Slow Software: The Case for High-latency Systems Development

Systems research prizes efficiency and performance. For the last decade, I’ve worked on ultra-low-latency systems: the goal of Demikernel and its related nanosecond-scale systems (e.g., Cornflakes, Capybara) is to do more with fewer cycles. AI coding has brought the same level of efficiency to building systems, letting fewer programmers write more code. However, it has also decoupled the speed of…