No excuse for slow software: LLMs slash the cost of real optimization
The old economics of performance engineering just disappeared, argues Dan Luu. A one-month LLM agent loop produced FRE, a regex engine fast enough to beat a well-tested library and general enough to survive a holdout benchmark once the agent was warned one existed. Custom, workload-fitted software, once reserved for the largest and most lucrative projects, is now within reach of anyone who can type a sentence. Slow software is becoming a choice, not a constraint.