Here’s an impressive Show HN project: a comprehensive, reverse-engineered, LLM-written technical documentation of how a calculator’s operating system works. What a resource!

Insert a standard paragraph about how we live in interesting times. I keep seeing projects like this increasingly more often: complex, working beasts – that would previously have been nigh impossible to implement by one person in their spare time – are now springing up like mushrooms after the rain. Here an Apple Lisa emulator; there a modern implementation of a long-forgotten language from the 1960s.

I was wrong (or was I?)

In my last post, I stated:

I don’t think it’s [me writing about LLMs] likely to happen anytime soon: I prefer to write about things that I’m excited about.

I was wrong. And right at the same time. Here comes another post where LLMs play a prominent role.

’Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s.

Well, it’s two weeks past Lucy’s as I write this, but it is still that time of the year: the time of slowing down, taking a step back from the hustle and bustle of everyday, reflecting on what has happened and what is yet to come. Perhaps no better time to put together my thoughts on LLMs, and more specifically on their use in programming.