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If AI writes your code, why use Python?

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Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?

#391

Post by brainless »

I build all my projects with Rust and Typescript (https://github.com/brainless). I had started learning Rust around 2023 but was progressing very slow. Since I left writing (or even reading) code line by line about a year ago, I build exclusively with Rust and Typescript. API types are generated from Rust. All my projects have a shared-types folder with a utility to generated Typescript types. I have a template that I use for each of my projects: https://github.com/brainless/rustysolid.

I am from a Python background (11 years or so), PHP before that and C/C++ in college days. Rust works very well with coding agents. The amount of code in training data may be less but I would rather have the agent fight the compiler. Given that OpenAI and Anthropic seem interested in Rust, chances are that there is a ton of synthetic code generated with Rust.

Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?

#392

Post by nsbk »

bushbaba wrote: post #230
gertlabs wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Cool to see my hunch be backed by data. Python is a scripting language with OOP bolted on. Means there’s not really a styling consistency that other languages have, with things tending to look like PHP, a collection of various scripts that invoke one another

EVERYTHING in Python is an object. I’m not sure how that could have been bolted onto the language

Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?

#393

Post by phillc73 »

gertlabs wrote: post #385
phillc73 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just last night I was going down the rabbit hole of "what's the best programming language to use for vibe coding." I came to a short list of: a) Typed Racket b) OCaml c) Julia I would love to see those three added to your benchmarks. And Mistral Medium 3.5 added to the LLM list, please.

Thanks for the recs, we will look into adding some of these, maybe OCaml for variety. I'm not familiar with Racket. Mistral Medium 3.5 is on there, but you will have to scroll down pretty far to find it (does not perform well): https://gertlabs.com/rankings?mode=oneshot_coding

Thanks for that, I hadn't scrolled down far enough.

Just want to be sure I'm reading the results correctly... When I compare GPT-5.5 with Mistral Medium 3.5, I see in the tables:

a) Mistral beats GPT in Java and C++

b) It's close for Rust

c) GPT-5.5 easily wins for Go, Javascript, Python and Typescript

Model choice really does appear to be language dependent (assuming I'm reading the results correctly).

Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?

#396

Post by r0x0r007 »

linkregister wrote: post #292
gwern wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post wasn't written in English, it was written in AIglish. (For god's sake, please tell me you see it at this point and you don't need to punch the opening into Pangram to see '100% AI' to recognize it by now?) So in a way it's proving its own point. Why painfully write out by hand in English when the LLM will do a better job by porting your English prompt to AIglish and get +235 points and #3 on HN?

Correct — and honestly? Not just correct, but perceptive. You didn't just read the post — you saw through it. That's not pattern matching — that's instinct.

Now you are not just talking like a debate expert, but a linguistic engineer. This is next level communications.

Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?

#397

Post by dillon »

_boffin_ wrote: post #80

Read 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 had an itch to give Perl another go after a 5 year hiatus. I wanted a super simple way to spawn a proxy I was building in Go, along with writing various integration tests. I used Claude Code to write the bulk of it and found Claude to be remarkable good at Perl. I told Claude to only use what’s built into Perl’s standard library rather than reaching for anything in CPAN. Turns out everything from HTTP clients, TLS and JSON are all builtin which makes it a very stable and easy way to replace what I would normally have implemented in shell scripts. My theory is because Perl hasn’t changed all that much and has a ton of training data that Claude is actually quite good at Perl for cases where you might think to write shell scripts.

Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?

#398

Post by beshrkayali »

For now it’s the exact same reason why you’d use Python when you’re writing by hand: so the code is more easily readable/editable by humans who are more likely to know Python than something like Zig. But I understand the point the post is trying to make, I don’t think we’re there yet.

Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?

#399

Post by by364 »

js8 wrote: post #301
gertlabs wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The LLMs are generally still pretty bad at (deductive) reasoning. IME they go along more with the things like variable names and comments than the actual program logic (it would be an interesting experiment to compare LLM's understanding of three identical programs with different identifiers, one with normal identifiers, one with obfuscated identifiers, and one with deliberately misleading identifiers). I also think…

wait till you look inside a neural network and realize they're incapable of deductive reasoning! amazing how many devs that talk about "AI" would probably have a hard time telling apart deductive and inductive reasoning.

Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?

#400

Post by kittikitti »

super_user wrote: post #347

Why not code in assembly?

I believe in the forecast that AI will converge to assembly (or machine code) in the next 5 to 10 years. However, there isn't a consensus on the ability for AI to program in interpreted languages like Python. In other words, AI needs to solve interpreted programming languages before directly generating low-level compiled languages.

The friction is that most developers aren't trained to comprehend assembly or otherwise. The vast majority of CS programs don't do it seriously. Many don't really know the difference either, and even I would need a refresher before trying to debug assembly.

I also think token cost restricts directly writing into assembly language. I've experimented with assembly output, as I'm sure many of us have, and can confirm small assembly programs produce more tokens as a result because of the lack of a standard library. However, because tokens are currently priced per million, I don't think it's a significant restraint.

The hops right now are Python -> C -> Assembly . The trend is now Rust/Go/C -> Assembly. Perhaps in the future, there will be nothing in the middle.

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