[SystemSafety] N-version programming moves the goal posts

[Derek M Jones]

All,

N-version program is a great idea, but it is is also a lot
more expensive.  At least until LLMs came along.

This paper
https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.07828

creates five implementations of a 23k line specification.
Five different languages were used for the implementation,
but that is just for bragging rights.

So the correctness issue has now shifted from the code to
the specification.

A few months ago an LLM generated a C compiler.  The compiler
did very well on correct code (which is the vast majority of
the training data), but very badly on incorrect code.
https://shape-of-code.com/2026/02/22/investigating-an-llm-generated-c-compiler/

-- 
Derek M. Jones           Evidence-based software engineering
blog:https://shape-of-code.com