I tried Gleam for Advent of Code

#1

Post by tymscar » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 5:00 PM UTC

I tried Gleam for Advent of Code
blog.tymscar.com

Re: I tried Gleam for Advent of Code

#2

Post by marliechiller » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 5:40 PM UTC

One thing im wondering with the LLM age we seem to be entering: is there value in picking up a language like this if theres not going to be a corpus of training data for an LLM to learn from? Id like to invest the time to learn Gleam, but I treat a language as a tool, or a means to an end. I feel like more and more I'm reaching for the tool to get the job done most easily, which are languages that LLMs seem to gel with.

Re: I tried Gleam for Advent of Code

#3

Post by Hammershaft » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 5:43 PM UTC

marliechiller wrote: post #2

One thing im wondering with the LLM age we seem to be entering: is there value in picking up a language like this if theres not going to be a corpus of training data for an LLM to learn from? Id like to invest the time to learn Gleam, but I treat a language as a tool, or a means to an end. I feel like more and more I'm reaching for the tool to get the job done most easily, which are languages that LLMs seem to gel wi…

This was one of my bigger worries for LLM coding: we might develop path dependence on the largest tools and languages.

Re: I tried Gleam for Advent of Code

#4

Post by c-hendricks » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

marliechiller wrote: post #2

One thing im wondering with the LLM age we seem to be entering: is there value in picking up a language like this if theres not going to be a corpus of training data for an LLM to learn from? Id like to invest the time to learn Gleam, but I treat a language as a tool, or a means to an end. I feel like more and more I'm reaching for the tool to get the job done most easily, which are languages that LLMs seem to gel wi…

I hope this isn't the future of "new" languages. Hopefully newer AI tools can actually learn a language and they won't be the limiting factor.

Re: I tried Gleam for Advent of Code

#5

Post by bbkane » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

I keep running into Gleam posts and podcasts and videos. I think it could be an especially attractive alternative to JS for UI with the Lustre library. Haven't tried it yet, my backlog is ever growing...

Re: I tried Gleam for Advent of Code

#6

Post by positron26 » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 5:45 PM UTC

c-hendricks wrote: post #4

marliechiller wrote: post #2

One thing im wondering with the LLM age we seem to be entering: is there value in picking up a language like this if theres not going to be a corpus of training data for an LLM to learn from? Id like to invest the time to learn Gleam, but I treat a language as a tool, or a means to an end. I feel like more and more I'm reaching for the tool to get the job done most easily, which are languages that LLMs seem to gel wi…

I hope this isn't the future of "new" languages. Hopefully newer AI tools can actually learn a language and they won't be the limiting factor.

This is the answer. We need online learning for our own code bases and macros.

Re: I tried Gleam for Advent of Code

#7

Post by threethirtytwo » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 5:46 PM UTC

It’s really good. But it needs generics. This is a huge downside. It’s a typed and clean functional programming language but it arbitrarily followed golangs early philosophy of no generics. Ironically golang is one of the most hated languages among many fp advocates.

By the developers own action of adding generics ultimately the golang team admits they were wrong or that generics are better. If gleam gets popular I think much of the same will occur.

There’s simply too much repeated code without generics. I tried writing a parser combinator in gleam and it wasn’t pretty.

Re: I tried Gleam for Advent of Code

#8

Post by bnchrch » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 5:46 PM UTC

Gleam is a beautiful language, and what I wish Elixir would become (re:typing).

For those that don't know its also built upon OTP, the erlang vm that makes concurrency and queues a trivial problem in my opinion.

Absolutely wonderful ecosystem.

I've been wanting to make Gleam my primary language, but I fear LLMs have frozen programming language advancement and adoption for anything past 2021.

But I am hopeful that Gleam has slid just under the closing door and LLMs will get up to speed on it fast.

Re: I tried Gleam for Advent of Code

#9

Post by torben-friis » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 5:49 PM UTC

threethirtytwo wrote: post #7

It’s really good. But it needs generics. This is a huge downside. It’s a typed and clean functional programming language but it arbitrarily followed golangs early philosophy of no generics. Ironically golang is one of the most hated languages among many fp advocates. By the developers own action of adding generics ultimately the golang team admits they were wrong or that generics are better. If gleam gets popular I t…

Perhaps this is a silly question but how do you do functional with no generics? Arent they pretty much required for map/reduce/filter?

Re: I tried Gleam for Advent of Code

#10

Post by torben-friis » Sat, Dec 13, 2025, 5:50 PM UTC

marliechiller wrote: post #2

One thing im wondering with the LLM age we seem to be entering: is there value in picking up a language like this if theres not going to be a corpus of training data for an LLM to learn from? Id like to invest the time to learn Gleam, but I treat a language as a tool, or a means to an end. I feel like more and more I'm reaching for the tool to get the job done most easily, which are languages that LLMs seem to gel wi…

If you just see language as a tool, unless you’re self employed or working in open source, wouldn’t the lack of job market demand for it be the first blocker?