Story – NERD

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Question

40% of code is now written by LLMs. That number is increasing.
I was using Cloud Code, watching it generate TypeScript. A thought struck me:
Why is the cloud writing code I should read?
I wasn’t going to read it line by line. I’ll skim it, run tests. So why make AI write in a format optimized for human readers who aren’t reading?

heap

1950s: Machine code
1960s: Assembly
1970s: C
1980s: C++
1990s: Java, Python
2000s: Frameworks
2020s: AI writes, humans review

Each stage made it easier for humans to express intentions. But now AI is the primary author. No need for AI public static void main,

insight

LLMs mark English words efficiently. symbols like {, }, === Split into multiple tokens. Words like “plus”, “minus”, “if” are single tokens.
So use condensed English instead of secret compression.

design

nerd , nhey Effort Rexpected, DOne

  • not human-friendly: dense, concise, machine-optimized
  • human-observable:audiable, verifiable
  • 50-70% less tokens:same logic, lower cost
  • original compilation: LLVM, no runtime

outcome

fn add a b
ret a plus b

fn calc a b op
if op eq zero ret ok a plus b
if op eq one ret ok a minus b
ret err "unknown"

67% fewer tokens than TypeScript. Same functionality.

workflow

Human: "Add rate limiting"
  |
LLM writes NERD
  |
Compiles to native
  |
Human observes (read-only)
  |
Human: "Make it 100 req/min"
  |
LLM modifies NERD

Humans are stakeholders, not authors.

objections

“But I need to debug!”

Do you debug JVM bytecode? V8 internals? No, you debug on your abstraction layer. If that layer is natural language, debugging becomes: “Hey Cloud, login is failing for users with + in the email.”

“Compliance requires readable code!”

Audible! =Written by humans. A translated view can show data flow, constraints, security measures in plain English. More audible than 2am spaghetti code.

Condition

In five years, most production code will not be human-written. When this happens, TypeScript will feel like asking the cloud to write in Latin.
NERD becomes source code when humans stop pretending they need to write it.

Disclaimer

This may be wrong. Perhaps humans will always want to edit code directly. Maybe a 40% plateau. NERD is an experiment: a bootstrap compiler in C, compiled in LLVM IR, no dependencies.
If the answer is interesting, great. If not, it was worth exploring.



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