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Static type checking catches a whole class of programming errors for free. Writing tests costs tokens or human time, so you end up needing more code (and probab

Static type checking catches a whole class of programming errors for free. Writing tests costs tokens or human time, so you end up needing more code (and probably more CPU time) to achieve the same level of error-checking in a dynamic language.

necovek 4mo ago
Very simplistic look, IMO. I'll add another one mostly as a counterpoint (not that I believe it is strictly true, but largely yes!). Python is a lot more expressive than other languages and has a very terse syntax, and thus requires LLM to output much fewer tokens to achieve the same job compared to other languages. Adding a few more tests to ensure data conformity on top of what you have to do anyway with a statically typed language still results in fewer tokens overall.
- Smaug123 4mo ago
  Does it have a terse syntax? I main F#, and when I have to work with Python I generally find myself complaining about how verbose it is. (Needing intermediate variables for what should have been a pipeline, the ceremony around parallelism, having to store constructor parameters as object fields, etc.)
  - necovek 4mo ago
    It sure does in comparison with most mainstream statically typed languages — if you feel that way about Python, I wonder what you say about Java, C++ or even Rust or Go? Checking some examples at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/fsharp/tour https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/fsharp/tour, I'd say it's quite similar in verbosity — eg. no need to declare a module in Python since the code already lives in a file that is the module (plus one less indentation level for module level functions); inline function declaration and calling is thereabouts with F# slightly more terse (let vs lambda + spaces vs parenthesis); if-then more verbose in F# (no then in Python, just "if x:"); F# does not seem to need "return"... In many cases you can avoid intermediate varibles: inline ifs, list comprehensions, lambdas, etc... Constructor arguments are a good point, but this is mostly about idiomatic use instead of language itself: you can simply do def __init__(self, **kwargs): self.args = kwargs I'll give you one on the ceremony around concurrency, though! I have different ideas of how it should have been done to shift the cost to the language runtime instead of the developer, but alas... :)
- fasterik 4mo ago
  The expressiveness of a language and whether it does static/dynamic type checking are orthogonal. Type inference and generics are a thing in most modern languages. I also think you're underestimating the amount of code you need to guarantee that there are no type errors in your Python code.
  - necovek 4mo ago
    You were talking about token economics: expressiveness surely matters there?

necovek 4mo ago

Very simplistic look, IMO. I'll add another one mostly as a counterpoint (not that I believe it is strictly true, but largely yes!). Python is a lot more expressive than other languages and has a very terse syntax, and thus requires LLM to output much fewer tokens to achieve the same job compared to other languages. Adding a few more tests to ensure data conformity on top of what you have to do anyway with a statically typed language still results in fewer tokens overall.

Smaug123 4mo ago
Does it have a terse syntax? I main F#, and when I have to work with Python I generally find myself complaining about how verbose it is. (Needing intermediate variables for what should have been a pipeline, the ceremony around parallelism, having to store constructor parameters as object fields, etc.)
- necovek 4mo ago
  It sure does in comparison with most mainstream statically typed languages — if you feel that way about Python, I wonder what you say about Java, C++ or even Rust or Go? Checking some examples at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/fsharp/tour https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/fsharp/tour, I'd say it's quite similar in verbosity — eg. no need to declare a module in Python since the code already lives in a file that is the module (plus one less indentation level for module level functions); inline function declaration and calling is thereabouts with F# slightly more terse (let vs lambda + spaces vs parenthesis); if-then more verbose in F# (no then in Python, just "if x:"); F# does not seem to need "return"... In many cases you can avoid intermediate varibles: inline ifs, list comprehensions, lambdas, etc... Constructor arguments are a good point, but this is mostly about idiomatic use instead of language itself: you can simply do def __init__(self, **kwargs): self.args = kwargs I'll give you one on the ceremony around concurrency, though! I have different ideas of how it should have been done to shift the cost to the language runtime instead of the developer, but alas... :)
fasterik 4mo ago
The expressiveness of a language and whether it does static/dynamic type checking are orthogonal. Type inference and generics are a thing in most modern languages. I also think you're underestimating the amount of code you need to guarantee that there are no type errors in your Python code.
- necovek 4mo ago
  You were talking about token economics: expressiveness surely matters there?