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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

#181

Post by trollbridge »

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 generally use LLMs to generate Python (or TypeScript) because the quality and maintainability is significantly better than if I ask it to, for example, pump out C. They really do not perform very well outside of the most "popular" languages.

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

#182

Post by pharrington »

fooker wrote: post #174
pharrington wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we should all work to become better programmers! What I'm seeing now is too many people giving up and saying "most code is bad, so I may was well pump out even worse code MUCH faster." People are chasing convenience and getting a far worse quality of life in exchange.

I disagree, most code is not worth improving. I would rather make N bad prototypes to understand the feasibility of solving N problems than trying to write beautiful code for one misguided problem which may turn out to be a dead end. There are a few orders of magnitude more problems worth solving than you can write good code for. Your time is your most important resource, writing needlessly robust code, checking for…

Have you ever been frustrated with software before? Has a computer program ever wasted your time by being buggy, obviously too slow or otherwise too resource intensive, having a poorly thought out interface, etc?

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

#183

Post by DrewADesign »

manishsharan wrote: post #143
dankwizard wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me, my team, and colleagues also in software dev are all vibe coding. It's so much faster.

If I may ask, does the code produced by LLM follow best practices or patterns? What mental model do you use to understand or comprehend your codebase? Please know that I am asking as I am curious and do not intend to be disrespectful.

And what’s the name of the company? I’m fixing to harvest some bug bounties.

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

#184

Post by trollbridge »

nl wrote: post #163
dotancohen wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... and eliminates choice from the LLMs. Perl is right out! Maybe the LLMs could help us decipher extent Perl "write once, maintain never" code.

it's very good at this BTW

I've found it's terrible at digesting a few codebases I've needed to deal with (to wit, 2007-era C# which used lots of libraries which were popular then, and 1993-era Visual Basic which also used from third party library that no LLM seems to understand the first thing about).

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

#185

Post by simonw »

al_borland wrote: post #180
simonw wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It gets it wrong 100% of the time. A script to validate would send it into an infinite loop of generating code and failing validation.

Are you sure about that?

I don't think I've ever seen Opus 4.5 or GPT-5.2 get stuck in a loop like that. They're both very good at spotting when something doesn't work and trying something else instead.

Might be a problem with older, weaker models I guess.

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

#186

Post by coliveira »

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

If you work on highly repetitive areas like web programming, I can clearly see why they're using LLMs. If you're in a more niche area, then it gets harder to use LLM all the time.

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

#187

Post by simonw »

trollbridge wrote: post #184
nl wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's very good at this BTW

I've found it's terrible at digesting a few codebases I've needed to deal with (to wit, 2007-era C# which used lots of libraries which were popular then, and 1993-era Visual Basic which also used from third party library that no LLM seems to understand the first thing about).

I had great results recently with ~22 year old PHP: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jul/1/mid-2000s/

It even guessed the vintage correctly!

> This appears to be a custom template system from the mid-2000s era, designed to separate presentation logic from PHP code while maintaining database connectivity for dynamic content generation.

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

#188

Post by nl »

trollbridge wrote: post #184
nl wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's very good at this BTW

I've found it's terrible at digesting a few codebases I've needed to deal with (to wit, 2007-era C# which used lots of libraries which were popular then, and 1993-era Visual Basic which also used from third party library that no LLM seems to understand the first thing about).

I suspect the problem with VB is that VB 4 and 5 (which I think was that era) were so closely tied to the IDE it is difficult to work out what is going on without it.

(I did Delphi back when VB6 was the other option so remember this problem well)

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

#189

Post by jacquesm »

fooker wrote: post #159
bdangubic wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of comments get downvoted the most on HN but it is absolute truth, most human-written code is “subpar” (trying to be nice and not say garbage). I have been working as a contractor for many years and code I’ve seen is just… hard to put it into words. so much discussion here on HN which critiques “vibe codes” etc implies that human would have written it better which is vast vast majority is simply not the cas…

I have worked on some of the most supposedly reliable codebases on earth (compilers) for several decades, and most of the code in compilers is pretty bad. And most of the code the compiler is expected to compile, seen from the perspective of fixing bugs and issues with compilers, is absolutely terrible. And the day that can be rewritten or improved reliably with AI can't come fast enough.

I honestly do not see how training AI on 'mountains of garbage' would have any other outcome than more garbage.

I've seen lots of different codebases from the inside, some good some bad. As a rule smaller + small team = better and bigger + more participants = worse.

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

#190

Post by fooker »

pharrington wrote: post #182
fooker wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, most code is not worth improving. I would rather make N bad prototypes to understand the feasibility of solving N problems than trying to write beautiful code for one misguided problem which may turn out to be a dead end. There are a few orders of magnitude more problems worth solving than you can write good code for. Your time is your most important resource, writing needlessly robust code, checking for…

Have you ever been frustrated with software before? Has a computer program ever wasted your time by being buggy, obviously too slow or otherwise too resource intensive, having a poorly thought out interface, etc?

Yes. I am, however, not willing to spend money to get it fixed.

From the other side, the vast majority of customers will happily take the cheap/free/ad-supported buggy software. This is why we have all these random Google apps, for example.

Take a look at the bug tracker of any large open source codebase, there will be a few tens of thousands of reported bugs. It is worse for closed corporate codebases. The economics to write good code or to get bugs fixed does not make sense until you have a paying customer complain loudly.

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