[flohofwoe]

Why would *any* programming language matter when LLMs can just directly output binaries from a sufficiently detailed spec ;)

And specifically, why would Rust be a better choice than C or Zig when the LLMs get good enough to just write memory safe code in unsafe languages (they are already pretty good at finding memory safety bugs).

IMHO for code generation, different things start to matter (like fast build times, while 'convenient highlevel abstractions' become less important).

[zozbot234]

Writing memory safe code in unsafe languages requires global reasoning, which LLMs are terrible at. The whole point of a type system or a borrow checker like Rust's is to thread the requirements for safety throughout the program syntax in a way that makes it possible to spot problems locally. That's why LLMs tend to be rather good at writing Rust.

[kristoff_it]

> Writing memory safe code in unsafe languages requires global reasoning

If you learn how to use arena allocators and in general use modern techniques, you don't need global reasoning to write correct memory management code pretty much never.

If your code is a RAII and abstraction maze, then yes, you will probably need global reasoning, but that's not the case with Zig.

[kibwen]

Arena allocators are great for certain use cases, but they don't provide any solutions to memory unsafety; they don't do anything for use-after-free, they don't do anything for buffer overruns, they don't address any sources of undefined behavior, and they don't do anything for thread-safety, which is a requirement for memory safety.

[J_Shelby_J]

The billion dollar “if”

[saagarjha]

Not all code can be expressed well by an arena allocator.

[trumpdong]

Writing anything safe code in any language that doesn't have that safety built in requires global reasoning. That's why LLMs aren't better at writing rm-rf/-safe code in Rust.

[tasuki]

> when the LLMs get good enough to just write memory safe code in unsafe languages

There is, and always will be, a huge difference between "because a LLM said so" and "here is a proof this is memory safe".