People are trying really hard to make "search" or something like it the killer app for LLMs but from what I've seen, it's translation. Coding in its purest form is a kind of translation, from natural language requirements to more precise computer languages and vice versa. Keeping an LLM properly focused on that task, it's pretty astonishing what it can do. But as you say, assuming it can do anything more than that is a trap.

> Coding in its purest form is a kind of translation, from natural language requirements to more precise computer languages

Unfortunately not so true. A simple way to check this is to look at what the brain is doing. Coding barely triggers the language components of the brain (your usual suspects like the Vernicke's and Broca's areas + other miscelleneous things). In fact what you'll find is that coding triggers the IP1, IP2 and AVI pathways. These are part of the multiple demand network. We call them programming "languages" because we can represent them in a token-based game we call "language" but the act of programming is far from mere language manipulation.

> from natural language requirements to more precise computer languages

This makes sense. Translation to precise code would include more of the logic/planning bits of the brain, since that's the context of the output. I suspect a person fluent in Lojban[1] would show similar areas activating during translation from English to Lojban. I also assume translating code to words, with documentation, would include more language, since that's the context of the result.

That doesn't mean it's not translation. It's just translation to a precise description of intent.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban