Armin Ronacher: LLMs make hard languages like Rust and Zig rise again
mitsuhiko · x · 2026-08-23
Armin Ronacher (Flask creator) published "Fast and Hard Code" on how LLMs change how we start new projects:
- Language choice matters less: the friction of learning a language no longer applies to agents, and code can be rewritten in another language at will — so people increasingly pick languages based on marketing and vibes.
- Fast software + hard languages: there's renewed hunger for performance, and LLMs excel at optimizing code without regressing behavior. Performance obsessives like Mitchell Hashimoto, Charlie Marsh, Jarred Sumner and Daniel Lemire are all receptive to agent-written code, pulling others along.
- Not just Rust: Zig benefits too despite its core community's AI skepticism — Cloudflare's new Artifacts service uses pure Zig.
More from AGI Musings
- Taxing work while ignoring machine-generated wealth is increasingly absurd — VraserX · 2026-08-23
- Scientist laments online abuse: "The most confident person in the comments often knows the least" — ylecun · 2026-08-23
- Data reveals: Americans don't know AI leaders, feel forced into adoption — NinaDSchick · 2026-08-23
- Tesla FSD has 86% fewer collisions than human average, AI doesn't need to be perfect — XFreeze · 2026-08-23
- Matthew Berman: Truly Ambient AI Will Feel Like Magic — MatthewBerman · 2026-08-23
- Are humans and AI just modeling each other's models of reality? — WittyEgg2037 · 2026-08-23