4 ms·

Gas town and the like all basically sound to me like, "AI is amazing! Ok, actually it isn't very good, but maybe we can just use more AI with our AI and then i

by krupan 9mo ago

Gas town and the like all basically sound to me like, "AI is amazing! Ok, actually it isn't very good, but maybe we can just use more AI with our AI and then it'll be good!" And I'm not surprised at all to learn that this path took us to a "Maintenance Manager Checker Agent." I wonder what he'll call the inevitable Maintenance Manager Checker Agent Checker Agent? Maybe I've been in this game too long, but I've encountered managers that think like this before. "We don't need expensive, brilliant, developers, we just need good processes for the cheap inexperienced developers to follow." I think what keeps this idea alive is that it sort of works for simple CRUD apps and other essentially "solved" problems. At least until the app needs to become more than just a simple CRUD app

draw_down 9mo ago
[dead]
colin_jack 9mo ago
This might be worth a read, just as its from a trusted source and is more grounded: https://antirez.com/news/158 https://antirez.com/news/158
- krupan 9mo ago
  Still the same. "Hey look, I got these crappy developers (LLMs) to actually produce working code! This is a game-changer!" When the working code is a very small, limited thing.
  - colin_jack 9mo ago
    I don't know, your talking about an incredibly talented engineer saying: "In the past week, just prompting, and inspecting the code to provide guidance from time to time, in a few hours I did the following four tasks, in hours instead of weeks" Its up to you to decide how to behave, but I can't see any reasons to completely dismiss this. It ends with good guidance what to do if you can't replicate though.
    - krupan 9mo ago
      The fact that he's an extremely talented developer actually supports my overall understanding that AI producing code is way over hyped. Sure, a master of his field can get a boost out of it, after spending (unaccounted for) time learning how best to coax good code out of it. Neat?
  - ryanjshaw 9mo ago
    What evidence will convince you?
    - krupan 9mo ago
      Any sort of evidence! I see none! It's not really a new thing to have no evidence of productivity gains when it comes to software development tools. Some feel like vim is a huge productivity boost and some don't. Some believe rust is amazing, some hate it. It's really hard to measure these things.
      - ryanjshaw 9mo ago
        Here’s a professional developer who built a product used across the planet daily saying they built a feature for said product, and then asked AI to build the same feature based on the design doc: the AI succeeded and did the same work in minutes: https://antirez.com/news/158 https://antirez.com/news/158 You could always test this yourself. Draw up a design doc for a problem, and implement it. Then ask an AI to do the same thing. Compare your time.
jaapz 9mo ago
I think in the end people will realise AI is not a silver bullet that will solve all problems and make all software engineers obsolete. Instead it will just become an extra tool in our toolbelt right alongside LSP, linters/fixers, unit test frameworks, well though out text editors and IDE's, etc. When the bubble has burst in a few years, the managers will have moved on to the next fad.
- krupan 9mo ago
  Yes, if it even becomes as useful as a good linter or LSP. It actually has very little I'm common with those, but maybe it could be as useful.
  - disgruntledphd2 9mo ago
    It's definitely helpful for search and summarisation. In terms of prototyping, I can see the benefits but they're negated by the absurd amount of work it takes to get the code into more maintainable form. I guess you can just do really heavy review throughout, but then you lose a lot of the speed gains. That being said, putting a textual interface over everything is super cool, and will definitely have large downstream impacts, but probably not enough to justify all the spending.
hakunin 9mo ago
This is a good point, but with ai it’s a little different, because both your process and ai are getting better. You build processes that can aspirationally support inferior AIs, while at the same time AIs themselves improve and meet you half way. This thought does not help my mental well being unfortunately.
mjr00 9mo ago
It's the Jarvis Effect. For years we had people trying to make voice agents, like Iron Man's Jarvis, a thing. You had people super bought into the idea that if you could talk to your computer and say "Jarvis, book me a flight from New York to Hawaii" and it would just do it just like the movies, that was the future, that was sci-fi, it was awesome. But it turns out that voice sucks as a user interface. The only time people use voice controls is when they can't use other controls, i.e. while driving. Nobody is voluntarily booking a flight with their Alexa. There's a reason every society on the planet shifted from primarily phone calls to texting once the technology was available! It's similar with vibe coding. People like Yegge are extremely bought into the idea of being a hyperpowered coder, sitting in a dimly lit basement in front of 8 computer screens, commanding an army of agents with English, sipping coffee between barking out orders. "Agent 1, refactor that method to be more efficient. Agent 5, tighten up the graphics on level 3!" Whether or not it's effective or better than regular software development is secondary, if it's a concern at all. The purpose is the process. It's the future. It's sci-fi. It's awesome. AI is an incredible tool and we're still discovering the right way to use it, but boy, "Gas Town" is not it.
- colin_jack 9mo ago
  "Agent 1, refactor that method to be more efficient. Agent 5, tighten up the graphics on level 3!" I'm not sure its even that, his description of his role in this is: "You are a Product Manager, and Gas Town is an Idea Compiler. You just make up features, design them, file the implementation plans, and then sling the work around to your polecats and crew. Opus 4.5 can handle any reasonably sized task, so your job is to make tasks for it. That’s it." And he says he isn't reviewing the code, he lets agents review each others code from look of it. I am interested to see the specs/feature definitions he's giving them, that seems to be one interesting part of his flow.
  - sonnig 9mo ago
    Assuming both agents are using the same model, what could the reviewer agent add of value to the agent writing the code? It feels like "thinking mode" but with extra steps, and more chance of getting them stuck in a loop trying to overcorrect some small inane detail.
krackers 9mo ago
If you add enough agents, you basically recreate the structure of human teams again. And the lessons from mythical man month etc. start applying. Large companies/teams don't seem to produce higher quality software than small ones, in fact they usually seem to be worse. At best the notion of "subagents" today seems to be a hack to work around context length limits.

