Reply to post: Re: Clippy

Boffins foresee most software written by machines in 2040

GreenBit

Re: Clippy

Maybe that's where AI could help. A working system is in fact a kind of specification. When that system is 25 years of patches, the code itself can be unmaintainable goo, but running it demonstrates required behaviour (one hopes). Sometimes you look at 100,000 lines of code, and feel it in your bones that it could be rewritten in 20,000 but the task is just too daunting to undertake. And it's *menial*.

So there's a domain (legacy bloatware) that's fairly unambiguous, with mountains of menial detail. Sounds like a job for a commuter! Ok, crushing 100K lines of crufty C++ to 20K lines of well organized C++ might be a bit hopeful, but hell, even if it could just look at such a system and produce a specification, that would be brilliant. (Of course, even that's not necessary because we all diligently maintain our specs, right? )

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