From Danluu · · 2m
We should be more ambitious with the software we build
Software builders can now create complex tools in hours instead of years with modern AI capabilities.
In brief
Software builders can now create complex tools in hours instead of years with modern AI capabilities. Software developers can achieve ambitious projects in hours rather than years using current AI tools. Originally reported by Danluu.
Malis shows pgrust testing
Michael Malis tests pgrust thoroughly uncovering real bugs in Postgres including numerical, JSONPath, and memory safety issues.
“This numerical bug that can cause valid SP-GiST operations to fail”
pgrust performance focus
pgrust's main pitch is performance improvements that could benefit Postgres and Clickhouse if implemented.
“The main pitch for pgrust is actually performance”
Vibeslop projects skepticism
Most people dismiss rewrite projects as vibeslop garbage because they lack time to verify quality.
“If I didn't know Malis, I would make the same assumption”
Software speed improvements
Rust compilation and filesystem overhead can be sped up significantly with modern AI capabilities.
“Ripgrep, compiling rust, syscall and filesystem overhead”
Regex engine development
Author built a regex engine faster than general-purpose libraries for specific workloads in hours.
“I built this regex engine that can be tweaked to be faster than other general-purpose regex libraries”
Rust interpreter project
Author created a Rust interpreter that speeds up cold builds by 50x with minimal effort.
“I built a rust interpreter that gets a 50x speedup on cold compiles”
Board game AI development
Author achieved superhuman board game AI in 5 hours with minimal AI knowledge.
“It took about 5 hours of my time to get something superhuman”
AI tooling examples
Author built multiple tools including a regex engine, rust interpreter, and board game ai in hours.
“For syscalls and filesystem overhead, just switching development from Mac to Linux improved this a lot”
Postgres bug fixes
pgrust uncovered real bugs in Postgres including numerical and memory safety issues.
“This money overflow bug”
AI model capabilities
Modern AI models can solve complex problems that previously required years of work.
“I can do a lot more with modern ai capabilities”
Rust compilation speed
Rust compilation time has been reduced significantly with modern AI tools.
“Rust compilation is slow but can be sped up with ai”
AI tooling impact
AI tools have made software development faster and more ambitious for individual developers.
“This set of projects would've taken a year or more to get to works for me quality”
pgrust verification
Malis uses Kani and Lean for code verification in pgrust projects.
“He's since switched to lean and has been using lean to verify things that are too complex to do in kani”
AI model benchmarks
GPT-6 Astra passes zstd tests with 99% accuracy across all conditions.
“6 Astra succeeds at passing all of the registered tests more than 99% of the time”
AI tooling examples
Author built tools for specific use cases that would've taken years previously.
“For example, the last time I taked to him about pgrust verification”
AI tooling impact
AI tools have made software development faster and more ambitious for individual developers.
“This set of projects would've taken a year or more to get to works for me quality”
The headline
Software developers can achieve ambitious projects in hours rather than years using current AI tools.
