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ChatGPT Containers can now run bash, pip/npm install packages and download files

simonwillison.net

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Re: ChatGPT Containers can now run bash, pip/npm install packages and download files

#131

Post by dotancohen »

rednafi wrote: post #112
behnamoh wrote: post #5

I wonder if the era of dynamic programming languages is over. Python/JS/Ruby/etc. were good tradeoffs when developer time mattered. But now that most code is written by LLMs, it's as "hard" for the LLM to write Python as it is to write Rust/Go (assuming enough training data on the language ofc; LLMs still can't write Gleam/Janet/CommonLisp/etc.). Esp. with Go's quick compile time, I can see myself using it more and m…

I agree with this. Making languages geared toward human ergonomics probably won’t be a thing going forward. Go is positioned really well here, and Steve Yegge wrote a piece on why. The language is fast, less bloated than Python/TS, and less dogmatic than Java/Kotlin. LLMs can go wham with Go and the compiler will catch most of the obvious bugs. Faster compilation means you can iterate through a process pretty quickly…

Python (with Qt, pyside) is still great for desktop GUI applications. My current project is all LLM generated (but mostly me-verified) Rust, wrapped in a thin Python application for the GUI, TUI, CLI, and web interfaces. There's also a Kotlin wrapper for running it on Android.

Re: ChatGPT Containers can now run bash, pip/npm install packages and download files

#132

Post by cheeze »

koe123 wrote: post #130
behnamoh wrote: post #5

I wonder if the era of dynamic programming languages is over. Python/JS/Ruby/etc. were good tradeoffs when developer time mattered. But now that most code is written by LLMs, it's as "hard" for the LLM to write Python as it is to write Rust/Go (assuming enough training data on the language ofc; LLMs still can't write Gleam/Janet/CommonLisp/etc.). Esp. with Go's quick compile time, I can see myself using it more and m…

> But now that most code is written by LLMs Am I in the Truman show? I don’t think AI has generated even 1% of the code that I run in prod, nor does anyone I respect. Heavily inspired by AI examples, heavily assisted by AI during research sure. Who are these devs that are seeing such great success vibecoding? Vibecoding in prod seems irresponsible at best

FAANG here (service oriented arch, distributed systems) and id say probably 20+ percent of code written on my team is by an LLM. it's great for frontends, works well with test generation, or following an existing paradigm.

I think a lot of people wrote it off initially as it was low quality. But gemini 3 pro or sonnet 4.5 saves me a ton of time at work these days.

Perfect? Absolutely not. Good enough for tons of run of the mill boilerplate tasks? Without question.

Re: ChatGPT Containers can now run bash, pip/npm install packages and download files

#133

Post by dangoodmanUT »

Giving agents linux has compounding benefits in our experience. They're able to sort through weirdness that normal tooling wouldn't allow. Like they can read and image, get an error back from the API and see it wasn't the expected format. They read the magic bytes to see it was a jpeg despite being named .png, and read it correctly.

Re: ChatGPT Containers can now run bash, pip/npm install packages and download files

#134

Post by lsh0 »

behnamoh wrote: post #5

I wonder if the era of dynamic programming languages is over. Python/JS/Ruby/etc. were good tradeoffs when developer time mattered. But now that most code is written by LLMs, it's as "hard" for the LLM to write Python as it is to write Rust/Go (assuming enough training data on the language ofc; LLMs still can't write Gleam/Janet/CommonLisp/etc.). Esp. with Go's quick compile time, I can see myself using it more and m…

> LLMs still can't write Gleam/Janet/CommonLisp/etc

hoho - I did a 20/80 human/claude project over the long weekend using Janet: https://git.sr.ht/~lsh-0/pj/tree (dead simple Lerna replacement)

... but I otherwise agree with the sentiment. Go code is so simple it scrubs any creative fingerprints anyway. The Clojure/Janet/scheme code I've seen it writing isn't _great_ but it gets the job done quickly and correct enough for me to return to it later and golf it some.

Re: ChatGPT Containers can now run bash, pip/npm install packages and download files

#136

Post by rvz »

behnamoh wrote: post #98
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, yes. LLMs write code that's then checked by human reviewers. Maybe it will be checked less in the future. But I'm not seeing fully-autonomous AI on the horizon. At that point, the legibility and prevalence of humans who can read the code becomes almost more important than which language the machine "prefers."

