6 ms·

The future of AI is Ruby on Rails

42 points by daviducolo 2y ago

lifthrasiir 2y ago
By this logic, the future of AI is golf languages.
- homarp 2y ago
  the future is perl
danielbln 2y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43422994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43422994
fxtentacle 2y ago
... because the author considers Ruby and Rails to be a very concise language. And then the theory is that less tokens take up less space in the attention window.
- bdcravens 2y ago
  Rails isn't a language. Ruby is. Rails is just glue for other libraries in Ruby.
bushido 2y ago
My preferred language to build apps is Ruby, and I'm still more likely to pickup RoR as a backend. But I can't see if winning in the AI generation. I never recommend it with LLMs, because there is a definite context window and attention problem with a lot of languages, but Type-safety + being pre-trained on strong typing, makes any issues with context sizes moot. The latest generation of AI dev tools, are getting really good at solving problems using the type errors that it creates. Also a lot of Rails niceties can be achieved in languages like Typescript with patterns such as decorators, which do an amazing job DRYing things up and reducing those contexts.
ghuntley 2y ago
Hard disagree. The best language for AI is one that has strong compiler soundness (ie type system) that can reject incorrectness and provide feedback as to correctness to refactors. One can substitute with property based tests but it won’t be as good as soundness + pbt. Speaking from experience here… https://ghuntley.com/oh-fuck https://ghuntley.com/oh-fuck && https://ghuntley.com/stdlib https://ghuntley.com/stdlib I do however agree that there’s langs that are not as suitable for LLMs (Java) due to their verbosity (and engineers sort classes onto filesystem like a filing drawer. LLMs work best when everything for a domain, including tests, is in a single file). Increased verbosity of the grammar does yield token wastage/ineffectiveness. Having said all that - compile time matters HEAPS. The faster you can optimise your compile time the more loops (throwing pancakes at the wall) you can do. Here’s where it gets crazy though, one can loop a verbose compilation w/metrics back into the LLM and ask the LLM to propose improvements on how to make the compile faster. It works…
- johnisgood 2y ago
  So Ada / SPARK? It has a pretty neat type system.
  - ghuntley 2y ago
    I’ve stumbled across folks using TLA+ / LEAN / COQ. Instead of ramming TypeScript/Whatever into the context window, they just stuff the formal proofs into the context window. Then code generate off em… That’s most Chad pattern I’ve discovered so far…
- nindalf 2y ago
  Completely agree. I’d add one more - if the compiler can describe errors in simple, plain English it’s far more likely that the LLM can fix the problem. Some languages do this much better than others.
  - ghuntley 2y ago
    Nailed it. These LLMs do not understand code. They are silly string lookup services. Compilers with soundness tend to be INCREDIBLY verbose with their error messages which these LLMs use to ingest to get better outcomes on the re-attempt…
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bdcravens 2y ago
The article never explains the logical leap from Ruby being a concise language to why you'd build AI apps in *Rails*.
- schappim 2y ago
  Drawing from my experience, modern technologies like Hotwire and Turbo Frames—when integrated with background jobs and Action Mailbox for handling inbound emails—alongside mature tooling, create a surprisingly effective (and enjoyable) platform for developing AI applications.
  - bdcravens 2y ago
    Isn't that just tooling around integrating with any API?
    - schappim 2y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean.
malux85 2y ago
This reminds me of that midwit meme, Far left: Just build better models Midwit: Nooo you need succict languages to maximise the token efficiency, succinctness is a form of compression so that you can ... Far right: Just build better models
m00dy 2y ago
The future of AI is Rust.
- ghuntley 2y ago
  I actually agree with this. This will be true, as long as Rust doesn’t break their language semantics. Zig keeps making breaking changes and when they do it essentially means all the pre-trained data is incorrect. Going forward it is incredibly important for language designers to not break things. It always was but now the stakes are higher…
  - piotr-yuxuan 2y ago
    Clojure is quite strong in that respect, but probably too niche for AI.
    - ghuntley 2y ago
      I have been able to create a brand new programming language purely based on specs and the eval loop technique. If I can build an ESO language using a foundational model (ie. no pre-existing training data) and program with it, then Clojure is not too niche.
bsenftner 2y ago
The "future of AI" is an unending sea of half code and half language in heavily marketed products that claims heaven and earth, with premium VIP stealth access to hell, such that heaven never knows. Which is of course nonsense, but will be a huge hit with all the religious, and will continually mint billionaires to the uncanny dismay of anyone with a brain.
moffkalast 2y ago
There is very little Ruby has going for itself. People despair at Python's speed of a sloth on tranquilizers and Ruby is even slower, with a community the size of Lua. When it comes to people considering languages for anything it's usually not even on the list. If anything, using LLMs means we can use less language abstraction for more speed, and have them write Cpp or Rust directly without actually having to deal with their verbosity by hand. Then we can repeal Wirth's law and have our complexity too.
- mindwok 2y ago
  Rails is one of the most battle tested, opinionated, and productive frameworks there is. If you aren’t at least considering it, depending on what you’re trying to do, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
senorrib 2y ago
The premise is wrong. You hardly need your entire codebase in the context window to generate code. If your code is properly modularized, all you need is for a specific module to be in it, maybe with some interfaces from other modules.
apatheticonion 2y ago
Jesus, from the quagmire of Python to the frying pan of Ruby. Can we not just use a language with a decent type system and compiler story? Heck, at this point I'd take C# or TypeScript over Ruby.
tempfile 2y ago
The posted link has an anchor to the bottom of the page. Presumably a mistake?
dgrcode 2y ago
So the only argument is that the token window is a disadvantage for languages that use more tokens for an equivalent program. But token windows are only getting bigger, and there's also no need to fit the entire codebase in a single prompt. If anything, it sounds like ruby on rails should've been _the past_ of AI. But it clearly wasn't.
bbstats 2y ago
Lol
karmakaze 2y ago
Why would working with AI need Rails? I would prefer to bet on Mojo[0]. > The Mojo programming language was created by Modular Inc, which was founded by Chris Lattner, the original architect of the Swift programming language and LLVM, and Tim Davis, a former Google employee. Intention behind Mojo is to bridge the gap between Python’s ease of use and the fast performance required for cutting-edge AI applications. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojo_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojo_(programming_language)

