Live data from Hacker News

Why agents are bad pair programmers

justin.searls.co

71–80 of 239 posts

Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling someone "on the first peak of the Dunning-Kruger curve" is patronizing them.

How would you have handled it?

Here is how I might have handled it differently:

Instead of

> Meanwhile, plenty of us have found a way to enhance our productivity during deep work. No need for the patronization.

you could have written

> Personally, I found doing X does enhance my productivity during deep work.

Why it's better: 1) cuts out the confrontation (“you're being patronizing!”), 2) offers the information directly instead of merely implying that you've found it, and 3) speaks for yourself and avoids the generalization about “plenty of people”, which could be taken as a veiled insult (“you must be living as a hermit or something”).

Next:

> You can do better than a No true Scotsman fallacy.

Even if the comment were a No True Scotsman, I would not have made that fact the central thesis of this paragraph. Instead, I might have explained the error in the argument instead. Advantages: 1) you can come out clean in the case that you might be wrong about the fallacy, and 2) the commenter might appreciate the insight.

Reason you're wrong in this case: The commenter referred entirely to their own experience and made no “true programmer” assertions.

Next:

> Essentially, this is a skill issue [...] Dunning–Kruger curve [...] chose to assume that you knew better. [...]

I would have left out these entire two paragraphs. As best as I can tell, they contain only personal attacks. As a result, the reader comes away feeling like your only purpose here is to put others down. Instead, when you wrote

> You could have asked for tips

I personally would have just written out the tips. Advantage: the reader may find it useful in the best case, and even if not, at least appreciate your contribution.

Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers

#72

Finally someone said it, they're overconfident in their approach, don't consult us with the details of the implementation, they're trained to create mock APIs that don't follow structure, leading to lot of rework. The LLM actions should be measured, collaborative, ask for details when it's not present. It is impossible to give every single detail in the initial prompt, and a follow up prompt derails the train thought…

Also giving them more details seems to confuse them. There is probably a way around this, though. They are pretty good in finding a tiny silver of information out of the ocean. What I hate is that the industry is all geared toward the same model (chat bot). Imagine if we never invented the keyboard, mouse, GUI, touch screen, etc...

Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Analysis in the last 5-10 years has shown the Dunning-Kruger effect may not really exist. So it’s a poor basis on which to be judgmental and condescending.

> judgmental and condescending pushing back against judgement and condescension is not judgemental and condescending. > may not really exist I'm open to reading over any resources you would like to provide, maybe it's "real", maybe it isn't, but I have personally both experienced and witnessed the effect in myself, other individuals and groups. It's a good heuristic for certain scenarios, even if it isn't necesarily…

I would invite you to re-read some of the comments you perceived as judgement and condescension and keep an open mind. You might find that you took them as judgement and condescension unfairly.

Meanwhile, you have absolutely been judgemental and condescending yourself. If you really keep the open mind that you profess, you'll take a moment to reflect on this and not dismiss it out of hand. It does not do you any favors to blissfully assume everyone is wrong about you and obliviously continue to be judgmental and condescending.

Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers

#75
> Allow users to pause the agent to ask a clarifying question or push back on its direction without derailing the entire activity or train of thought

I think I’ve seen Zed/Claude do kind of this. A couple times, I’ve hit return, and then see that I missed a clarifying statement based on the direction it starts going and I put it in fast, and it corrects.

Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers

#76

When I first tried an LLM agent, I was hoping for an interactive, 2-way, pair collaboration. Instead, what I got was a pairing partner who wanted to do everything themselves. I couldn't even tweak the code they had written, because it would mess up their context. I want a pairing partner where I can write a little, they write a little, I write a little, they write a little. You know, an actual collaboration.

In all honesty - have you tried doing what you would do with a paired programmer - that is, talk to them about it? Communicate? I’ve never had trouble getting cursor or copilot to chat with me about solutions first before making changes, and usually they’ll notice if I make my own changes and say “oh, I see you already added XYZ, I’ll go ahead and move on to the next part.”

I’ve never had trouble getting cursor or copilot to chat with me about solutions first before making changes

Never had any trouble.... and then they lived together happy forever.

Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers

#77
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second this. My solution is to have a 'non-AI' IDE and then a Cursor/VS Code to switch between. Deep work cannot be achieved by chatting with the coding bots, sorry.

I do this as well and it works quite well for me like that! Additionally, when working on microservices and on issues that don’t seem too straightforward, I use o3 and copy the whole code of the repo into the prompt and refine a plan there and then paste it as a prompt into cursor. Handy if you don’t have MAX mode, but a company-sponsored ChatGPT.

I do this too by pasting only the relevant context files into O3 or Claude 4. We have an internal tool that just lets us select folders/files and spit out one giant markdown.

Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers

#78

Pair programming is also not suitable for all cases Maybe not for many cases I mentioned this elsewhere but I find it absolutely impossible to get into a good programming flow anymore while the LLM constantly interrupts me with suggested autocompletes that I have to stop, read, review, and accept/reject It's been miserable trying to incorporate this into my workflow

Zed has a "subtle" mode, hopefully that feature can become table stakes in all AI editor integrations

Re: Why agents are bad pair programmers

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Deep work cannot be achieved by chatting with the coding bots, sorry. ...by you. Meanwhile, plenty of us have found a way to enhance our productivity during deep work. No need for the patronization.

I don't believe you experience deep work the same way I do then In my mind you cannot do deep work while being interrupted constantly, and LLM agents are constant interruptions

This sounds like an issue with the specific UI setup you are using. I have mine configured so it only starts doing stuff if I ask it to. It never interrupts me.
Post reply on HN