by krupan 9mo ago

draw_down 9mo ago

[dead]

colin_jack 9mo ago

This might be worth a read, just as its from a trusted source and is more grounded: https://antirez.com/news/158 https://antirez.com/news/158

krupan 9mo ago
Still the same. "Hey look, I got these crappy developers (LLMs) to actually produce working code! This is a game-changer!" When the working code is a very small, limited thing.
- colin_jack 9mo ago
  I don't know, your talking about an incredibly talented engineer saying: "In the past week, just prompting, and inspecting the code to provide guidance from time to time, in a few hours I did the following four tasks, in hours instead of weeks" Its up to you to decide how to behave, but I can't see any reasons to completely dismiss this. It ends with good guidance what to do if you can't replicate though.
  - krupan 9mo ago
    The fact that he's an extremely talented developer actually supports my overall understanding that AI producing code is way over hyped. Sure, a master of his field can get a boost out of it, after spending (unaccounted for) time learning how best to coax good code out of it. Neat?
- ryanjshaw 9mo ago
  What evidence will convince you?
  - krupan 9mo ago
    Any sort of evidence! I see none! It's not really a new thing to have no evidence of productivity gains when it comes to software development tools. Some feel like vim is a huge productivity boost and some don't. Some believe rust is amazing, some hate it. It's really hard to measure these things.
    - ryanjshaw 9mo ago
      Here’s a professional developer who built a product used across the planet daily saying they built a feature for said product, and then asked AI to build the same feature based on the design doc: the AI succeeded and did the same work in minutes: https://antirez.com/news/158 https://antirez.com/news/158 You could always test this yourself. Draw up a design doc for a problem, and implement it. Then ask an AI to do the same thing. Compare your time.

jaapz 9mo ago

I think in the end people will realise AI is not a silver bullet that will solve all problems and make all software engineers obsolete. Instead it will just become an extra tool in our toolbelt right alongside LSP, linters/fixers, unit test frameworks, well though out text editors and IDE's, etc. When the bubble has burst in a few years, the managers will have moved on to the next fad.

krupan 9mo ago
Yes, if it even becomes as useful as a good linter or LSP. It actually has very little I'm common with those, but maybe it could be as useful.
- disgruntledphd2 9mo ago
  It's definitely helpful for search and summarisation. In terms of prototyping, I can see the benefits but they're negated by the absurd amount of work it takes to get the code into more maintainable form. I guess you can just do really heavy review throughout, but then you lose a lot of the speed gains. That being said, putting a textual interface over everything is super cool, and will definitely have large downstream impacts, but probably not enough to justify all the spending.

hakunin 9mo ago

This is a good point, but with ai it’s a little different, because both your process and ai are getting better. You build processes that can aspirationally support inferior AIs, while at the same time AIs themselves improve and meet you half way. This thought does not help my mental well being unfortunately.

mjr00 9mo ago

It's the Jarvis Effect. For years we had people trying to make voice agents, like Iron Man's Jarvis, a thing. You had people super bought into the idea that if you could talk to your computer and say "Jarvis, book me a flight from New York to Hawaii" and it would just do it just like the movies, that was the future, that was sci-fi, it was awesome. But it turns out that voice sucks as a user interface. The only time people use voice controls is when they can't use other controls, i.e. while driving. Nobody is voluntarily booking a flight with their Alexa. There's a reason every society on the planet shifted from primarily phone calls to texting once the technology was available! It's similar with vibe coding. People like Yegge are extremely bought into the idea of being a hyperpowered coder, sitting in a dimly lit basement in front of 8 computer screens, commanding an army of agents with English, sipping coffee between barking out orders. "Agent 1, refactor that method to be more efficient. Agent 5, tighten up the graphics on level 3!" Whether or not it's effective or better than regular software development is secondary, if it's a concern at all. The purpose is the process. It's the future. It's sci-fi. It's awesome. AI is an incredible tool and we're still discovering the right way to use it, but boy, "Gas Town" is not it.

colin_jack 9mo ago
"Agent 1, refactor that method to be more efficient. Agent 5, tighten up the graphics on level 3!" I'm not sure its even that, his description of his role in this is: "You are a Product Manager, and Gas Town is an Idea Compiler. You just make up features, design them, file the implementation plans, and then sling the work around to your polecats and crew. Opus 4.5 can handle any reasonably sized task, so your job is to make tasks for it. That’s it." And he says he isn't reviewing the code, he lets agents review each others code from look of it. I am interested to see the specs/feature definitions he's giving them, that seems to be one interesting part of his flow.
- sonnig 9mo ago
  Assuming both agents are using the same model, what could the reviewer agent add of value to the agent writing the code? It feels like "thinking mode" but with extra steps, and more chance of getting them stuck in a loop trying to overcorrect some small inane detail.

krackers 9mo ago

If you add enough agents, you basically recreate the structure of human teams again. And the lessons from mythical man month etc. start applying. Large companies/teams don't seem to produce higher quality software than small ones, in fact they usually seem to be worse. At best the notion of "subagents" today seems to be a hack to work around context length limits.