I Don’t Know Rust. My AI Is Rewriting PHP in It Anyway.
Summary
The article documents an experiment where an AI helps rewrite a PHP engine in Rust (Phargo) and shows that only a fraction of the PHP test suite passes. The author treats the PHP test suite as the oracle and uses a strict, automated workflow to measure progress, exposing multiple reliability and tooling challenges. It highlights the broader idea of radical honesty in AI-assisted software engineering and the ongoing need for human oversight and verifiable benchmarks.