Re:We Might All Be AI Engineers Now
by 9rx on Friday March 06, 2026 @03:25PM
(#47280620)
> A compiler is deterministic.
Not usually they aren't. They can be made to be, but it requires extra effort and tradeoffs. Hence why there is a lot of work put into reproducible builds — something you would get for free if compilers were actually always deterministic.
Unless you are taking a wider view and recognizing that, fundamentally, nothing running on a computer can be nondeterministic, which is definitely true.
Not usually they aren't. They can be made to be, but it requires extra effort and tradeoffs. Hence why there is a lot of work put into reproducible builds — something you would get for free if compilers were actually always deterministic.
Unless you are taking a wider view and recognizing that, fundamentally, nothing running on a computer can be nondeterministic, which is definitely true.