Comment by jiggawatts

People keep forgetting that programming is not just about knowing the target programming language, but also an enormous volume of tacit knowledge:

    - Understanding of protocols like HTTP.
    - HTML, JS, CSS, SVG, and everything "web".
    - Understanding of databases, SQL, etc.
    - Abstract code architecture patterns.
    - Understanding the users' requests in English.
    - Responding in English.
    - Command line tool usage (agents/harnesses)
    - Industry-specific knowledge that can be applied.
    - Frameworks, SDKs, applicable libraries.
    - Relevant legal requirements.
    - Etc...

I.e.: If I tell a frontier AI that this project is for a "local council in XYZ location" it can immediately figure out that a scalable, globally distributed architecture is not required. It can also figure out that using local time instead of UTC is not only "fine", but even desired. Or that globalization/localization is not required... or.... required if the council is in some place like Belgium or Canada where multiple languages are officially recognised and supported by the government.