4 ms·

> Being contrarian for the sake of it is not good form. Why would you say that? Is it good form to post that someone is being contrarian for the sake of it? OP

> Being contrarian for the sake of it is not good form. Why would you say that? Is it good form to post that someone is being contrarian for the sake of it? OP’s comment looks like constructive criticism with plenty of good points. > It took the same amount of time (3.5 seconds) as cursor-agent and codex on my machine. So what? Nobody is pretending that these are minimalist. Codex is 1.2M of Rust LOC. > which necessarily means that you have some powerful and expressive extension language, ideally the one the harness was written in. Don’t be silly, JS is a joke. I was going to check Pi out, but now that I know it’s based on a shitty stack, I’m staying the fuck away from it. I don’t have the RAM to spare. > If these are your complaints, then this is one of the strongest endorsements of Pi that I've ever seen. I think I'm bookmarking this comment. > good form

r_lee 2mo ago
I seriously don't get the hate for JS/TS. it's a lot more ergonomic than Lua. just yesterday I saw someone claim they'd rather learn COBOL and use it than use JS it's ridiculous imo. the ram usage is one thing sure, but then it also means you can't use Claude Code because it also runs on top of JS. so I guess we should all stop using Claude Code, right? cause it's "based on a shitty stack"
- throwuxiytayq 2mo ago
  Consider this: - I regularly have 10+ instances of my harness running or idling on my laptop. - My laptop is often at near-100% CPU and memory usage due to the (irreducible) cost of the development tools and environment. - I often (50% of the time) downclock my laptop’s CPU to 1-2 GHz to save battery and/or reduce noise and thermals while charging. - I sometimes run my harness on machines that are low-power, low-RAM single-board computers. If my harness was written in JS, this would be both annoying in terms of responsiveness and limiting in terms of how much work I can do in parallel. This is why using JS for serious software is a... subpar decision. > but then it also means you can't use Claude Code because it also runs on top of JS. Correct. I don’t use Claude Code.
  - r_lee 2mo ago
    That's fair. I think with a lot of these harnesses they didn't really think people would be running so many instances of them at once I think for claude code it really would be best if they made it native, but for plugins I think JS wins, because it's just a lot more easier for most to write plugins in that. from my POV the performance used to be bad but it's pretty good now, every now and then though it'll start just growing in memory usage and needs to be restarted every now and then. so if you'd 10x that then I could see it really limiting workflows, especially with SBCs
  - throw10920 2mo ago
    The claims being made here are fallacious in three extremely basic ways. First, "I regularly have 10+ instances of my harness running or idling on my laptop" implicitly asserts that you need that many instances running at once. You don't. You can have a single instance running that handles your sessions in parallel. Second, "I sometimes run my harness on machines that are low-power, low-RAM single-board computers." presumes the whole agent has to run on the SBC itself. It doesn't. There are agents (including Pi, which makes this even sillier) that can run their tool calls in a separate process/host, meaning that the agent can live on your development machine while the tiny tool-call daemon runs on the SBC. Finally, "If my harness was written in JS, this would be both annoying in terms of responsiveness and limiting in terms of how much work I can do in parallel." could only be written out of a complete lack of understanding about how harnesses are actually implemented. Agent harnesses don't do very much. The limiting factor is not the harness itself, but in the filesystem (reads, writes, file searches, greps), the computational tool calls (compilers, linters, evaluating the program), and the LLM API itself. Your arguments against Javascript appear to be based on fallacies, lack of understanding of technology, and strong emotions against JS rather than actual fact.
