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What might a programming language designed specifically as a UI for coding agents look like? Serious (germ of a) question.

pona-a 1y ago
If true ASI ever materializes, JVM bytecode.
- KerrAvon 1y ago
  This is the correct answer. Why wouldn’t an actual AI just generate raw, fully optimized executables for production?
  - Maxatar 1y ago
    The same reason an actual AI wouldn't play chess by brute forcing every possible position. Intelligent systems are about reasoning, not simply computing, and that requires operating at the level of abstraction where your intelligence is most effective.
  - Timwi 1y ago
    You're contradicting yourself. Raw, fully optimized executables for production would mean machine code for the target platform, not an intermediate bytecode that still requires a VM.
    - hagbard_c 1y ago
      Not really, it would be one of the steps in the chain between design and implementation for a specific hardware platform. That is, unless that code is only ever to run on a single hardware platform, a rare occurrence outside of embedded applications.
bigfishrunning 1y ago
> What might a programming language designed specifically as a UI for coding agents look like? A bad idea, probably. LLM output needs to be reviewed very carefully; optimizing the language away from human review would probably make the process more expensive. Also, where would the training data in such a language come from?
- embedding-shape 1y ago
  So then a programming language designed explicitly for coding languages would need to take human reviews into account, what is the most efficient and concise ways to express programming concepts then? In the end, we circle back to lisps, once you're used to it, it's as easy for humans to parse as it is for machines to parse it. Shame LLMs struggle with special characters.
  - hansvm 1y ago
    > once you're used to it > shame LLMs struggle That sounds like Stockholm syndrome more than an easy-to-use language.
    - KerrAvon 1y ago
      I don’t think that would be a real issue in practice. Coding LLMs need to be able to cope with complicated expressions in many languages. If they can produce legitimate code for other languages, they can be taught to cope with s-expressions. edit: Lisp -> s-expressions
    - embedding-shape 1y ago
      Yeah, makes sense it sounds like that. But the crux is probably that most of us learned programming via Algol-like languages, like C or PHP, and only after decades of programming did we start looking into lisps. But don't take my word for it, ask the programmers around you for the ones who've been looking into lisps and ask them how they feel about it.
  - swiftcoder 1y ago
    Surely lisps don't have drastically more special characters as other languages? A few more parens, sure, but less curly braces, commas, semicolons, etc Also feels like making sure the tokeniser has distinct tokens for left/right parens would be all that is required to make LLMs work with them
    - embedding-shape 1y ago
ojkelly 1y ago
Until such a point where have agents not trained on human language or programming languages, I think something that’s also really good for people as well. - one obvious way to do things - memory safe, thread safe, concurrency safe, cancellation safe - locality of reasoning, no spooky action at a distance - tests as a first class feature of the language - a quality standard library / reliable dependency ecosystem - can compile, type check, lint, run tests, in a single command - can reliably mock everything, either with effects or something else, such that again we maintain locality of reasoning The old saying that a complex system that works is made up of simple systems that work applies. A language where you can get the small systems working, tested, and then built upon. Because all of these things with towards minimising the context needed to iterate, and reducing the feedback loop of iteration.

pona-a 1y ago

If true ASI ever materializes, JVM bytecode.

KerrAvon 1y ago
This is the correct answer. Why wouldn’t an actual AI just generate raw, fully optimized executables for production?
- Maxatar 1y ago
  The same reason an actual AI wouldn't play chess by brute forcing every possible position. Intelligent systems are about reasoning, not simply computing, and that requires operating at the level of abstraction where your intelligence is most effective.
- Timwi 1y ago
  You're contradicting yourself. Raw, fully optimized executables for production would mean machine code for the target platform, not an intermediate bytecode that still requires a VM.
  - hagbard_c 1y ago
    Not really, it would be one of the steps in the chain between design and implementation for a specific hardware platform. That is, unless that code is only ever to run on a single hardware platform, a rare occurrence outside of embedded applications.

bigfishrunning 1y ago

> What might a programming language designed specifically as a UI for coding agents look like? A bad idea, probably. LLM output needs to be reviewed very carefully; optimizing the language away from human review would probably make the process more expensive. Also, where would the training data in such a language come from?

embedding-shape 1y ago
So then a programming language designed explicitly for coding languages would need to take human reviews into account, what is the most efficient and concise ways to express programming concepts then? In the end, we circle back to lisps, once you're used to it, it's as easy for humans to parse as it is for machines to parse it. Shame LLMs struggle with special characters.
- hansvm 1y ago
  > once you're used to it > shame LLMs struggle That sounds like Stockholm syndrome more than an easy-to-use language.
  - KerrAvon 1y ago
    I don’t think that would be a real issue in practice. Coding LLMs need to be able to cope with complicated expressions in many languages. If they can produce legitimate code for other languages, they can be taught to cope with s-expressions. edit: Lisp -> s-expressions
  - embedding-shape 1y ago
    Yeah, makes sense it sounds like that. But the crux is probably that most of us learned programming via Algol-like languages, like C or PHP, and only after decades of programming did we start looking into lisps. But don't take my word for it, ask the programmers around you for the ones who've been looking into lisps and ask them how they feel about it.
- swiftcoder 1y ago
  Surely lisps don't have drastically more special characters as other languages? A few more parens, sure, but less curly braces, commas, semicolons, etc Also feels like making sure the tokeniser has distinct tokens for left/right parens would be all that is required to make LLMs work with them
  - embedding-shape 1y ago

ojkelly 1y ago

Until such a point where have agents not trained on human language or programming languages, I think something that’s also really good for people as well. - one obvious way to do things - memory safe, thread safe, concurrency safe, cancellation safe - locality of reasoning, no spooky action at a distance - tests as a first class feature of the language - a quality standard library / reliable dependency ecosystem - can compile, type check, lint, run tests, in a single command - can reliably mock everything, either with effects or something else, such that again we maintain locality of reasoning The old saying that a complex system that works is made up of simple systems that work applies. A language where you can get the small systems working, tested, and then built upon. Because all of these things with towards minimising the context needed to iterate, and reducing the feedback loop of iteration.