific output and I only need this to happen once and then I'll throw the whole thing away. As I mentioned elsewhere: this didn't get me the result faster than I could have done by hand, but it did let me not spend the entire time in deep focus trying to write all this.

The alternative is to go back to stone tablet in the cave with Plato.

Compilers also came a long way.

compilers are deterministic

barely so - in practice they display (local) chaotic behaviour.

And LLMs are deterministic too if you freeze the seed.