2023: LLMs generate random strings of text and “hallucinate.”

2026: Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, says LLMs can generate code better than he can write.

It’s remarkable how good these large language models have become in such a short span of time, to the point where they’re on par with, or better than, humans across numerous domains.

K (Kailash) recently wrote a brilliant post about how software development, as we’ve known it for decades, is over. He’s far from alone; many people at the forefront of technology are saying the same thing. And replace “software” with almost anything else, and the statement still holds. What are the new frameworks and methods going to look like? 😬 Here’s an excerpt on how LLMs are helping him:

“As a developer with a bottomless wishlist of things I wished I could have done or tried, I’ve been able to use LLM tools to not just rapidly prototype and validate complex ideas, but actually write good quality, production-grade software (my own subjective metric, of course) with better code than I could have written manually. Things where I knew exactly what had to be done but was constrained by physical limits, and also things that were unclear to me and needed novel ideas, approaches, and leaps. All the while, learning and deepening my own understanding.

The physiological, cognitive, and emotional cost I generally incur to achieve the software outcomes I want has undoubtedly reduced by several orders of magnitude. The time and bandwidth this has freed up, I now spend on engineering, architecting, debating, tinkering, expanding my imagination, and writing much more concise and meaningful code, the code I actually want to write.

Remember the old adage, “programming is 90% thinking and 10% typing”? It is now, for real.”

What’s made this real for me is watching Karthik build his own website, complete with a quiz, with zero programming knowledge. This is a guy who used to play words like “Dog” and “Fan” in Scrabble. I now have full FOMO. 😄

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