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Any application that can be written in a system language, eventually will be

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Re: Any application that can be written in a system language, eventually will be

#21

Post by ycombinatrix »

srcreigh wrote: post #18

I don't really want to learn how to use the borrow checker, LLM help or not, and I don't really want to use a language that doesn't have a reputation for very fast compile/dev workflow, LLM help or not. Re; Go, I don't want to use a language that is slower than C, LLM help or not. Zig is the real next Javascript, not Rust or Go. It's as fast or faster than C, it compiles very fast, it has fast safe release modes. It…

Writing code without the borrow checker is the same as writing code with the borrow checker. If it wouldn't pass the borrow checker, you're doing something wrong.

Re: Any application that can be written in a system language, eventually will be

#22

Post by lmm »

monero-xmr wrote: post #4
n_u wrote: post #3

This is my second attempt learning Rust and I have found that LLMs are a game-changer. They are really good at proposing ways to deal with borrow-checker problems that are very difficult to diagnose as a Rust beginner. In particular, an error on one line may force you to change a large part of your code. As a beginner this can be intimidating ("do I really need to change everything that uses this struct to use a borr…

I am old but C is similarly improved by LLM. Build system, boilerplate, syscalls, potential memory leaks. It will be OK when the Linux graybeards die because new people can come up to speed much more quickly

The thing is LLM-assisted C is still memory unsafe and almost certainly has undefined behaviour; the LLM might catch some low hanging fruit memory problems but you can never be confident that it's caught them all. So it doesn't really leave you any better off in the ways that matter.

Re: Any application that can be written in a system language, eventually will be

#23

Post by [deleted] »

srcreigh wrote: post #18

I don't really want to learn how to use the borrow checker, LLM help or not, and I don't really want to use a language that doesn't have a reputation for very fast compile/dev workflow, LLM help or not. Re; Go, I don't want to use a language that is slower than C, LLM help or not. Zig is the real next Javascript, not Rust or Go. It's as fast or faster than C, it compiles very fast, it has fast safe release modes. It…

[deleted]

Re: Any application that can be written in a system language, eventually will be

#24

Post by invalidname »

Predicting the future is futile, but I would guess this would be exactly the opposite. LLMs make it remarkably easy to generate a lot of code so they can easily generate a lot of Rust code that looks good. It probably wouldn't be, and for us it would be unreadable when something goes wrong. We would end up in LLM debugging hell.

The solution is to use a higher level safer, strict language (e.g. Java) that would be easy for us to debug and deeply familiar to all LLMs. Yes, we will generate more code, but if you spend the LLM time focusing on nitpicking performance rather than productivity you would end up in the same problem you have with humans. LLMs also have capacity limits and the engineers that operate them have capacity limits, neither one is going away.

Re: Any application that can be written in a system language, eventually will be

#25

Post by drivebyhooting »

ycombinatrix wrote: post #21
srcreigh wrote: post #18

I don't really want to learn how to use the borrow checker, LLM help or not, and I don't really want to use a language that doesn't have a reputation for very fast compile/dev workflow, LLM help or not. Re; Go, I don't want to use a language that is slower than C, LLM help or not. Zig is the real next Javascript, not Rust or Go. It's as fast or faster than C, it compiles very fast, it has fast safe release modes. It…

Writing code without the borrow checker is the same as writing code with the borrow checker. If it wouldn't pass the borrow checker, you're doing something wrong.

Come on that’s not true. How would you write and LRU cache in rust? It’s not possible in idiomatic rust. You either need to use unsafe or use integer indices as a poor man’s pointer.

Re: Any application that can be written in a system language, eventually will be

#26

Post by ycombinatrix »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #25
ycombinatrix wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing code without the borrow checker is the same as writing code with the borrow checker. If it wouldn't pass the borrow checker, you're doing something wrong.

Come on that’s not true. How would you write and LRU cache in rust? It’s not possible in idiomatic rust. You either need to use unsafe or use integer indices as a poor man’s pointer.

What's wrong with integer indices? They have bounds checking. You definitely do not need unsafe to do LRU.

Re: Any application that can be written in a system language, eventually will be

#27

Post by monero-xmr »

lmm wrote: post #22
monero-xmr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am old but C is similarly improved by LLM. Build system, boilerplate, syscalls, potential memory leaks. It will be OK when the Linux graybeards die because new people can come up to speed much more quickly

The thing is LLM-assisted C is still memory unsafe and almost certainly has undefined behaviour; the LLM might catch some low hanging fruit memory problems but you can never be confident that it's caught them all. So it doesn't really leave you any better off in the ways that matter.

I don’t code C much, is my passion side language. LLM improves my ability to be productive and quickly. Is not a silver bullet, but is an assist

Re: Any application that can be written in a system language, eventually will be

#28

Post by mattgreenrocks »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #25
ycombinatrix wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing code without the borrow checker is the same as writing code with the borrow checker. If it wouldn't pass the borrow checker, you're doing something wrong.

Come on that’s not true. How would you write and LRU cache in rust? It’s not possible in idiomatic rust. You either need to use unsafe or use integer indices as a poor man’s pointer.

Indices are fine. Fixating on the “right” shape of the solution is your hang-up here. Different languages want different things. Fighting them never ends well.

Re: Any application that can be written in a system language, eventually will be

#29

Post by PeterWhittaker »

While I still struggle to think in Rust after years of thinking in C, it is NEVER the borrow checker or lifetimes that trip me, it's the level of abstraction, in that C forced me low level, building my own abstractions, while Rust allows me to think in abstractions first and muse over how to implement those idiomatically.

What did it for me was thinking through how mutable==exclusive, non-mutable==shared, and getting my head around Send and Sync (not quite there yet).

AI helps me with boiler plate, but not with understanding, and if I don't understand I cannot validate what AI produces.

Rust is worth the effort.

Re: Any application that can be written in a system language, eventually will be

#30

Post by monero-xmr »

happytoexplain wrote: post #19
captain_coffee wrote: post #15

> in 2026 devs write 90% of the code using natural language, through an LLM. That is literally not true - is the author speaking about what he personally sees at his specific workplace(s)? If 90% of the code at any given company is LLM-generated that is either a doomed company or a company doesn't write any relevant code to begin with. I literally cannot imagine a serious company in which that is a viable scenario.

It seems like it may be true, but pointlessly true. I.e. yes, 90% of code is probably written by LLMs now - but that high number is because there is such a gigantic volume of garbage being generated.

The problem is not coding (for me). The problem is thinking for a long time about what to code, then the execution is merely the side effect of my thinking. The LLM has helped me execute faster. Is not a silver bullet, and I do review the outputs carefully. But I won’t pretend it hasn’t made me much more productive.
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