Software Engineering

Recently, I started a small C++ project using AI. The most frustrating moment isn’t when it can’t write the code, but when it spits out a seemingly decent directory structure in three minutes and casually throws in a few third-party libraries, making the demo actually runnable. That’s the problem. You haven’t even figured out what the newly introduced library supports, how the compilation link works, or where its boundaries are, so rework is basically inevitable later on.

I’m increasingly feeling that what AI programming fears most is not the model being dumb, but starting too greedily. Especially with languages like C++, which don’t have much scaffolding to fall back on; if you miss one step upfront, later you have to account for several steps regarding compilation, linking, library versions, and directory structure.

When I recently wrote the algorithm service, as soon as I implemented modules like twap and vwap, this old problem popped up again.

If we rely on class names to enforce semantics in C++, the naming convention quickly becomes out of control. Things like TwapOrderManager, VwapOrderManager, and AlgoOrderManager sound like, “I know my structure isn’t contained, but I’ll at least add a prefix.” Frankly speaking, organizing by folders and then adding a layer of namespace isn’t about code snobbery; it’s filling the gap that C++ has because it lacks Java’s native package system.