Well, verification is easier than creation (i.e., P ≠ NP). I think humans who can quickly verify something works will be in more demand than those who know how to write it. Even better: Since LLMs aren't as creative as humans (in-distribution thinking), test-writers will be in more demand (out-of-distribution thinkers). Both of these mean that humans will still be needed, but for other reasons. The future belongs to…

> The future belongs to generalists!

Couldn't be more correct.

The experienced generalists with techniques of verification testing are the winners [0] in this.

But one thing you cannot do, is openly admit or to be found out to say something like: "I don't know a single line of Rust/Go/Typescript/$LANG code but I used an AI to do all of it" and the system breaks down and you can't fix it.

It would be quite difficult to take a SWE seriously that prides themselves in having zero understanding and experience of building production systems and runs the risk of losing the company time and money.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46772520

Re: ChatGPT Containers can now run bash, pip/npm install packages and download files

#137

Post by simonw »

al_borland wrote: post #104
behnamoh wrote: post #5

I wonder if the era of dynamic programming languages is over. Python/JS/Ruby/etc. were good tradeoffs when developer time mattered. But now that most code is written by LLMs, it's as "hard" for the LLM to write Python as it is to write Rust/Go (assuming enough training data on the language ofc; LLMs still can't write Gleam/Janet/CommonLisp/etc.). Esp. with Go's quick compile time, I can see myself using it more and m…

> assuming enough training data This is a big assumption. I write a lot of Ansible, and it can’t even format the code properly, which is a pretty big deal in yaml. It’s totally brain dead.

Have you tried telling it to run a script to verify that the YAML is valid? I imagine it could do that with Python.

Re: ChatGPT Containers can now run bash, pip/npm install packages and download files

#138

Post by 8organicbits »

cheeze wrote: post #132
koe123 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But now that most code is written by LLMs Am I in the Truman show? I don’t think AI has generated even 1% of the code that I run in prod, nor does anyone I respect. Heavily inspired by AI examples, heavily assisted by AI during research sure. Who are these devs that are seeing such great success vibecoding? Vibecoding in prod seems irresponsible at best

FAANG here (service oriented arch, distributed systems) and id say probably 20+ percent of code written on my team is by an LLM. it's great for frontends, works well with test generation, or following an existing paradigm. I think a lot of people wrote it off initially as it was low quality. But gemini 3 pro or sonnet 4.5 saves me a ton of time at work these days. Perfect? Absolutely not. Good enough for tons of run…

As someone currently outside FAANG, can you point to where that added productivity is going? Is any of it customer visible?

Looking at the quality crisis at Microsoft, between GitHub reliability and broken Windows updates, I fear LLMs are hurting them.

I totally see how LLMs make you feel more productive, but I don't think I'm seeing end customer visible benefits.

Re: ChatGPT Containers can now run bash, pip/npm install packages and download files

#139

Post by jdub »

behnamoh wrote: post #5

I wonder if the era of dynamic programming languages is over. Python/JS/Ruby/etc. were good tradeoffs when developer time mattered. But now that most code is written by LLMs, it's as "hard" for the LLM to write Python as it is to write Rust/Go (assuming enough training data on the language ofc; LLMs still can't write Gleam/Janet/CommonLisp/etc.). Esp. with Go's quick compile time, I can see myself using it more and m…

> But now that most code is written by LLMs...

Pause for a moment and think through a realistic estimation of the numbers and proportions involved.

Re: ChatGPT Containers can now run bash, pip/npm install packages and download files

#140

Post by rednafi »

dotancohen wrote: post #131
rednafi wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. Making languages geared toward human ergonomics probably won’t be a thing going forward. Go is positioned really well here, and Steve Yegge wrote a piece on why. The language is fast, less bloated than Python/TS, and less dogmatic than Java/Kotlin. LLMs can go wham with Go and the compiler will catch most of the obvious bugs. Faster compilation means you can iterate through a process pretty quickly…

Python (with Qt, pyside) is still great for desktop GUI applications. My current project is all LLM generated (but mostly me-verified) Rust, wrapped in a thin Python application for the GUI, TUI, CLI, and web interfaces. There's also a Kotlin wrapper for running it on Android.

Yeah, Python is nice to work with in many contexts for sure. I mostly meant that I don’t personally use it as much anymore, since Go can do everything I need, and faster.

Plus the JS/Python dependency ecosystem is tiring. Yeah, I know there’s uv now, but even then I don’t see much reason to suffer through that when opting for an actually type-safe language costs me almost nothing.

Dynamic languages won’t go anywhere, but Go/Rust will eat up a pretty big chunk of the pie.

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