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> While it might seem like a simple screenshot, building a browser from scratch is extremely difficult. > Another experiment was doing an in-place migration of

> While it might seem like a simple screenshot, building a browser from scratch is extremely difficult. > Another experiment was doing an in-place migration of Solid to React in the Cursor codebase. It took over 3 weeks with +266K/-193K edits. As we've started to test the changes, we do believe it's possible to merge this change. In my view, this post does not go into sufficient detail or nuance to warrant any serious discussion, and the sparseness of info mostly implies failure, especially in the browser case. It _is_ impressive that the browser repo can do _anything at all_, but if there was anything more noteworthy than that, I feel they'd go into more detail than volume metrics like 30K commits, 1M LoC. For instance, the entire capability on display could be constrained to a handful of lines that delegate to other libs. And, it "is possible" to merge any change that avoids regressions, but the majority of our craft asks the question "Is it possible to merge _the next_ change? And the next, and the 100th?" If they merge the MR they're walking the walk. If they present more analysis of the browser it's worth the talk (not that useful a test if they didn't scrutinize it beyond "it renders") Until then, it's a mountain of inscrutable agent output that manages to compile, and that contains an execution pathway which can screenshot apple.com by some undiscovered mechanism.

embedding-shape 9mo ago
> it's a mountain of inscrutable agent output that manages to compile But is this actually true? They don't say that as far as I can tell, and it also doesn't compile for me nor their own CI it seems.
- sashank_1509 9mo ago
  Oh it doesn’t compile? that’s very revealing
  - rvz 9mo ago
    Some people just believe anything said on X these days. No timeline from start to finish, just "trust me bro". If you can't reproduce or compile the experiment then it really doesn't work at all and nothing but a hype piece.
- micimize 9mo ago
  Hah I don't know actually! I was assuming it must if they were able to get that screenshot video.
  - Snuggly73 9mo ago
    error: could not compile `fastrender` (lib) due to 34 previous errors; 94 warnings emitted I guess probably at some point, something compiled, but cba to try to find that commit. I guess they should've left it in a better state before doing that blog post.
    - jaggederest 9mo ago
      I find it very interesting the degree to which coding agents completely ignore warnings. When I program I generally target warning-free code, and even with significant effort in prompting, I haven't found a model that treats warnings as errors, and they almost all love the "ignore this warning" pragmas or comments over actually fixing them.
      - suriya-ganesh 9mo ago
        unfortunately this is not the most common practice. I've worked on rust codebases with 10K+ warning. and rust was supposed to help you. It is also close to impossible run any node ecosystem without getting a wall of warnings. You are an extreme outlier for putting in the work to fix all warnings
        jaggederest 9mo ago
        `cargo clippy` is also very happy with my code. I agree and I think it's kind of a tragedy, I think for production work warnings are very important. Certainly, even if you have a large number of warnings and `clippy` issues, that number ideally should go down over time, rather than up.
        embedding-shape 9mo ago
        > It is also close to impossible run any node ecosystem without getting a wall of warnings. Haven't found that myself, are you talking about TypeScript warnings perhaps? Because I'm mostly using just JavaScript and try to steer clear of TypeScript projects, and AFAIK, JavaScript the language nor runtimes don't really have warnings, except for deprecations, are those the ones you're talking about?
meander_water 9mo ago
The lowest bar in agentic coding is the ability to create something which compiles successfully. Then something which runs successfully in the happy path. Then something which handles all the obvious edge cases. By far the most useful metric is to have a live system running for a year with widespread usage that produces a lower number of bugs than that of a codebase created by humans. Until that happens, my skeptic hat will remain firmly on my head.

embedding-shape 9mo ago

> it's a mountain of inscrutable agent output that manages to compile But is this actually true? They don't say that as far as I can tell, and it also doesn't compile for me nor their own CI it seems.

sashank_1509 9mo ago
Oh it doesn’t compile? that’s very revealing
- rvz 9mo ago
  Some people just believe anything said on X these days. No timeline from start to finish, just "trust me bro". If you can't reproduce or compile the experiment then it really doesn't work at all and nothing but a hype piece.
micimize 9mo ago
Hah I don't know actually! I was assuming it must if they were able to get that screenshot video.
- Snuggly73 9mo ago
  error: could not compile `fastrender` (lib) due to 34 previous errors; 94 warnings emitted I guess probably at some point, something compiled, but cba to try to find that commit. I guess they should've left it in a better state before doing that blog post.
  - jaggederest 9mo ago
    I find it very interesting the degree to which coding agents completely ignore warnings. When I program I generally target warning-free code, and even with significant effort in prompting, I haven't found a model that treats warnings as errors, and they almost all love the "ignore this warning" pragmas or comments over actually fixing them.
    - suriya-ganesh 9mo ago
      unfortunately this is not the most common practice. I've worked on rust codebases with 10K+ warning. and rust was supposed to help you. It is also close to impossible run any node ecosystem without getting a wall of warnings. You are an extreme outlier for putting in the work to fix all warnings
      - jaggederest 9mo ago
        `cargo clippy` is also very happy with my code. I agree and I think it's kind of a tragedy, I think for production work warnings are very important. Certainly, even if you have a large number of warnings and `clippy` issues, that number ideally should go down over time, rather than up.
      - embedding-shape 9mo ago
        > It is also close to impossible run any node ecosystem without getting a wall of warnings. Haven't found that myself, are you talking about TypeScript warnings perhaps? Because I'm mostly using just JavaScript and try to steer clear of TypeScript projects, and AFAIK, JavaScript the language nor runtimes don't really have warnings, except for deprecations, are those the ones you're talking about?

meander_water 9mo ago

The lowest bar in agentic coding is the ability to create something which compiles successfully. Then something which runs successfully in the happy path. Then something which handles all the obvious edge cases. By far the most useful metric is to have a live system running for a year with widespread usage that produces a lower number of bugs than that of a codebase created by humans. Until that happens, my skeptic hat will remain firmly on my head.