    - throwuxiytayq 2mo ago
      This is getting silly, I can’t tell whether you are kidding, never launched a Node-based app, or never checked htop. > that can run their tool calls in a separate process/host That indeed seems like a simple and elegant setup. I can’t recall a single instance of using a harness when I didn’t want the tool calls to be local, though. Why would I be SSHing into a SBC just to run the agent back on my laptop? > You can have a single instance running that handles your sessions in parallel. Sounds even more elegant! Presumably, they communicate via HTTP? > implicitly asserts that you need that many instances running at once. I don’t need to, but I can. That’s the entire point, in case you’re still missing it. > Your arguments against Javascript appear to be based on fallacies, lack of understanding of technology, and strong emotions against JS rather than actual fact. How beautifully ironic.
throw10920 2mo ago
>> Being contrarian for the sake of it is not good form. > Why would you say that? Because it's true. > Is it good form to post that someone is being contrarian for the sake of it? It's orthogonal to good form - it's preserving the value of HN, which is meant for intellectual curiosity and not knee-jerk emotional reactions, like your comment. > OP’s comment looks like constructive criticism with plenty of good points. You must have missed the very first line in their comment where they said: > Lots of praise for Pi in this thread, so I'll offer up a diverging opinion. ...which is literally admitting to being reflexively contrarian. Additionally, their criticisms were extremely shallow and/or misleading, and I addressed every one. > So what? Nobody is inconvenienced by a 3.5s startup time of an application meant to run for hours or days. That's a trivial complaint akin to arguing about the color of paint on a bikeshed. > Don’t be silly, JS is a joke. I was going to check Pi out, but now that I know it’s based on a shitty stack, I’m staying the fuck away from it. I don’t have the RAM to spare. You're just operating based on emotion and not a state of reason or intellectual curiosity. And I highly doubt that you "were going to check Pi out" - this wording follows the pattern of fabricating falsehoods out rage due to an opinion expressed that you didn't like. >> If these are your complaints, then this is one of the strongest endorsements of Pi that I've ever seen. I think I'm bookmarking this comment. >> good form Did you forget to make a point here?
- throwuxiytayq 2mo ago
  > Nobody is inconvenienced by a 3.5s startup time of an application meant to run for hours or days. For the record, I measure acceptable latency in milliseconds. I think it has something to do with my brain. > which is literally admitting to being reflexively contrarian. They’re very clearly stating that they’re expressing their opinion because it is underrepresented. > Did you forget to make a point here? No.
  - throw10920 2mo ago
    > For the record, I measure acceptable latency in milliseconds. I think it has something to do with my brain. That's a personal preference thing. You're not really being inconvenienced. > They’re very clearly stating that they’re expressing their opinion because it is underrepresented. That's literally the dictionary definition of being contrarian: "A person who likes or tends to express a contradicting viewpoint, especially from one held by a majority of people, usually because of nonconformity or spite." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/contrarian https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/contrarian https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/contrarian https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/contrari... https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contrarian https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contrarian I suggest consulting the dictionary before using terms you're not familiar with. > No. If you're going to copy-paste random pieces of text without making a point, you probably shouldn't be on HN. HN is for intellectual curiosity and debate, not Reddit-esque expressions of randomness conflated wuth humor.

