What's the best programming language for coding agents? • Hacker News Board

Re: What's the best programming language for coding agents?

#201

Post by boxed » Wed, Aug 12, 2026, 10:38 AM UTC

win311fwg wrote: post #159

boxed wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this context it's not binary. Context is everything. If it was binary there would only be 0 and 1 on one of the axis in the graph. That's not the case.

Correctness is binary even in context. The axis of which you speak shows distance; essentially how close the programs were to being correct. Every single sample was incorrect. Think of it as being like a road trip. Arrival is binary. You have either arrived or have not arrived, but distance can tell you how close you are to arrival. Being almost there does not imply that you have arrived, however. Same applies here.…

I think "quality" here refers to "idiomatic go code", not the distance from the end broken state to a finished product. At least that's how I read it.

Re: What's the best programming language for coding agents?

#202

Post by win311fwg » Wed, Aug 12, 2026, 1:43 PM UTC

boxed wrote: post #201

win311fwg wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correctness is binary even in context. The axis of which you speak shows distance; essentially how close the programs were to being correct. Every single sample was incorrect. Think of it as being like a road trip. Arrival is binary. You have either arrived or have not arrived, but distance can tell you how close you are to arrival. Being almost there does not imply that you have arrived, however. Same applies here.…

I think "quality" here refers to "idiomatic go code", not the distance from the end broken state to a finished product. At least that's how I read it.

You seem to be mixing up the different things we are talking about.

Yes, quality is what the earlier commenter is talking about. Yes, idiomatic code is often considered to be what makes code high quality because idiomatic code is believed to make it easier to reach correctness (easier to read, easier to reason about, easier to test, etc.) than if you have to work with "spaghetti", which is considered low quality because it makes it much harder to ensure the code is correct. Quality exists on a gradient. There exists a full spectrum between a complete spaghetti monster mess and perfect architected idiomatic code. This we both read the same way it seems.

Whereas the article is about correctness. The program is either correct or not. Distance was used in the article to share how far away a given program was from being correct. But distance and quality not the same. This is a completely different way to look at software as compared to the topic of quality, as we already established at the beginning of our discussion.

Re: What's the best programming language for coding agents?

#203

Post by boxed » Wed, Aug 12, 2026, 2:23 PM UTC

win311fwg wrote: post #202

boxed wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "quality" here refers to "idiomatic go code", not the distance from the end broken state to a finished product. At least that's how I read it.

You seem to be mixing up the different things we are talking about. Yes, quality is what the earlier commenter is talking about. Yes, idiomatic code is often considered to be what makes code high quality because idiomatic code is believed to make it easier to reach correctness (easier to read, easier to reason about, easier to test, etc.) than if you have to work with "spaghetti", which is considered low quality beca…

I think that idiomatic Go code is not in fact easier to read or reason about on the business domain level, because it's too low level and fiddly. That's why we don't write in assembly anymore. Assembly is much more "easy to reason about" per line of code than Go, but it's also terrible on the business domain level for the exact same measurement.

Re: What's the best programming language for coding agents?

#204

Post by win311fwg » Wed, Aug 12, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

boxed wrote: post #203

win311fwg wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be mixing up the different things we are talking about. Yes, quality is what the earlier commenter is talking about. Yes, idiomatic code is often considered to be what makes code high quality because idiomatic code is believed to make it easier to reach correctness (easier to read, easier to reason about, easier to test, etc.) than if you have to work with "spaghetti", which is considered low quality beca…

I think that idiomatic Go code is not in fact easier to read or reason about on the business domain level, because it's too low level and fiddly. That's why we don't write in assembly anymore. Assembly is much more "easy to reason about" per line of code than Go, but it's also terrible on the business domain level for the exact same measurement.

So you don't believe in "spaghetti" code? No matter how a codebase is written you will consider them all to be equally readable, equally able to reasoned about, equally able to tested, etc.? You see no difference between "organized" code and one giant 200,000 line chaotic function?

We mostly avoid writing assembly because it isn't portable. So-called "portable assembler" is still very popular. One of the most used languages out there. That has little to do with the quality of codebase, though. Focus, my man.