It's strange to me that this blog post was written in English. If AI is available, why aren't we all communicating in Lojban? [0] It's an obviously superior language. What does it matter that many people already communicate in English and much of computing depends on that language? AI doesn't care about that. Plus, if you ever need to edit Lojban without AI, you should be able to pick it up in a few weeks, right?
If AI writes your code, why use Python?
211–220 of 1001 posts
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just use Go. LLMs have seen a ton of it, they write it well, it compiles practically instantly, and it has all the advantages of a typed compiled language. I created a big Python codebase using AI, and the LLM constantly guesses arguments or dictionary formats wrong. Unit tests and stuff like pydantic help, but it's better to avoid that whole class of runtime errors altogether.
Why? Go has a GC, is basically incompatible with C and very limited overall
Go's limited syntax is actually a feature here,because it stops the LLM from trying to be too clever
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#213It's strange to me that this blog post was written in English. If AI is available, why aren't we all communicating in Lojban? [0] It's an obviously superior language. What does it matter that many people already communicate in English and much of computing depends on that language? AI doesn't care about that. Plus, if you ever need to edit Lojban without AI, you should be able to pick it up in a few weeks, right? [0]…
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Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
But what is the selling point for Go? I get that it is allegedly hailed to be a simple language with basically no batteries included, but why is that a selling point? Does Go excel at anything no other language does?
Performance? Second only to rust and other lower level langs. Surely you don't need this spelled out for you...
Not just performance, but static typing and prevalent in the training data/easy for LLMs to reason about.
Of course, your response admits, "second to Rust", which I am guessing is an unspoken question in the grandparent's mind.
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#215Why Python? Because I have written it for 10+ years, know how to debug it and I can smell it within 10 seconds of the agent writing code if it does something that is going to end in a huge foot gun. With any other language, not so much; I would need to relearn a lot. So I am going to be preferring python; where even with the speed that AI crams out code, I still feel somewhat in control. If I did this with Go or Rust, then it would feel more like "vibecoding" than AI assisted programming, just yolo the whole product.
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#216Read the first few comments and surprised I didn’t see it, but training data. The voluminous amount of Python in the training data. I could write in brainfuck with ai, but I presume, wouldn’t get the same results than if going with python. My follow up question: with AI now, why care about a lang until you need to?
Surprisingly, LLMs are actually much worse at reasoning in Python than other common programming languages for agentic coding tasks. Data here: https://gertlabs.com/rankings?mode=agentic_coding
My standard joke here:
Q: Say, what does this Python code do?
A: Nobody f&%^ing knows.
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are two working LLM axes. Critic strength: how much the language catches before runtime. Sensor strength: how good the empirical feedback loop is. LLMs benefit from both, but the sensor axis often is undervalued. Type safety is great, but you can't just quietly disregard the benefits some dynamically typed languages provide; that would be completely ignoring that different tasks weight the two axes differently.…
> Critic strength .... Sensor strength that's a nice breakdown I think there's something key you get at in terms of the combo of dynamic environment + type safety maximising both. With a dynamic environment, the LLM can do a lot of interrogation to understand the problem space on the fly. I've witnessed agents sort out pretty complex issues through `python -c "..."`, `groovy -e "..."`, executing snippets of code with…
What you're describing is fast scripting in a dynamic language, which is genuinely useful - I agree it beats 'edit, compile, link, run' for exploration. But a Lisp REPL isn't 'dynamic language plus introspection'. A Lisp REPL is a persistent connection to a running process where the agent evaluates expressions against live state and can redefine code in place. python -c throws the process away every time; a REPL keeps it. The difference is the same as between sending one-off curl requests to reconstruct a session versus having an open SSH shell into the box. Imagine using a Playwright/Puppeteer session where you can navigate to a page and interactively palpate every DOM element, like playing a video game, directly from where the code is. Now imagine giving that power to the LLM - it doesn't need to restart, re-compile or even save anything - it just goes and explores, changing the program behavior on the fly.
The type-safety-plus-dynamism point you make is real and interesting (basically Clojure with Spec/Malli), but it's orthogonal to whether you're using a REPL or just shelling out snippets.
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#218It's strange to me that this blog post was written in English. If AI is available, why aren't we all communicating in Lojban? [0] It's an obviously superior language. What does it matter that many people already communicate in English and much of computing depends on that language? AI doesn't care about that. Plus, if you ever need to edit Lojban without AI, you should be able to pick it up in a few weeks, right? [0]…
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I'll state it plainly, then: Python is more widely used and supported. It has more examples, and more people understand it and can debug it. I hope that helps you.
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#219Read the first few comments and surprised I didn’t see it, but training data. The voluminous amount of Python in the training data. I could write in brainfuck with ai, but I presume, wouldn’t get the same results than if going with python. My follow up question: with AI now, why care about a lang until you need to?
I wouldn't say I get worse results with Go than I do with Python.
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#220It's strange to me that this blog post was written in English. If AI is available, why aren't we all communicating in Lojban? [0] It's an obviously superior language. What does it matter that many people already communicate in English and much of computing depends on that language? AI doesn't care about that. Plus, if you ever need to edit Lojban without AI, you should be able to pick it up in a few weeks, right? [0]…
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I found their reply funnier than yours