42 points by daviducolo 2y ago

lifthrasiir 2y ago

By this logic, the future of AI is golf languages.

homarp 2y ago
the future is perl

danielbln 2y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43422994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43422994

fxtentacle 2y ago

... because the author considers Ruby and Rails to be a very concise language. And then the theory is that less tokens take up less space in the attention window.

bdcravens 2y ago
Rails isn't a language. Ruby is. Rails is just glue for other libraries in Ruby.

bushido 2y ago

My preferred language to build apps is Ruby, and I'm still more likely to pickup RoR as a backend. But I can't see if winning in the AI generation. I never recommend it with LLMs, because there is a definite context window and attention problem with a lot of languages, but Type-safety + being pre-trained on strong typing, makes any issues with context sizes moot. The latest generation of AI dev tools, are getting really good at solving problems using the type errors that it creates. Also a lot of Rails niceties can be achieved in languages like Typescript with patterns such as decorators, which do an amazing job DRYing things up and reducing those contexts.

ghuntley 2y ago

Hard disagree. The best language for AI is one that has strong compiler soundness (ie type system) that can reject incorrectness and provide feedback as to correctness to refactors. One can substitute with property based tests but it won’t be as good as soundness + pbt. Speaking from experience here… https://ghuntley.com/oh-fuck https://ghuntley.com/oh-fuck && https://ghuntley.com/stdlib https://ghuntley.com/stdlib I do however agree that there’s langs that are not as suitable for LLMs (Java) due to their verbosity (and engineers sort classes onto filesystem like a filing drawer. LLMs work best when everything for a domain, including tests, is in a single file). Increased verbosity of the grammar does yield token wastage/ineffectiveness. Having said all that - compile time matters HEAPS. The faster you can optimise your compile time the more loops (throwing pancakes at the wall) you can do. Here’s where it gets crazy though, one can loop a verbose compilation w/metrics back into the LLM and ask the LLM to propose improvements on how to make the compile faster. It works…

