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Comment by calebfenton | Hacker News Reader

10 pointscalebfenton5 comments

I agree with the general insight here. Python is great for humans but once they are out of the loop it's no longer as useful. Having a compiler is more useful for LLMs indeed.

However we are moving one step closer to complete inability for humans to understand the code, as there are likely 100x more developers with experience in Python than Rust. If humans are indeed going to be the bottleneck then perhaps this is inevitable, and languages fitted especially for LLMs will dominate.

Python was built around human limitations. AI agents don't have those limitations, so Python's trade-offs (loose typing, runtime errors, no compiler) are now liabilities. Rust's strict compiler, which humans hate, doesn't bother agents at all. Pick your language based on who's actually writing the code.

I’ve been using rust for vibecoding too for similar reasons.

Do enough of it though and you definitely notice the huge difference in training data available. Python converges on a working solution noticeably faster especially for things like APIs and LLM stuff.

So these days I’m making a judgement call at the start on which language is the better tradeoff. Generally rust for raw data processing and Python for website backend APIish tasks

Genuine question but I have been using golang so I would like to ask why rust instead of golang

I am going to give a few of my reasoning points on why I use golang, I mean I haven't changed the codebase by hand for say if I am vibe-coding/prototyping but still golang feels so much more convenient to change if need be and I feel comfortable.

The compile time is fast and its standard libraries are good and the dependency system of golang is also nice.

It can also be cross-compiled really easily. I have projects developed in mac and create a binary for my 7$/yr vps and then I used something like send.vis.ee cli tool to transfer the binary and just run it. Static compilation is also another nice feature.

The only time I use python for vibe-coding was making something pdf related as python library is surprisingly really good at Pdf and also, something gui related prototyping which I was also later able to make it in golang but most of my prototyping revolves around web servers and I really love golang in that.

Also within the context of Google, I do believe that golang was considered in some-sense to be the spiritual successor of python (one can also notice it by the python to golang transpilers projects iirc created by google)

I am unsure how rust fits into this equation, I am sure that the type system helps AI but I am unsure if its disadvantages outweigh the advantages.

Even if I might not edit the code myself, I just feel so much more comfortable having golang as my programming language than rust if I do ever wish to look back into these projects and then say, rewrite them myself or just edit them myself. It gives me this sense of freedom in a way and I just love Golang and have been a fan of the language for a long time :-D

The weaker the type system the stronger the slop.

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