r_lee 2mo ago

I seriously don't get the hate for JS/TS. it's a lot more ergonomic than Lua. just yesterday I saw someone claim they'd rather learn COBOL and use it than use JS it's ridiculous imo. the ram usage is one thing sure, but then it also means you can't use Claude Code because it also runs on top of JS. so I guess we should all stop using Claude Code, right? cause it's "based on a shitty stack"

throwuxiytayq 2mo ago
Consider this: - I regularly have 10+ instances of my harness running or idling on my laptop. - My laptop is often at near-100% CPU and memory usage due to the (irreducible) cost of the development tools and environment. - I often (50% of the time) downclock my laptop’s CPU to 1-2 GHz to save battery and/or reduce noise and thermals while charging. - I sometimes run my harness on machines that are low-power, low-RAM single-board computers. If my harness was written in JS, this would be both annoying in terms of responsiveness and limiting in terms of how much work I can do in parallel. This is why using JS for serious software is a... subpar decision. > but then it also means you can't use Claude Code because it also runs on top of JS. Correct. I don’t use Claude Code.
- r_lee 2mo ago
  That's fair. I think with a lot of these harnesses they didn't really think people would be running so many instances of them at once I think for claude code it really would be best if they made it native, but for plugins I think JS wins, because it's just a lot more easier for most to write plugins in that. from my POV the performance used to be bad but it's pretty good now, every now and then though it'll start just growing in memory usage and needs to be restarted every now and then. so if you'd 10x that then I could see it really limiting workflows, especially with SBCs
- throw10920 2mo ago
  The claims being made here are fallacious in three extremely basic ways. First, "I regularly have 10+ instances of my harness running or idling on my laptop" implicitly asserts that you need that many instances running at once. You don't. You can have a single instance running that handles your sessions in parallel. Second, "I sometimes run my harness on machines that are low-power, low-RAM single-board computers." presumes the whole agent has to run on the SBC itself. It doesn't. There are agents (including Pi, which makes this even sillier) that can run their tool calls in a separate process/host, meaning that the agent can live on your development machine while the tiny tool-call daemon runs on the SBC. Finally, "If my harness was written in JS, this would be both annoying in terms of responsiveness and limiting in terms of how much work I can do in parallel." could only be written out of a complete lack of understanding about how harnesses are actually implemented. Agent harnesses don't do very much. The limiting factor is not the harness itself, but in the filesystem (reads, writes, file searches, greps), the computational tool calls (compilers, linters, evaluating the program), and the LLM API itself. Your arguments against Javascript appear to be based on fallacies, lack of understanding of technology, and strong emotions against JS rather than actual fact.
  - throwuxiytayq 2mo ago
    This is getting silly, I can’t tell whether you are kidding, never launched a Node-based app, or never checked htop. > that can run their tool calls in a separate process/host That indeed seems like a simple and elegant setup. I can’t recall a single instance of using a harness when I didn’t want the tool calls to be local, though. Why would I be SSHing into a SBC just to run the agent back on my laptop? > You can have a single instance running that handles your sessions in parallel. Sounds even more elegant! Presumably, they communicate via HTTP? > implicitly asserts that you need that many instances running at once. I don’t need to, but I can. That’s the entire point, in case you’re still missing it. > Your arguments against Javascript appear to be based on fallacies, lack of understanding of technology, and strong emotions against JS rather than actual fact. How beautifully ironic.

throw10920 2mo ago

>> Being contrarian for the sake of it is not good form. > Why would you say that? Because it's true. > Is it good form to post that someone is being contrarian for the sake of it? It's orthogonal to good form - it's preserving the value of HN, which is meant for intellectual curiosity and not knee-jerk emotional reactions, like your comment. > OP’s comment looks like constructive criticism with plenty of good points. You must have missed the very first line in their comment where they said: > Lots of praise for Pi in this thread, so I'll offer up a diverging opinion. ...which is literally admitting to being reflexively contrarian. Additionally, their criticisms were extremely shallow and/or misleading, and I addressed every one. > So what? Nobody is inconvenienced by a 3.5s startup time of an application meant to run for hours or days. That's a trivial complaint akin to arguing about the color of paint on a bikeshed. > Don’t be silly, JS is a joke. I was going to check Pi out, but now that I know it’s based on a shitty stack, I’m staying the fuck away from it. I don’t have the RAM to spare. You're just operating based on emotion and not a state of reason or intellectual curiosity. And I highly doubt that you "were going to check Pi out" - this wording follows the pattern of fabricating falsehoods out rage due to an opinion expressed that you didn't like. >> If these are your complaints, then this is one of the strongest endorsements of Pi that I've ever seen. I think I'm bookmarking this comment. >> good form Did you forget to make a point here?

throwuxiytayq 2mo ago
> Nobody is inconvenienced by a 3.5s startup time of an application meant to run for hours or days. For the record, I measure acceptable latency in milliseconds. I think it has something to do with my brain. > which is literally admitting to being reflexively contrarian. They’re very clearly stating that they’re expressing their opinion because it is underrepresented. > Did you forget to make a point here? No.
- throw10920 2mo ago
  > For the record, I measure acceptable latency in milliseconds. I think it has something to do with my brain. That's a personal preference thing. You're not really being inconvenienced. > They’re very clearly stating that they’re expressing their opinion because it is underrepresented. That's literally the dictionary definition of being contrarian: "A person who likes or tends to express a contradicting viewpoint, especially from one held by a majority of people, usually because of nonconformity or spite." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/contrarian https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/contrarian https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/contrarian https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/contrari... https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contrarian https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contrarian I suggest consulting the dictionary before using terms you're not familiar with. > No. If you're going to copy-paste random pieces of text without making a point, you probably shouldn't be on HN. HN is for intellectual curiosity and debate, not Reddit-esque expressions of randomness conflated wuth humor.