johnisgood 2y ago
So Ada / SPARK? It has a pretty neat type system.
- ghuntley 2y ago
  I’ve stumbled across folks using TLA+ / LEAN / COQ. Instead of ramming TypeScript/Whatever into the context window, they just stuff the formal proofs into the context window. Then code generate off em… That’s most Chad pattern I’ve discovered so far…
nindalf 2y ago
Completely agree. I’d add one more - if the compiler can describe errors in simple, plain English it’s far more likely that the LLM can fix the problem. Some languages do this much better than others.
- ghuntley 2y ago
  Nailed it. These LLMs do not understand code. They are silly string lookup services. Compilers with soundness tend to be INCREDIBLY verbose with their error messages which these LLMs use to ingest to get better outcomes on the re-attempt…

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

bdcravens 2y ago

The article never explains the logical leap from Ruby being a concise language to why you'd build AI apps in *Rails*.

schappim 2y ago
Drawing from my experience, modern technologies like Hotwire and Turbo Frames—when integrated with background jobs and Action Mailbox for handling inbound emails—alongside mature tooling, create a surprisingly effective (and enjoyable) platform for developing AI applications.
- bdcravens 2y ago
  Isn't that just tooling around integrating with any API?
  - schappim 2y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean.

malux85 2y ago

This reminds me of that midwit meme, Far left: Just build better models Midwit: Nooo you need succict languages to maximise the token efficiency, succinctness is a form of compression so that you can ... Far right: Just build better models

m00dy 2y ago

The future of AI is Rust.

ghuntley 2y ago
I actually agree with this. This will be true, as long as Rust doesn’t break their language semantics. Zig keeps making breaking changes and when they do it essentially means all the pre-trained data is incorrect. Going forward it is incredibly important for language designers to not break things. It always was but now the stakes are higher…
- piotr-yuxuan 2y ago
  Clojure is quite strong in that respect, but probably too niche for AI.
  - ghuntley 2y ago
    I have been able to create a brand new programming language purely based on specs and the eval loop technique. If I can build an ESO language using a foundational model (ie. no pre-existing training data) and program with it, then Clojure is not too niche.

bsenftner 2y ago

The "future of AI" is an unending sea of half code and half language in heavily marketed products that claims heaven and earth, with premium VIP stealth access to hell, such that heaven never knows. Which is of course nonsense, but will be a huge hit with all the religious, and will continually mint billionaires to the uncanny dismay of anyone with a brain.

moffkalast 2y ago

There is very little Ruby has going for itself. People despair at Python's speed of a sloth on tranquilizers and Ruby is even slower, with a community the size of Lua. When it comes to people considering languages for anything it's usually not even on the list. If anything, using LLMs means we can use less language abstraction for more speed, and have them write Cpp or Rust directly without actually having to deal with their verbosity by hand. Then we can repeal Wirth's law and have our complexity too.

mindwok 2y ago
Rails is one of the most battle tested, opinionated, and productive frameworks there is. If you aren’t at least considering it, depending on what you’re trying to do, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

senorrib 2y ago

The premise is wrong. You hardly need your entire codebase in the context window to generate code. If your code is properly modularized, all you need is for a specific module to be in it, maybe with some interfaces from other modules.

apatheticonion 2y ago

Jesus, from the quagmire of Python to the frying pan of Ruby. Can we not just use a language with a decent type system and compiler story? Heck, at this point I'd take C# or TypeScript over Ruby.

tempfile 2y ago

The posted link has an anchor to the bottom of the page. Presumably a mistake?

dgrcode 2y ago

So the only argument is that the token window is a disadvantage for languages that use more tokens for an equivalent program. But token windows are only getting bigger, and there's also no need to fit the entire codebase in a single prompt. If anything, it sounds like ruby on rails should've been _the past_ of AI. But it clearly wasn't.

bbstats 2y ago

Lol

karmakaze 2y ago

Why would working with AI need Rails? I would prefer to bet on Mojo[0]. > The Mojo programming language was created by Modular Inc, which was founded by Chris Lattner, the original architect of the Swift programming language and LLVM, and Tim Davis, a former Google employee. Intention behind Mojo is to bridge the gap between Python’s ease of use and the fast performance required for cutting-edge AI applications. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojo_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojo_(programming_language)