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If AI writes your code, why use Python?
581–590 of 1001 posts
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#582One obvious reason is Python's extreme readability, it has often been described as being as close to executable pseudo-code as one can get. If you're using an LLM to write code I think the rules would be 1. Use a language you know really well so you can read it easily, and add to it as needed. 2. Use a language that has a large training set so the LLM can be most efficient. 3. Use a language that is easy to read. If…
No, I think the argument from the article is pretty good. Use a language that has a lot of guard rails built in.
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#583One obvious reason is Python's extreme readability, it has often been described as being as close to executable pseudo-code as one can get. If you're using an LLM to write code I think the rules would be 1. Use a language you know really well so you can read it easily, and add to it as needed. 2. Use a language that has a large training set so the LLM can be most efficient. 3. Use a language that is easy to read. If…
Python is amazing for scripting. Python is terrible for writing big systems. Projects whose V1 is written in Go/Rust/C++ don't normally go out and re-write V2 in Python. The reverse is really common. Even many famous Python packages are now Python wrappers. https://ashishb.net/programming/python-in-production/
I dont know if the reasoning for a rewrite is purely for maintainability though. Ive used python at scale and its fine if you have reasonably good code hygiene. The reason I'd want to rewrite in any of those languages is they're significantly faster _and_ are maintainable at scale.
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#584Earlier quoted context omitted.
hmm, yeah given LLM's ability to churn out lots of code quickly and be overly verbose in that code that is a potential downside. That it could in a quick one time edit create so much intellectual overhead that Python might be the wrong language to understand what is going on. What language do you feel is easier to reason about in the large?
Haskell would be my vote, and Rust too, actually, both because of their very strong type systems. The type system lets you very quickly figure out what something is before you figure out what something does , and it turns out that separating those two concerns as hard as those two languages do often results in doing the whole one-two punch faster.
Haskell does not qualify for a large training set, though. (Nor for readability in my opinion)
I think I have never seen haskell software made wih LLM's but well, aside from university, I have not seen Haskell code at all. (Also Haskell purists I would associate with people who avoid LLM's)
I would rather go with Rust given these choices.
But I have good results with typescript (or javascript for simpler things). Really large set of examples. Tools optimized for it, agents debugging in the browser works allmost out of the box. And well, a elaborate typesystem.
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#585One obvious reason is Python's extreme readability, it has often been described as being as close to executable pseudo-code as one can get. If you're using an LLM to write code I think the rules would be 1. Use a language you know really well so you can read it easily, and add to it as needed. 2. Use a language that has a large training set so the LLM can be most efficient. 3. Use a language that is easy to read. If…
Disagree, it's verbose, but it's full of needleslly verbose stuffs, use many _ for everything and the rest, and other opaque conventions. Not that any other dev ecosystem is free of any of these issues, but Python just don't shine much on them. If anything in term of script language, Ruby provides a far more solid ground for compact and readable exposure of ideas through something close to prosaic expression.
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#586One obvious reason is Python's extreme readability, it has often been described as being as close to executable pseudo-code as one can get. If you're using an LLM to write code I think the rules would be 1. Use a language you know really well so you can read it easily, and add to it as needed. 2. Use a language that has a large training set so the LLM can be most efficient. 3. Use a language that is easy to read. If…
c llm code is more readable as it probably trained on better code
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#587Simplicity of deployment. No need to compile. People bitch about virtualenvs but they pretty much just work.
Also, totally FOSS. Unparalleled library ecosystem (no, I don't buy into the hype about re-rolling all your own dependencies).
Beyond that, Go is kind of nice, but the lack of a inheritance is stifling. Python has everything that's needed and very little that's not.
Edit: Getting downvoted, probably because of the comment about virtualenvs. What's your alternative? .NET DLL's? The joke that is NPM? Go probably does this better, admittedly, but Python is practically one of the best out there.
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#588One obvious reason is Python's extreme readability, it has often been described as being as close to executable pseudo-code as one can get. If you're using an LLM to write code I think the rules would be 1. Use a language you know really well so you can read it easily, and add to it as needed. 2. Use a language that has a large training set so the LLM can be most efficient. 3. Use a language that is easy to read. If…
No, I think the argument from the article is pretty good. Use a language that has a lot of guard rails built in.
or a compiler that makes the llm sad
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#589Earlier quoted context omitted.
hmm, yeah given LLM's ability to churn out lots of code quickly and be overly verbose in that code that is a potential downside. That it could in a quick one time edit create so much intellectual overhead that Python might be the wrong language to understand what is going on. What language do you feel is easier to reason about in the large?
C# is as close to an ideal language as you can get for most things IMO. I find AI does a great job with it.
I do agree. C# is an hidden gem for IA. There are not that much different ways to get somewhere so the model have probably been trained on the framework and libraries everybody uses (the Microsoft ones).
Compared to most languages, including Java, C# will have a hard time letting you compile incoherent code.
You barely need any dependencies other than aspnetcore and efcore for most applications and your AI knows them well.
It’s easy to do TDD with it so it’s easy to keep your IA from hallucinating.
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#590And why use readable variable names? "aA=q_(c8z,fW8)"
Seriously though, almost all the examples in TFA are of rewriting existing code. It may be that Python is still best for the rapid dev iteration. Then sure, cross-compile into Rust via the LLM.
Plus, If we care about token usage counts, Python has a lot more opportunities for compact "import thing_I_need" than having to generate entire libraries in Rust.