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I generally agree, but why so polemic? I mean, it starts by giving the full name of the original author… calls using his free software a waste of time… destroy

by b33j0r 3y ago

I generally agree, but why so polemic? I mean, it starts by giving the full name of the original author… calls using his free software a waste of time… destroys the design as if tearing down someone’s work who made bad decisions at every turn when making a brand-new thing that is FOSS. Did anyone else find that a bit strange? Did I miss the light-hearted tone buried somewhere? That said, strangely… useful examples and up-to-date detailed technical analysis that I like. I just don’t get why this sector gets so nasty between people… fight the robots, guys! ;)

doctoboggan 3y ago
I noticed the sentiment toward LangChain make an abrupt 180 as soon as they announced their funding. I don't think it's a conspiracy to ruin their value, more like HN readers were first interested in a cool open source project exploring this new field of generative AI, but now that they have millions the expectations change and they find themselves under more scrutiny.
- crooked-v 3y ago
  A conspiracy seems far less likely to me than just people noticing they exist because they got funding.
chomp 3y ago
I don't know, I'm 100% against tearing down other people's FOSS work, but I think it's okay to be more critical once VC money starts flowing. At that point, it's a product jointly owned by venture capitalists for return on investment, and less a labor of love. Anyway, for those of us who've used LangChain a bit, I don't think anything in the article is revelatory, the codebase is structured as a first mover project, with all of the copy+paste and poor abstractions that come with it. It's absolutely great for prototyping and simple scripts, but I don't think I would use it in a production codebase, I found it very difficult to work around the bugs and wonky abstractions.
minimaxir 3y ago
I think you're reading into the tone too much, but I address this very argument at the end. > No one wants to be that asshole who criticizes free and open source software operating in good faith like LangChain, but I’ll take the burden. To be clear, I have nothing against Harrison Chase or the other maintainers of LangChain (who encourage feedback!). However, LangChain’s popularity has warped the AI startup ecosystem around LangChain itself and the hope of OMG AGI I MADE SKYNET, which is why I am compelled to be honest with my misgivings about it.
- b33j0r 3y ago
  Thanks for replying. I get your angle a bit better now, and as a sarcastic guy should have gotten it! My main headfake in this actually revolutionary-incremental advance over the past 8 or so months… has been more similar to yours than I read at first. Nice post!
- Terretta 3y ago
  Thanks for making this: "simpleaichat is a Python package for easily interfacing with chat apps like ChatGPT and GPT-4 with robust features and minimal code complexity. This tool has many features optimized for working with ChatGPT as fast and as cheap as possible, but still much more capable of modern AI tricks than most implementations" https://github.com/minimaxir/simpleaichat https://github.com/minimaxir/simpleaichat Separately, in the article, typo expect->except here: "LangChain uses about the same amount of code as just using the official openai library, expect LangChain incorporates more object classes for not much obvious code benefit."
esafak 3y ago
They're well funded, so go ahead and criticize them. https://blog.langchain.dev/announcing-our-10m-seed-round-led-by-benchmark/ https://blog.langchain.dev/announcing-our-10m-seed-round-led...
Veen 3y ago
Disappointment? Langchain promises a lot, it's generated lots of hype, it's got a big VC investment. So it must be awesome. But when you try to use it, you find yourself wasting hours or days to discover there's nothing particularly exciting behind the curtain.
gwern 3y ago
https://gwern.net/holy-war https://gwern.net/holy-war Anyone who's been burned by LangChain, especially now that it has VC funding, has to be worried that LangChain will become the cross-LLM standard library™, and they'll be dealing with it and endless patches to it for the rest of their lives. (Think systemd or NPM or Python packaging.) If it's as bad as described, the time to stop LangChain is to strangle it in the cradle, before it can get too far or risks finding a killer-app/niche which will immortalize it no matter how bad it is.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- catgary 3y ago
  I’m a bit confused about why it’s a Python library and where its value proposition lies. If LLMs are going to be ubiquitous in app development, wouldn’t you expect Apple to release a Swift library that blows LangChain out of the water (similarly with Jetbrains/Kotlin, or Microsoft/C#).
  - maleldil 3y ago
    Microsoft has Semantic Kernel: https://github.com/microsoft/semantic-kernel https://github.com/microsoft/semantic-kernel > The SK extensible programming model combines natural language semantic functions, traditional code native functions, and embeddings-based memory unlocking new potential and adding value to applications with AI. > SK supports prompt templating, function chaining, vectorized memory, and intelligent planning capabilities out of the box. I can't speak from experience whether it's better than LangChain, however.
  - b33j0r 3y ago
    You could chain python anything with itertools… airflow, multiprocessing, jenkins, graph redis, celery… pick your poison. I’d probably spend 15% too many manhours making it bespoke… But The Creator of whatever just solved a problem before I did. Of course I’m going to use that until a better solution is practical.
- treprinum 3y ago

by b33j0r 3y ago

doctoboggan 3y ago

I noticed the sentiment toward LangChain make an abrupt 180 as soon as they announced their funding. I don't think it's a conspiracy to ruin their value, more like HN readers were first interested in a cool open source project exploring this new field of generative AI, but now that they have millions the expectations change and they find themselves under more scrutiny.

