"The prompt could be perfect, but there's no way to guarantee that the LLM will turn it into a reasonable implementation."
I think it is worse than that. The prompt, written in natural language, is by its very nature vague and incomplete, which is great if you are aiming for creative artistry. I am also really happy that we are able to search for dates using phrases like "get me something close to a weekend, but not on Tuesdays" on a booking website instead of picking dates from a dropdown box.
However, if natural language was the right tool for software requirements, software engineering would have been a solved problem long ago. We got rightfully excited with LLMs, but now we are trying to solve every problem with it. IMO, for requirements specification, the situation is similar to earlier efforts using formal systems and full verification, but at the exact opposite end. Similar to formal software verification, I expect this phase to end up as a partially failed experiment that will teach us new ways to think about software development. It will create real value in some domains and it will be totally abandoned in others. Interesting times...
I think it is worse than that. The prompt, written in natural language, is by its very nature vague and incomplete, which is great if you are aiming for creative artistry. I am also really happy that we are able to search for dates using phrases like "get me something close to a weekend, but not on Tuesdays" on a booking website instead of picking dates from a dropdown box.
However, if natural language was the right tool for software requirements, software engineering would have been a solved problem long ago. We got rightfully excited with LLMs, but now we are trying to solve every problem with it. IMO, for requirements specification, the situation is similar to earlier efforts using formal systems and full verification, but at the exact opposite end. Similar to formal software verification, I expect this phase to end up as a partially failed experiment that will teach us new ways to think about software development. It will create real value in some domains and it will be totally abandoned in others. Interesting times...