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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

#201

Post by jacquesm »

simonw wrote: post #191
jacquesm wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's why the major AI labs are really careful about the code they include in the training runs. The days of indiscriminately scraping every scrap of code on the internet and pumping it all in are long gone, from what I can tell.

Well, if as the OP points out it is 'all garbage' they don't have a whole lot of choice to discriminate.

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

#202

Post by justaboutanyone »

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…

We may as well have the LLMs use the hardest most provably-correct language possible

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

#203

Post by bandrami »

rvz wrote: post #136
behnamoh wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I prefer my C compiler to write my asm for me from my C code but I can still (and sometimes have to!) read the asm it creates.

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

#204

Post by mbreese »

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

I was talking to a product manager a couple weeks ago about this. His response: most managers have been vibecoding for long time. They've just been using engineers instead of LLMs.

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

#205

Post by mbreese »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #81
Sheeny96 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this is the reason LLMs are so good at writing Python/Java/JavaScript is that they've been trained on a metric ton of code in those languages, have seen the good the bad and the ugly and been tuned to the good. A new language would be training from scratch and if we're introducing new paradigms that are 'good for LLMs but bad for humans' means humans will struggle to write good code in it, making the…

But coding is largely trained on synthetic data. For example, Claude can fluently generate Bevy code as of the training cutoff date, and there's no way there's enough training data on the web to explain this. There's an agent somewhere in a compile test loop generating Bevy examples. A custom LLM language could have fine grained fuzzing, mocking, concurrent calling, memoization and other features that allow LLMs to g…

I recently had Codex convert an script of mine from bash to a custom, Make inspired language for HPC work (think nextflow, but an actual language). The bash script submitted a bunch of jobs based on some inputs. I wanted this converted to use my pipeline language instead.

I wrote this custom language. It's on Github, but the example code that would have been available would be very limited.

I gave it two inputs -- the original bash script and an example of my pipeline language (unrelated jobs).

The code it gave me was syntactically correct, and was really close to the final version. I didn't have to edit very much to get the code exactly where I wanted it.

This is to say -- if a novel language is somewhat similar to an existing syntax, the LLM will be surprisingly good at writing it.

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

#206

Post by jesterson »

bandrami wrote: post #160

As an infosec guy I'm going to go ahead and buy a bigger house

Any IT guy with experience/knowledge above average should take out huge loan as well.

Someone will have to clean the mess made by those creators who think they can "create" anything reliable with their chatgpt

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

#209

Post by dankwizard »

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.

I get your sentiment but a lot of people on this forum forget that a lot of us are just working for the paycheck - I don't owe my company anything.

Do I know the code base like the back of my hand? Nope. Can I confidently talk to how certain functions work? Not a chance.

Can I deploy what the business wants? Yep. Can I throw error logs into LLMs and work out the cause of issues? Mostly.

I get some of you may want to go above and beyond for your company and truly create something beautiful but then guess what - That codebase is theirs. They aren't your family. Get paid and move on

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

#210

Post by al_borland »

simonw wrote: post #185
al_borland wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m limited on the tools and models I can use due to privacy restrictions at work.
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