crooked-v 3y ago
A conspiracy seems far less likely to me than just people noticing they exist because they got funding.

chomp 3y ago

I don't know, I'm 100% against tearing down other people's FOSS work, but I think it's okay to be more critical once VC money starts flowing. At that point, it's a product jointly owned by venture capitalists for return on investment, and less a labor of love. Anyway, for those of us who've used LangChain a bit, I don't think anything in the article is revelatory, the codebase is structured as a first mover project, with all of the copy+paste and poor abstractions that come with it. It's absolutely great for prototyping and simple scripts, but I don't think I would use it in a production codebase, I found it very difficult to work around the bugs and wonky abstractions.

minimaxir 3y ago

I think you're reading into the tone too much, but I address this very argument at the end. > No one wants to be that asshole who criticizes free and open source software operating in good faith like LangChain, but I’ll take the burden. To be clear, I have nothing against Harrison Chase or the other maintainers of LangChain (who encourage feedback!). However, LangChain’s popularity has warped the AI startup ecosystem around LangChain itself and the hope of OMG AGI I MADE SKYNET, which is why I am compelled to be honest with my misgivings about it.

b33j0r 3y ago
Thanks for replying. I get your angle a bit better now, and as a sarcastic guy should have gotten it! My main headfake in this actually revolutionary-incremental advance over the past 8 or so months… has been more similar to yours than I read at first. Nice post!
Terretta 3y ago
Thanks for making this: "simpleaichat is a Python package for easily interfacing with chat apps like ChatGPT and GPT-4 with robust features and minimal code complexity. This tool has many features optimized for working with ChatGPT as fast and as cheap as possible, but still much more capable of modern AI tricks than most implementations" https://github.com/minimaxir/simpleaichat https://github.com/minimaxir/simpleaichat Separately, in the article, typo expect->except here: "LangChain uses about the same amount of code as just using the official openai library, expect LangChain incorporates more object classes for not much obvious code benefit."

esafak 3y ago

They're well funded, so go ahead and criticize them. https://blog.langchain.dev/announcing-our-10m-seed-round-led-by-benchmark/ https://blog.langchain.dev/announcing-our-10m-seed-round-led...

Veen 3y ago

Disappointment? Langchain promises a lot, it's generated lots of hype, it's got a big VC investment. So it must be awesome. But when you try to use it, you find yourself wasting hours or days to discover there's nothing particularly exciting behind the curtain.

gwern 3y ago

https://gwern.net/holy-war https://gwern.net/holy-war Anyone who's been burned by LangChain, especially now that it has VC funding, has to be worried that LangChain will become the cross-LLM standard library™, and they'll be dealing with it and endless patches to it for the rest of their lives. (Think systemd or NPM or Python packaging.) If it's as bad as described, the time to stop LangChain is to strangle it in the cradle, before it can get too far or risks finding a killer-app/niche which will immortalize it no matter how bad it is.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
catgary 3y ago
I’m a bit confused about why it’s a Python library and where its value proposition lies. If LLMs are going to be ubiquitous in app development, wouldn’t you expect Apple to release a Swift library that blows LangChain out of the water (similarly with Jetbrains/Kotlin, or Microsoft/C#).
- maleldil 3y ago
  Microsoft has Semantic Kernel: https://github.com/microsoft/semantic-kernel https://github.com/microsoft/semantic-kernel > The SK extensible programming model combines natural language semantic functions, traditional code native functions, and embeddings-based memory unlocking new potential and adding value to applications with AI. > SK supports prompt templating, function chaining, vectorized memory, and intelligent planning capabilities out of the box. I can't speak from experience whether it's better than LangChain, however.
- b33j0r 3y ago
  You could chain python anything with itertools… airflow, multiprocessing, jenkins, graph redis, celery… pick your poison. I’d probably spend 15% too many manhours making it bespoke… But The Creator of whatever just solved a problem before I did. Of course I’m going to use that until a better solution is practical.
treprinum 3y ago