Ask HN: We dont need a programming language now?
6 comments
Current LLMs are powerful because they are trained on the patterns of existing data.
Without training on real token patterns, what outputs would you even expect to see? It's an LLM. Literally, a model of language. A language is necessary, by definition, even if you have to conjure it within your context window.
You're asking something closer to: "if LLMs can handle ANY language, why not assembly or something low level, close to the metal as possible?" That's a valid question.
My initial response is two-fold:
1) because someone still needs to verify and debug the source code - so human readability still matters.
2) because semantics are king. LLMs work because they can suss out relationships between tokens. At the lowest level, hardware doesn't really operate on tokens - moving 8 bytes from one address to another carries no information about what those 8 bytes represent to the larger program. Higher-level languages allowed humans to form richer semantics, just as they allow LLMs to express richer semantics with fewer tokens.
Without training on real token patterns, what outputs would you even expect to see? It's an LLM. Literally, a model of language. A language is necessary, by definition, even if you have to conjure it within your context window.
You're asking something closer to: "if LLMs can handle ANY language, why not assembly or something low level, close to the metal as possible?" That's a valid question.
My initial response is two-fold:
1) because someone still needs to verify and debug the source code - so human readability still matters.
2) because semantics are king. LLMs work because they can suss out relationships between tokens. At the lowest level, hardware doesn't really operate on tokens - moving 8 bytes from one address to another carries no information about what those 8 bytes represent to the larger program. Higher-level languages allowed humans to form richer semantics, just as they allow LLMs to express richer semantics with fewer tokens.
Great points and thats true, may be the line is somewhere between readability and most efficiency.
[deleted]
https://www.iso.org/standard/42001
If you want to try to read ASM at speed, please let me know how it goes.
That’s not a dig at you. That’s the real reduction of your question imho. It’s a good question.
If you want to try to read ASM at speed, please let me know how it goes.
That’s not a dig at you. That’s the real reduction of your question imho. It’s a good question.
true, yeah thats right, But my larger point is we are operating many levels above than we can with JS. Like C, C++/Rust is the closest as LLMs would be trained on that.
I just threw the extreme point on the curve, to see where we can land on.
I just threw the extreme point on the curve, to see where we can land on.
If we are becoming language agnostic, shouldn't we opt in for the most efficient way to program? may be a level below rust? no interpreters or may be no compilers even? and nobody will ever understand it and whole world will run on ideas?