Wouldn't it maybe make more sense to try to use Cursor-style auto complete if you are trying to learn a language in this day and age?

Having Codex/Claude write all of it won't really benefit you imho.

I like coding katas (or even trying leetcode problems) when learning new languages.

Definitively something to be said for AI/ML library support. I find myself going with Rust / TS for a ton of my backend work lately though, even though I'm a huge Django fan for backend.