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A comment on Python Is Easy. Go Is Simple. Simple != Easy. Parent comment

Re:Python Is Easy. Go Is Simple. Simple != Easy by pclmulqdq on Monday November 27, 2023 @12:42PM (#38435420)
I will spell it out for you: Almost every language in the world has some sort of template-based autocomplete for common boilerplate that is often used, from class definition templates to if statements. If you aren't using one of these, you're probably working unproductively by thinking about all of your boilerplate instead of just taking it off the shelf. Copilot and its ilk just take this one step further by effectively giving you the same thing but with the slots in the template filled in. I could have said that "with autocomplete it's easy to write" and it would have the same meaning.

The presence or absence of boilerplate (and thus the presence/usability of autocomplete systems) does not imply anything about simplicity.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Python Is Easy. Go Is Simple. Simple != Easy by avgcorrection on Monday November 27, 2023 @12:48PM (#38435499)
> I will spell it out for you: Almost every language in the world has some sort of template-based autocomplete for common boilerplate that is often used, from class definition templates to if statements.

Which is very conceptually simple. `sout` in Intellij creating Java `println(...)` is very simple. Completely straightforward. Unlike LLMs.

- Go is simple!

- Great, but it takes a while for me to produce code in Go.

- No problem, just use an LLM to help you write it!

I felt that there was a 20% chance that you were being satirical.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Python Is Easy. Go Is Simple. Simple != Easy by pclmulqdq on Monday November 27, 2023 @01:12PM (#38435851)
The LLM is just fancy autocomplete. You are latching on to the LLM aspect, not the autocomplete aspect, while the latter is the important part. The LLM literally just does a little more than a traditional autocomplete in real life. I said it because it's easy for people to understand what "copilot" actually does and I (wrongly) assumed people didn't go crazy when you mentioned it.
[ Parent | on HN ]