If code is now free, why does the language matter at all?
A case for Go as the best language for AI agents
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Re: A case for Go as the best language for AI agents
#32I think the more you can shift to compile time the better when it comes to agents. Go is therefore 'ok', but the type system isn't as useful as other options. I would say Rust is quite good for just letting something churn through compiler errors until it works, and then you're unlikely to get runtime errors. I haven't tried Haskell, but I assume that's even better.
Have also wondered how Haskell would be. From my limited understanding it’s one of the few languages whose compiler enforces functional purity. I’ve always liked that idea in theory but never tried the language
I think the intersection of FP and current AI is quite interesting. Purity provides a really tightly scoped context, so it almost seems like you could have one 'architect' model design the call graph/type skeleton at a high level (function signatures, tests, perf requirements, etc.) then have implementers fill them out in parallel.
Re: A case for Go as the best language for AI agents
#33I think the more you can shift to compile time the better when it comes to agents. Go is therefore 'ok', but the type system isn't as useful as other options. I would say Rust is quite good for just letting something churn through compiler errors until it works, and then you're unlikely to get runtime errors. I haven't tried Haskell, but I assume that's even better.
Have also wondered how Haskell would be. From my limited understanding it’s one of the few languages whose compiler enforces functional purity. I’ve always liked that idea in theory but never tried the language
You can write in it like in imperative languages. I did it when I first encountered it long time ago, and I didn’t know how to write, or why I should write code in a functional way. It’s like how you can write in an object oriented way in simple C. It’s possible, and it’s a good thought experiment, but it’s not recommended. So, it’s definitely not “enforced” in a strict sense.
Re: A case for Go as the best language for AI agents
#34I think the more you can shift to compile time the better when it comes to agents. Go is therefore 'ok', but the type system isn't as useful as other options. I would say Rust is quite good for just letting something churn through compiler errors until it works, and then you're unlikely to get runtime errors. I haven't tried Haskell, but I assume that's even better.
I am guessing there is a balance between a language that has a lot of soundness checks (like Rust) and a language that has a ton of example code to train on (like Python). How much more valuable each aspect is I am not sure.
Re: A case for Go as the best language for AI agents
#35I think the more you can shift to compile time the better when it comes to agents. Go is therefore 'ok', but the type system isn't as useful as other options. I would say Rust is quite good for just letting something churn through compiler errors until it works, and then you're unlikely to get runtime errors. I haven't tried Haskell, but I assume that's even better.
I think Rust is great for agents, for a reason that is rarely mentioned: unit tests are in the same file. This means that agents just "know" they should update the tests along with the source. With other languages, whether it's TypeScript/Go/Python, even if you explicitly ask agents to write/run tests, after a while agents just forget to do that, unless they cause build failures. You have to constantly remind them to…
You can add a callback to e.g. Claude to guarantee it does a cargo check and test.
Re: A case for Go as the best language for AI agents
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I built an agent with Go for the exact reasons laid out in the article, but did consider Rust. I would prefer it to be Rust actually. But the #1 reason I chose Go is token efficiency. My intuitive sense was that the LLM would have to spent a lot of time reasoning about lifetimes, interpreting and fixing compiler warnings, etc.
I've never actually seen it get a compiler issue arising from lifetimes, so it seems to one-shot that stuff just fine. Although my work is typically middle of the road, non-HFT trading applications, not super low-level.
It certainly had to iterate on lifetimes prior to Claude 4.5, at least for me. Prior to Claude 4.0 it was pretty bad at Rust.
Re: A case for Go as the best language for AI agents
#37As long as python runs all the models, the best language for agents is likely Python as it allows e.g. auto-fine-tuning of (local) LLMs for self-improving agents without the need to change the programming language. Use Pydantic if you care about type/runtime errors.
Re: A case for Go as the best language for AI agents
#38I think the more you can shift to compile time the better when it comes to agents. Go is therefore 'ok', but the type system isn't as useful as other options. I would say Rust is quite good for just letting something churn through compiler errors until it works, and then you're unlikely to get runtime errors. I haven't tried Haskell, but I assume that's even better.
I am guessing there is a balance between a language that has a lot of soundness checks (like Rust) and a language that has a ton of example code to train on (like Python). How much more valuable each aspect is I am not sure.
Rust is the best language for AI:
- Rust code generates absolutely perfectly in Claude Code.
- Rust code will run without GC. You get that for free.
- Rust code has a low defect rate per LOC, at least measured by humans. Google gave a talk on this. The sum types + match and destructure make error handling ergonomic and more or less required by idiomatic code, which the LLM will generate.
I'd certainly pick Rust or Go over Python or TypeScript. I've had LLMs emit buggy dynamic code with type and parameter mismatches, but almost never statically typed code that fails to compile.
Re: A case for Go as the best language for AI agents
#39I think the more you can shift to compile time the better when it comes to agents. Go is therefore 'ok', but the type system isn't as useful as other options. I would say Rust is quite good for just letting something churn through compiler errors until it works, and then you're unlikely to get runtime errors. I haven't tried Haskell, but I assume that's even better.
I've been using LLMs (Opus) heavily for writing Haskell, both at work and on personal projects and its shockingly effective.
I wouldn't use it for the galaxy brain libraries or explorations I like to do for my blog but for production Haskell Opus 4.5+ is really good. No other models have been effective for me.
Re: A case for Go as the best language for AI agents
#40I've read these arguments and they make perfect sense; but having tried different projects rewritten in Go vs Python (with Claude & Cursor); Python was just significantly faster, smaller, and easier to understand for Claude. It was done faster, and made less mistakes. I don't mean faster as execution time, but the code for its Python projects was almost a magnitude smaller. So it was done by the time its Go counterpart was halfway. Maybe it's gotten better, or I need some kind of "how to Go" skill for Claude... But just didn't work out of the box _for me_ as well as Python did. I tried a couple projects rewritten in different languages; Go, Kotlin, Python, Javascript. I settled with Python. (My own background is in Kotlin, Java and C++.)