If we're not writing code by hand anymore anyway, why not skip programming languages altogether and have the AI output machine code right away?
Is Python Becoming Pinyin?
21–30 of 82 posts
Re: Is Python Becoming Pinyin?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
My money would be on Go and Rust. Most of the major downsides of either language go away if you let the agent write almost all of the code Go might have the advantage because it's easier to read outside the IDE
I can see Rust (and to some degree, Go) as the modern outputs from AI. My point about Python being Pinyin is that both of these languages have a relatively steep learning curve for someone without programming experience, and that it might be worth learning Python before doing agentic coding in Rust, much as children in China learn Latin characters before they learn characters.
The problem with Rust is that, AI aside, the learning curve is steep. Even senior engineers need to wrap their head around Rust for several weeks.
You can pick up Go or Java in an afternoon. It’s fast, it mostly makes sense. Unless you do very specific low level things I don’t particularly see Rust becoming the de facto norm for the vast amount of enterprise code
Re: Is Python Becoming Pinyin?
#23Python has wonderful set of libraries so it is probably going to stay with us for a while. However, I suspect major takeover by Typescript (despite I like Python more).
Interesting -- I still think that Python is an easier onramp than TypeScript for new developers. But given the popularity and depth of JavaScript, and the clear advantages (and popularity) of TypeScript in serious development, that's not a bad prediction.
Frankly, I prefer Python because I find it more elegant. However, in my industry bubble, I see a clear drift toward TypeScript.
Re: Is Python Becoming Pinyin?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting -- I still think that Python is an easier onramp than TypeScript for new developers. But given the popularity and depth of JavaScript, and the clear advantages (and popularity) of TypeScript in serious development, that's not a bad prediction.
js is a web scripting language that can be strong-armed into running scripts through a runtime. Python is a general development language that can be used to build servers and web pages, but does a lot more besides. They're not really comparable. Having said that - I wouldn't be surprised if Python drifts towards stronger typing, although it will probably remain optional.
To what extent do you see Python drifting toward stronger typing? I ask because after 10 years without touching a single line of Python, I recently worked on a Python code base and I was very positively surprised by the static typing that's available in the language now. Not even necessary to to reach for additional tooling like JS and TS.
Re: Is Python Becoming Pinyin?
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
js is a web scripting language that can be strong-armed into running scripts through a runtime. Python is a general development language that can be used to build servers and web pages, but does a lot more besides. They're not really comparable. Having said that - I wouldn't be surprised if Python drifts towards stronger typing, although it will probably remain optional.
To what extent do you see Python drifting toward stronger typing? I ask because after 10 years without touching a single line of Python, I recently worked on a Python code base and I was very positively surprised by the static typing that's available in the language now. Not even necessary to to reach for additional tooling like JS and TS.
How are you getting static typing without additional tooling?
Re: Is Python Becoming Pinyin?
#26Python has wonderful set of libraries so it is probably going to stay with us for a while. However, I suspect major takeover by Typescript (despite I like Python more).
My money would be on Go and Rust. Most of the major downsides of either language go away if you let the agent write almost all of the code Go might have the advantage because it's easier to read outside the IDE
I 100% agree about Go. It is definitely going to claim its share, even without AI being particularly good at it, because of its speed, native concurrency, and strong typing. It is much less flexible than Python and clearly loses in some areas — for example, Python’s ML and parsing libraries are far superior. However, for API-focused projects, like a typical Flask or FastAPI app, Go seems more powerful.
Re: Is Python Becoming Pinyin?
#27If we're not writing code by hand anymore anyway, why not skip programming languages altogether and have the AI output machine code right away?
Code isn’t just execution, code is also abstraction. You need to be able to understand requirement => unit of work.
Unless you’re an uber geek this mostly isn’t the case and reading and retaining any amount of assembly will be practically impossible.
In a wishful world you could simply have a bunch of markdown specifications that are executed as machine code. But specifications are by design usually ambiguous, and so you need to build some level of abstraction to be able to accommodate and still understand that. That’s what code does, or should do
Re: Is Python Becoming Pinyin?
#28> Why ask AI to write its output in a dynamic language with relatively slow execution (i.e., Python)? So that it's easy for humans to review it. Same reason as ever. Obviously Python isn't always the correct choice, but the overlap with cases where vibe coding is the correct choice is pretty high. Also wtf is Pinyin?
> Also wtf is Pinyin?
From the article:
> Many people don’t realize this, but children in China first learn Latin characters, which they use to spell out Chinese phonetically, using a system called “pinyin.” They then use their knowledge of Latin characters to learn Chinese characters, whose pronunciation isn’t obvious from the characters themselves.
Re: Is Python Becoming Pinyin?
#29If you don't know what is Pinyin I googled it for you (I didn't know what it is):
Pinyin is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese sounds using the Latin alphabet. Pinyin is commonly used for learning Chinese pronunciation and for typing Chinese characters.
Re: Is Python Becoming Pinyin?
#30It’s funny because I consider myself a Python veteran - about a decade or so of Python, and I had exactly the same thought. 99% of my code now is Java. It’s much less pleasant but the “enterprise nobs” just work. Static types, fast with Graal, awesome threading, and the quality of tooling are great - those are all areas that Python severely lacks in and has no interest expanding into, because it is a “fast prototype…
> quality of tooling are subpar - those are all areas that Python severely lacks in I do not think subpar means what you think. Or maybe you rewrote the sentence and forgot to change that word? Anyway, this does not make sense.
Indeed, wrong word