Software Abstraction in the Age of AI-Generated Code - Andrei Alexandrescu - ACCU 2026

Andrei Alexandrescu discusses how AI-generated code shifts the software engineering challenge from writing code to managing complexity and understanding systems.

ACCU Membership: tinyurl.com/ydnfkcyn --- Software Abstraction in the Age of AI-Generated Code: Languages, Compilers, and Systems Engineering - Andrei Alexandrescu - ACCU 2026 --- For a long time, programming was limited by our ability to produce code. That constraint is changing quickly. AI systems can now generate large amounts of code with ease, while inspection and validation remain hard. This shift changes the balance of the field. Code is easier to produce than to reason about, and judgment is in a short supply compared to specialized intelligence. The pressure moves from writing programs to understanding systems, their structure, and their behavior over time. The talk looks at this transition through a mix of history, language design, and recent developments. It argues that the core challenges ahead are less about generation and more about managing complexity at scale. AI will change how we build software. As before, the outcome depends on how we adapt. Slides: github.com/Digital-Medium/ACCU-On-Sea-Slides-2026 --- Andrei Alexandrescu Andrei joined NVIDIA in 2022 as a member of the Programming Systems & Applications research group. His past work has focused on a broad range of topics, including both the design of the C++ and D programming languages as well as machine learning and natural language processing. His book Modern C++ Design was particularly influential in revitalizing the field of C++ library design. Currently, Andrei is looking into developing new ways of expressing efficient parallel algorithms and the intersection of these tools with machine learning. Andrei holds a PhD in Computer Science and Engineering from University of Washington and a BSc in Electrical Engineering from University "Politehnica" Bucharest. Video Sponsored By JetBrains, Bloomberg Engineering & HRT --- The ACCU Conference is the annual conference of the ACCU membership, but is open to any and all who wish to attend. The tagline for the ACCU is 'Professionalism in Programming', which captures the whole spectrum of programming languages, tools, techniques and processes involved in advancing our craft. While there remains a core of C and C++ - with many members participating in respective ISO standards bodies - the conference, like the organisation, embraces other language ecosystems and you should expect to see sessions on C#, D, F#, Go, Javascript, Haskell, Java, Kotlin, Lisp, Python, Ruby, Rust, Swift and more.The ACCU Conference is a conference by programmers for programmers about programming. Discounted rates for members. ACCU Membership: tinyurl.com/ydnfkcyn 2026 Program: accuonsea.uk/2026/schedule/index.html accu.org accuconference.org/ mastodon.social/@ACCUConf linkedin.com/showcase/accu-conference/ bsky.app/profile/accuconf.bsky.social facebook.com/accuorg reddit.com/r/ACCUConf/ --- YouTube Videos Filmed, Edited & Optimised by Digital Med