object pascal is by far superior in combining readability and performance. also the static type system is a huge bonus
If AI writes your code, why use Python?
771–780 of 1001 posts
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#772Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Python is, thus, clearly superior to other languages in terms of ease of review. My experience has not been this. Dynamic languages make it harder to figure out things locally, unless someone has done the hard work of adding type hints.
Python has had type hints for like... Oh 11 years now. Just like C# has introduced var and quicker ways to write less, to the point it almost looks like JavaScript sometimes, but its because we can infer types pretty easily now. Rust has a nice system as well, forcing method signatures to declare types, everything is easier to infer from this. Introduced in 3.5 (2015) https://docs.python.org/3/library/typing.html
Having type hints as a feature is not the same as using them.
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#773But under this frame, it appears that the developer's task involves prompt engineering. This is not the case. Even if an agent generates 90% of the code, each and every diff is going to be in my review queue. Code readability of Python isn't an advantage during write; it's an advantage while reviewing. As an agent generates a piece of code, I will have to read the code, comprehend the code, and determine whether it d…
the trend is AI also does the code review. Too many anecdotes and studies showing AI is a better code review that a human and the models are just going to get better. Whether we get better results if AI reviews Python or Rust I'm not sure. But I suspect Rust will win out as the training data likely has more content around Rust correctness and language usage than Python does.
if you want to reason about language correctness you are better off using linters, compilers and things like fuzzing
> the trend is AI also does the code review
please no. Keep at least four eyes on all code you ship
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#774[flagged]
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#775But under this frame, it appears that the developer's task involves prompt engineering. This is not the case. Even if an agent generates 90% of the code, each and every diff is going to be in my review queue. Code readability of Python isn't an advantage during write; it's an advantage while reviewing. As an agent generates a piece of code, I will have to read the code, comprehend the code, and determine whether it d…
> Python is, thus, clearly superior to other languages in terms of ease of review.
Do we get visual comparisons along with this bold claim?
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#776I've found Julia is quite a nice target for AI coding agents
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#777But under this frame, it appears that the developer's task involves prompt engineering. This is not the case. Even if an agent generates 90% of the code, each and every diff is going to be in my review queue. Code readability of Python isn't an advantage during write; it's an advantage while reviewing. As an agent generates a piece of code, I will have to read the code, comprehend the code, and determine whether it d…
> Python is, thus, clearly superior to other languages in terms of ease of review. Do we get visual comparisons along with this bold claim?
[flagged]
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#778Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 like C#, it's how I make a living, but it's way too large today. I can program in valid C# and it looks like C or I can program in C# and it looks like a functional language or I can program in C# and it's looks all angle-brakety like C++. The problem with that is everyone has an opinion on what good C# looks like. For personal projects, I'll take a much simpler language any day.
C# has recreated the C++ dialect conundrum. For some it’s effectively an idempotent functional language with unfortunate failings of exhaustiveness, for others it’s Java ca 2009, for others it’s C++ but not quite.
Discipline, effort, linters, reviews, more discipline, more effort, retraining, discipline… and foot guns everywhere because so much of the adaptation has been a 95% solution. Personally I got everything C# promises even now when F# was dropped years ago and have found the interim pretty annoying.
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#779But under this frame, it appears that the developer's task involves prompt engineering. This is not the case. Even if an agent generates 90% of the code, each and every diff is going to be in my review queue. Code readability of Python isn't an advantage during write; it's an advantage while reviewing. As an agent generates a piece of code, I will have to read the code, comprehend the code, and determine whether it d…
> Code readability of Python isn't an advantage during write; it's an advantage while reviewing.
This is completely subjective though. I personally find that Python's lack of static types makes code very difficult to reason about. Yes, some devs will write decent comments and name things in a way that's easier to read, but most devs are lazy (myself included) and things get out of hand quickly.
But this is also a subjective opinion, and you could argue that I feel this way because I spend most of my time in TypeScript, Go, and Rust.
Re: If AI writes your code, why use Python?
#780But under this frame, it appears that the developer's task involves prompt engineering. This is not the case. Even if an agent generates 90% of the code, each and every diff is going to be in my review queue. Code readability of Python isn't an advantage during write; it's an advantage while reviewing. As an agent generates a piece of code, I will have to read the code, comprehend the code, and determine whether it d…
It is harder to review Python:
1. Indentation is harder to see in diffs.
2. Explicit types give context, and if a project guidelines do not enforce type hints, as many don't, then it's hard to see what happens there.
3. Monkey patching and operator override -- I mostly stumbled upon that with "smart" types like ORM objects. Combined with 2. makes it very hard to review.
So I almost always had to download the change and review with IDE help. So it's not just code review anymore, it's manual testing.