Does writing in a “beautiful” programming language still matter in the age of AI?

AI coding agents could shift programming language design priorities away from human aesthetics toward machine reliability, according to a commentary on how software production is changing. The piece argues that if agents write and maintain most software, the key question becomes which language lets agents generate, verify, and modify programs most effectively rather than which language humans enjoy. Languages celebrated for elegance, such as Haskell, may become a form of traditional craftsmanship valued for beauty and intellectual depth but with a diminishing role in everyday software production.

We’ve repeatedly moved to higher levels of abstraction: from assembly to C and C++, then to languages and managed environments such as Java and C . The lower layers didn’t become useless, but fewer developers needed to work with them directly. Could AI represent another such shift not just abstracting away the machine, but abstracting away much of the act of writing code itself? If agents eventually write and maintain most of our software, perhaps the important question will no longer be “Which language do humans enjoy working in?” but “Which language allows agents to produce reliable software most effectively?” Those might not have the same answer. I can imagine future languages being designed primarily around agents’ ability to generate, verify, and modify programs, rather than around human preferences. From that perspective, I sometimes see Haskell and other languages celebrated for their elegance as something that could gradually become a form of traditional craftsmanship: valued for their beauty, intellectual depth, and the skill involved, but with a diminishing role in everyday software production. Not because the craft has lost its value, but because the way we produce software has changed.