Non-Determinism Doesn't Matter: rethinking how engineers work with LLM code

sklarsa · hn · 2026-10-14

This blog post argues that developer anxiety over LLM non-determinism—getting different code each run—is misplaced. What matters isn't eliminating nondeterminism but building engineering workflows (tests, acceptance criteria, iteration) that converge outputs into usable results, treating the AI as a pair programmer to be reviewed rather than a deterministic compiler. The post sparked discussion on Hacker News.

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