"The approach is detailed in a paper authored by MIT's Eagon Meng and Daniel Jackson, titled "What You See is What it Does: A Structural Patten for Legible Software". They flag up the problem of "illegible" modern software, which lacks "direct correspondence between code and observed behavior". Modern software is often, also, "insufficiently modular" they continue, "leading to a failure of three key requirements of robust coding": incrementality, integrity, and transparency."
"In fact, they argue that the growing use of LLMs has "exposed deep flaws in the practice of software development, and how a reevaluation might be needed to capitalize on the benefits of LLMs and mitigate their failings." When LLMs are used to add code to an existing repo, "it can be hard to control which modules are modified, and to ensure that existing functionality is not broken.""
A proposed model called "What You See is What it Does" targets illegible, insufficiently modular software by enforcing direct correspondence between code and observed behavior. The model promotes modular design to satisfy incrementality, integrity, and transparency so changes can be made incrementally without breaking prior functionality. Widespread use of LLMs has revealed practical problems: LLM-generated edits can modify unintended modules, introduce regressions, and prevent safe extension of whole-app builders beyond undefined limits. The pattern aims to make code legible to both humans and AI, improving control over modifications and preserving existing behavior when integrating LLM-suggested code.
Read at Theregister
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]