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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?

#821

Post by hirvi74 »

coldtea wrote: post #457
hirvi74 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what is the selling point for Go? I get that it is allegedly hailed to be a simple language with basically no batteries included, but why is that a selling point? Does Go excel at anything no other language does?

Go has a very full featured standard library. It's simple (do you really ask why that's a selling point?) It's fast to compile. It's fast to run. It's good with parallelism. It has myriads of examples, and LLMs can pick it up well too. It has good backing. It has good tooling. It's fun. It statically compiles to a trivially deployable binary. It's excellent at cross compiling. It has good adoption.

> (do you really ask why that's a selling point?)

Yes. Assembly languages are simple, but that does not mean they easy to use well.

Fast to compile? A nice to have but not a requirement of mine. Parallelism is nice, but not something of value in my current project. Perhaps the next though!

I do like the LLM ease. It's make learning the language n times faster.

I can get behind the good backing, tooling, fun, and ease to deploy.

Hmm, I am supposed to be working on a game for a friend soon. I was going to go with C#, but I might play with Go and see how that goes.

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

#823

Post by hirvi74 »

clintonb wrote: post #336
hirvi74 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what is the selling point for Go? I get that it is allegedly hailed to be a simple language with basically no batteries included, but why is that a selling point? Does Go excel at anything no other language does?

I picked Go because it tends to use fewer resources than Node.js, and startup time is quite fast.

I've never used Node, so I can't judge it. I'm still stuck in the C# world. So, I am curious how Go performs in comparison. I'll need to do some research.

Though, it was a slap in the face for a lot of C#-ers when Go beat out C# for the Typescript compiler rewrite. I personally do not mind because C# is my Enterprise language, but it's not my favorite language or anything.

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

#825

Post by TZubiri »

slashdev wrote: post #786

The static vs dynamic language debate is decisively over and static has won. I called this out back in 2023, and I've only become more convinced since then. Statically typed languages are easier for the reader because you can see the types and quickly jump to their definitions (or even just hover over them in some IDEs). They're easier for the AI because they provide natural guardrails and feedback to guide it, as we…

oh yeah, static has won so much that people are now programming with a language where every possible string forms valid programs.

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

#826

Post by WillPostForFood »

slashdev wrote: post #805
jghn wrote: post #794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The static vs dynamic language debate is decisively over and static has won I wouldn't be so fast. It wasn't that long ago that the dynamic zealots were declaring victory. And before that the static zealots. And before that the dynamic zealots. Going back decades.

I was there, I was one of the dynamic zealots. But at least I can't imagine how this trend reverses course now.

Could you have imagined the trend reversing when you were a dynamic zealot? Maybe the lesson is that it really isn't that important. As the pendulum swings back and forth between trends, software doesn't change that much. It is just a bunch of small trade-offs.

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

#827

Post by BurningFrog »

jghn wrote: post #794
slashdev wrote: post #786

The static vs dynamic language debate is decisively over and static has won. I called this out back in 2023, and I've only become more convinced since then. Statically typed languages are easier for the reader because you can see the types and quickly jump to their definitions (or even just hover over them in some IDEs). They're easier for the AI because they provide natural guardrails and feedback to guide it, as we…

> The static vs dynamic language debate is decisively over and static has won I wouldn't be so fast. It wasn't that long ago that the dynamic zealots were declaring victory. And before that the static zealots. And before that the dynamic zealots. Going back decades.

That kind of back-and-forth dynamic ideally ends up with something combining the best parts of both approaches.

Is anything like that happening?

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

#828

Post by pier25 »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #719
stephbook wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I hate about .NET is the atrocious naming. Net Core, Net Framework, Net Common Core, .NET.. And God forbid any of these frameworks ever expose what they are in a config file. You start a project, hand it to a colleague and he can't figure out whether it's Framework or Core by looking at the files. You Google and are immediately bombarded by 15 year old threads.

Forget about the old stuff; just use .NET 10. It's really, really good now. DX is fantastic. Yes, the hot-reload will probably never match that of interpreted languages, but for a compiled language, it is good. File-based apps are easy to get started with: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/fundamentals... EF is solid and proven. Easy, low-lift type safety end-to-end from DB up with very good perf. Tooli…

Never tried .NET 10 but hot-reload was garbage with .NET 9 and 8.

It failed very often and you had to manually restart the dev process. Even when it worked, it was no where as fast as eg using Bun with TS.

Also Minimal APIs didn't have feature parity vs MVC even 4 years after release which is quite frankly insane. I hear in .NET 10 they've finally added some validation. Not sure how it compares to something like FluentValidation which still is one of the most downloaded nuget packages.

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

#829

Post by bilater »

luodaint wrote: post #747

But 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…

except this will go away. we will likely reach a point sooner rather than later (I think 2027) where it will be infeasible for humans to review the code. This will happen at startups first rather than big corps obviously and the engineers who design systems (dark factories) fully leaning into this will have a huge advantage. And yes there are exceptions to this and a play on the other side but the this is where the buck is going. at that point even Assembly becomes interesting.

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

#830

Post by seabrookmx »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #704
jimmaswell wrote: post #556

Earlier 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.

While C# is a particularly egregious case, I think all reasonably long-lived, popular languages suffer from this problem. Go is being very intentional about not falling in this trap, but JavaScript, Python, Java.. modern/idiomatic code in all of these languages looks very different from the code you'd write using them 15 years ago.

At my workplace, we use the .editorconfig and static analysis heavily to push us towards a consistent C# feature-set and style. This plays the same role that pyupgrade would in python, for instance.

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