Without being glib, I honestly wonder if Fabrice Bellard has started using any LLM coding tools. If he could be even more productive, that would be scary!
I doubt he is ideologically opposed to them, given his work on LLM compression [1]
He codes mostly in C, which I'm sure is mostly "memorized". i.e. if you have been programming in C for a few decades, you almost certainly have a deep bench of your own code that you routinely go back to / copy and modify
In most cases, I don't see an LLM helping there. It could be "out of distribution", similar to what Karpathy said about writing his end-to-end pedagogical LLM chatbot
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Now that I think of it, Bellard would probably train his own LLM on his own code! The rest of the world's code might not help that much :-)
He has all the knowledge to do that ... I could see that becoming a paid closed-source project, like some of his other ones [2]
> Without being glib, I honestly wonder if Fabrice Bellard has started using any LLM coding tools
I doubt it. I follow him and look at the code he writes and it's well thought out and organized. It's the exact opposite of AI slop I see everywhere.
> He codes mostly in C, which I'm sure is mostly "memorized". i.e. if you have been programming in C for a few decades,
C I think he memorized a long time ago. It's more like he keeps the whole structure and setup of the program (the context) in his head and is able to "see it" all and operate on it. He is so good that people are insinuating he is actually "multiple people" or he uses an LLM and so on. I imagine he is quite amused reading those comments.
> I honestly wonder if Fabrice Bellard has started using any LLM coding tools. If he could be even more productive, that would be scary!
That’s kind of a weird speculation to make about creative people and their processes.
If Caravaggio had had a computer with Photoshop, if Eintein had had a computer with Matlab, would they have been more productive? Is it a question that even makes sense?
While the guy is brilliant, I doubt he could fit the role of senior/staff/principal engineer in any one-level-below faang kind of company. Typically, these roles require good communication skills and working together with other engineers (which is really hard). So, while he's very good at the tech level, I think he primarily works alone? In that regard, it would be a very bad fit. I may be wrong, tho.
In technically deep domains like Bellard works in, Staff+ roles bias more towards technical expertise, and managers also tend to be more technical and able to more completely address technical coordination tasks. Sometimes we like to assume that if someone is good at one thing, they’ll be bad at something more mundane (to make ourselves feel better), but I sincerely doubt he would have any trouble in such a role.
He might as well be but why would he give a flying fuck about it? He gets to do what he wants and is financially independent for doing just that. Most can only dream about it.
Myself - I do not come within a million miles to his professional level, but I still have managed to do just that - I develop what I want, how I want and get paid for it. I am 64 and still design and develop actively for my own company and for clients. Gives me happiness, motivation to stay alert and more than enough time to still do my hobbies (mostly various outdoor activities).
The fact that so many people use FFmpeg and QEMU suggest that he is quite good at documenting, collaborating, and at least making his code remarkably clean and easy to follow. This already puts him way ahead of the average silicon valley senior software engineer that I've worked with. However, he does value independence so I don't think he would have been happy working at a faang-type company for long.
I doubt he is ideologically opposed to them, given his work on LLM compression [1]
He codes mostly in C, which I'm sure is mostly "memorized". i.e. if you have been programming in C for a few decades, you almost certainly have a deep bench of your own code that you routinely go back to / copy and modify
In most cases, I don't see an LLM helping there. It could be "out of distribution", similar to what Karpathy said about writing his end-to-end pedagogical LLM chatbot
---
Now that I think of it, Bellard would probably train his own LLM on his own code! The rest of the world's code might not help that much :-)
He has all the knowledge to do that ... I could see that becoming a paid closed-source project, like some of his other ones [2]
[1] e.g. https://bellard.org/ts_zip/
[2] https://bellard.org/lte/
I doubt it. I follow him and look at the code he writes and it's well thought out and organized. It's the exact opposite of AI slop I see everywhere.
> He codes mostly in C, which I'm sure is mostly "memorized". i.e. if you have been programming in C for a few decades,
C I think he memorized a long time ago. It's more like he keeps the whole structure and setup of the program (the context) in his head and is able to "see it" all and operate on it. He is so good that people are insinuating he is actually "multiple people" or he uses an LLM and so on. I imagine he is quite amused reading those comments.
Maybe that is a hint that he does use off-the-shelf models as a coding aid?
There may be no need to train your own, on your own code, but it's fun to think about
That’s kind of a weird speculation to make about creative people and their processes.
If Caravaggio had had a computer with Photoshop, if Eintein had had a computer with Matlab, would they have been more productive? Is it a question that even makes sense?
Absolutely. It's a very intriguing thought invoking the opposite of the point you're trying to make.
AI is the same, for example creating slop or virtual girlfriends.
https://www.amarisoft.com/
https://www.amarisoft.com/company/about-us
https://bellard.org/lte/
He might as well be but why would he give a flying fuck about it? He gets to do what he wants and is financially independent for doing just that. Most can only dream about it.
Myself - I do not come within a million miles to his professional level, but I still have managed to do just that - I develop what I want, how I want and get paid for it. I am 64 and still design and develop actively for my own company and for clients. Gives me happiness, motivation to stay alert and more than enough time to still do my hobbies (mostly various outdoor activities).