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Torvalds: AI Is the New Compiler, Not the New Programmer
(pbxscience.com)
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this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2026
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Technology
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Even Linus is conflating "doing more" with "being more productive". A car factory could, if they wanted, pump 10x more cars out the door. But qualiry would decrease these would be full of defects, so in the end you weren't more productive
I don't care if there's more PRs. It's just and illusion of productivity
No he isn't:
Productivity = Doing more things Efficiency = Doing the right things
I wrote a whole thesis on the subject AMA
Wouldnt productivity have two knobs? Efficiency and energy/effort input?
Also efficiency sometimes goes against "right"? If you need resiliancy you then "right" migh include redundancy. In software, that could also be guardrails like memory safety that necissarily take some extra abstraction to implement and a processing penalty?
Where can I read your thesis?
Haha its "out there" but that would also mean that I need to out myself.. Let me have a think on this one. Its also in Swedish but mb not a problem(?)
Efficiency is a bit more about also not doing the wrong things :)
Har du en länk kanske?
Depends on what your metric for "productive" is. If you're producing more cars that have to all be recalled and fixed, you're not making more money than you would had you made higher quality cars from the start, and you then also lose face and your brand is viewed as inferior, so sales drop, and the spiral goes brr.
That doesn't matter as long as it doesn't happen in this quarter.
too fuckin' true
I understand what you're trying to say, and even agree with it, but the car factory example is just wrong. Those have a design speed that is generally limited by cycle times for individual steps. Like a robot has to place say 10 spot welds. You can't speed that up. To stick with this example: in theory you could add a robot so both place 5 spots, but that rework takes probably a year and costs millions. Plus you don't have one bottleneck like this, but a lot of them with similar speed (hence the "design speed" of the whole factory).
You can slow the whole factory down to run under capacity (or not run it during night shift), and then you have room to speed it up. But if you're running at capacity, there is very little you can do.
It's physically impossible to speed up the factory to 1.5x, let alone 10x.
Most of these robots are purposely slowed down for human safety and other factors. So I do believe you can speed up a factory a lot, perhaps not10x, but still.
No they aren't slowed down for "human factors" or safety. They are in cages or behind barricades (at least in Europe). If you open them (like a door or cross a laser barrier), the whole line or at least the cell cell just stops and all of the red lights come on. You can believe what you want, but you can't speed anything up significantly without massive investment or work. Or they would be running faster, cause money.
Source: I work in the industry and have been in running car plants.
You can just skip a few welds, don't measure lubricant exactly but do it quickly ±20%, or don't bother smoothly apply sealant. Reduce time to let paint dry. Don't bother with exact alignment. Sure, the car might rattle, rust, break in a small accident and the engine doesn't last long but you're cranking them out fast.