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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?

#401

Post by tedggh »

simonkagedal wrote: post #333
ctippett wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeesh, is "never reading the code" really the modus operandi we want from AI? Microsoft, for all their warts, at least had the compassion to call their AI product "Copilot", suggesting we have some residual agency in whatever it is that it produces.

There are lots of good use cases for vibe coding (”never reading the code”), prototypes, various explorations and one-offs. I’ve done various kinds of migrations where I didn’t bother to review the code much, just the output. Possibly also some user-facing tools with a limited task and runtime environment. Incidentally, these are all use cases where performance isn’t critical, typically, so you might as well write th…

You don’t need to read the code if you have a robust test suit to validate the output. The article implies testing is the new “reading”. If I spend 10 minutes reading code to find an edge case bug, I have lost the benefit of using AI. AI code is legacy code the moment is generated because I can’t tell why some lines were chosen, so the only way for me to add more features or refactor legacy code is by being very rigorous with testing.

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

#402

Post by stringfood »

beshrkayali wrote: post #398

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.

The world where automation writes in a language no human understands reminds me of the completely pitch black Chinese automation factories, where humans are lost and confused but robots at home

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

#404

Post by xdennis »

gwern wrote: post #272
GavinAnderegg wrote: post #211

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? [0]…

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?

> 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?

I was not able to detect it's written by LLMs from the opening paragraphs. Can you please share some insights as to what gives it away. I didn't find any blatant stuff like em dashes or "it's not just x it's y".

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

#405

Post by ccimmergreen »

doublesocket wrote: post #403

Why stop at getting AI to write Rust? If everything is vibe coded and code is no longer reviewed, get an LLM to devise its own ultra terse, super dense language intended solely for minimal token use and speed. /s... sort of

so in other words... simply binary?

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

#406

Post by blululu »

I'm sure there are plenty of caveats and breaking points, but if we do adhere to the claim that an LLM coding tool is a nondeterministic sort of compiler then it really does make sense to pick the most performant language available. Obviously there are caveats of libraries and native advantages of various languages. I've been doing stuff in C++ for the past month or so and the only slow down from the language choice is compilation time.

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

#407

Post by doublesocket »

ccimmergreen wrote: post #405
doublesocket wrote: post #403

Why stop at getting AI to write Rust? If everything is vibe coded and code is no longer reviewed, get an LLM to devise its own ultra terse, super dense language intended solely for minimal token use and speed. /s... sort of

so in other words... simply binary?

Maybe we can skip the compiler...

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

#408

Post by arw0n »

DeathArrow wrote: post #356
bensyverson wrote: post #144

Earlier 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.

>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. Or any of the faster typed languages you are most comfortable with, as you might need to look at the code some times. LLMs are great at writing and understanding C# and Java.

Also there are still considerations like domain, team expertise, org ecosystem etc. to consider. I love to use Rust for most things, but now I'm working with an org that primarily has expertise in Java, and I'm not going to rock the boat for barely any reason. Python is also still useful for most ML stuff, and Django is quite a pleasure to work with (although it wouldn't be my first choice).

The great thing about LLM-assisted coding is that an experienced software engineer can acquire decent familiarity with a language quite quickly. And then has a useful sparring partner for understanding and using the quirks and features of a new language.

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

#409

Post by haspok »

doublesocket wrote: post #403

Why stop at getting AI to write Rust? If everything is vibe coded and code is no longer reviewed, get an LLM to devise its own ultra terse, super dense language intended solely for minimal token use and speed. /s... sort of

Why stop at writing code? We should all build our custom ASIC chips, or if you don't have a chip fab, at least do FPGA!

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

#410

Post by Mashimo »

stevefan1999 wrote: post #308

Really controversial but my honest opinion: That's because programming languages, and its natural language counterpart, too, are nowadays increasing and more likely in becoming a political tool, rather than itself being a tech tool. I observed this through observation of the attacks to Rust due to the huge presence of LGBT people. Now while I'm pretty much straight myself, I don't reject LGBT people and don't want to…

> I observed this through observation of the attacks to Rust due to the huge presence of LGBT people.

Never seen that before, but then again I'm not in the rust community.

> don't want to partake in identity politics.

If you write Rust, or let AI write rust, do you have to partake in the identity politics?

The internet is full of memes and jokes on how shitty Java and Java Script. Yet it came never up at work. Never stopped me from writing java.

Just like Emacs vs Vim, I'm just using Nano. Never had any discussion IRL. And at work everyone uses Idea.

It's hard for me to see writing Rust somehow gets you into partaking in identity politics. Did that actually happen to you, or something that you are afraid of?

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