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Launch HN: Sweep (YC S23) – A bot to create simple PRs in your codebase

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Re: Launch HN: Sweep (YC S23) – A bot to create simple PRs in your codebase

#111

Post by williamzeng0 »

maccard wrote: post #99
williamzeng0 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the suggestion, we’re actually going to spend the weekend hacking at a user configurable step that handles different types of tests. I’m personally a fan of letting users insert their own instructions per repository, and Sweep can use that for each PR.

Yeah, a `sweep.yml` file (or whatever you guys choose) would be ideal. I'm not put off by having to add a tag to the issue, or asking sweep directly to write a test for me.

We have that! You can directly append to our system prompt here to customize Sweep https://github.com/sweepai/sweep/blob/main/sweep.yaml

Re: Launch HN: Sweep (YC S23) – A bot to create simple PRs in your codebase

#112

Post by victorantos »

huijzer wrote: post #7

I think this makes sense. I've seen many situations of large software projects where some bug is just open for months or even years and actually very easy to fix. In hindsight then, it was then a lot of missed value if the bug just lingered around for no good reason. If there was some tool that could just run in the background and randomly pop up a PR from time to time, then that would be cool. Good luck!

The risk of introducing new bugs while fixing old ones should not be underestimated. Software development is a delicate process, and even seemingly minor bug fixes can have unintended consequences. Striking a balance between bug fixing and feature development is crucial to maintain a stable and reliable codebase.

Re: Launch HN: Sweep (YC S23) – A bot to create simple PRs in your codebase

#114

Post by andrejcasey »

I've been building C++ applications professionally for several years now and can say that AI tools like this are just marketing hype. There are codebases with years of legacy cruft that most people have difficulty navigating; there's no chance that ChatGPT and derivatives like Sweep will solve real, nontrivial problems in them. I wish there was a solution for technical debt, but using AI to approximate solutions is a fundamentally flawed approach.

Re: Launch HN: Sweep (YC S23) – A bot to create simple PRs in your codebase

#115

Post by andrejcasey »

williamzeng0 wrote: post #23
sidlls wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It remains to be seen whether that’s a benefit. This tool replaces experience junior engineers have needed to become better developers. Its future value is dependent strongly on the assumption that AI tools like this will evolve quickly enough to make using them more valuable than other experience. After all, if it doesn’t keep pace, the two-tier system I mentioned in my other comment will definitively be such that s…

Interesting, that change would take some time to materialize. In the meantime it might be best to adopt both? I don't see it as a complete substitute. Right now you could have some junior devs picking up work that Sweep can't handle in order to grow and learn, and eventually still become senior devs. Having a small team also helps with mentorship (more focused attention).

From what I've seen in this thread, that basically means junior devs still need to learn about the entire codebase before working on anything meaningful. I have to say I'm very skeptical of AI tools actually replacing developers because AI tools depend so critically on data to function.

Re: Launch HN: Sweep (YC S23) – A bot to create simple PRs in your codebase

#116

Post by andrejcasey »

kevinlu1248 wrote: post #75
eldavido wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're going to see a lot of this. I worked in self-driving and the stuff always 95% worked. Never 100. This is useful in some ways. Thinking about situations like pre-release software testing, there are exploratory test cases that are simply too numerous to ever have a human perform economically. A lot of AI is going to do this kind of very low-valued grunt work where it doesn't matter if it's 90% or 99% corr…

I think for teams that want to move fast in a non-critical environment (health, finance etc.) something that works 90% of the time is fine. Getting to 95% takes twice the amount of time but does not provide twice the value. When the 5% difference becomes the difference maker we can fix it later. Further, we're adding better test systems to Sweep. For now, you can just comment to get Sweep to cover the edge cases and…

Sorry but unless the core business is making statistical predictions, then you're wrong. Other industries (like health and finance) still need robust applications with like 99.99% uptime.

Re: Launch HN: Sweep (YC S23) – A bot to create simple PRs in your codebase

#117

Post by novawhisper23 »

dottedmag wrote: post #60

CC-NC-SA is not an open-source license. Please do not use "open source" to describe your software in your marketing materials.

These AI startups need to resort to slimy measures to attract people to their useless product. What else is new?
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