Which programming languages are most token-efficient?
4 months ago
- #Programming Languages
- #Token Efficiency
- #LLM
- LLMs have constraints on context length, making token efficiency in programming languages potentially important for software development agents.
- Token efficiency varies significantly between languages, with dynamic and functional languages like Clojure, Haskell, and F# being more efficient.
- APL's terseness is not token-efficient due to its symbol set, while J, an ASCII-based array language, is highly token-efficient.
- There's a 2.6x gap in token efficiency between the least (C) and most (Clojure) efficient languages studied.
- Typed languages with efficient type inference systems (e.g., Haskell, F#) offer benefits for LLMs, including rapid feedback via compilation and LSP.
- Token efficiency could influence language selection for development sessions, especially if most of the context window is used for code-related tasks.