Even if it does cost thousands (does it? I genuinely have no idea how to scope such a thing) that might be a good price if a custom compiler to your custom target is something you really want. People have paid far more for far less.

If you're a hobbyist trying to compile python to your weird little arduino based thing, then that's a lot of money and you would want to use somebody else's solution, no doubt.

But if you're an aerospace company trying to compile for a flight control computer (and I guess you really want to use python for some reason), spending thousands of dollars on tokens to make and maintain a custom compiler could represent serious savings.

The big picture impact of AI that I see/anticipate the most is SAAS dying out because AI coding makes this kind of enablement and support software easier to make in-house, and this feels like an example of that, but maybe I'm seeing what I expect to see.

>Even if it does cost thousands (does it? I genuinely have no idea how to scope such a thing) that might be a good price if a custom compiler to your custom target is something you really want. People have paid far more for far less.

I wouldn't spend $100K in tokens to get a custom bare metal Python. Or even $10K.

And I'd guess that most devs wouldn't either, unless they spend $10K like it's nothing.

People that have "paid far more for far less" are people who have the money to buy $10K watches, or fancy multi $1000 clothes.

Just eight years ago basically nobody wanted to pay for compilers and developer tooling, and now you're suggesting people will spend a thousand dollars for a compiler they'll have to maintain themselves just because they're willing to pay for AI generated tokens but not for finished tools?

>But if you're an aerospace company trying to compile for a flight control computer (and I guess you really want to use python for some reason), spending thousands of dollars on tokens to make and maintain a custom compiler could represent serious savings.

If you're an aerospace company you're willing to pay thousands of dollars for a compiler, because you need a DO-178C certified toolchain so that you can DO-178C certify the whole airframe. Suggesting AI here tells me you have no clue about the realities of aerospace, because you've just thrown out the entire value proposition of the commercial toolchains.