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Apache Burr: Build reliable AI agents and applications

burr.apache.org

21–30 of 125 posts

Re: Apache Burr: Build reliable AI agents and applications

#22
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Builder pattern isn't only used in Rust, but I agree it's hideous to use in Python.

Fair point. I should have said "popularized in the modern software vernacular by Rust".

I think of Java immediately when I hear Builder Pattern, and I think anyone who has ever touched Java does as well.

Re: Apache Burr: Build reliable AI agents and applications

#23
post #6

I'm still on the fence about agent frameworks, they have their place, and it depends on the nature of the agent: e.g. "Low latency, return a good enough response in 3 seconds, vs. working for 3 hours on a problem." BUT, if you boil it down, an agent really is context building, making an LLM call, executing requested tool calls, parsing the final model output, returning it to some frontend. There's extensions like mem…

my job rn is just building agents

the hard part about building agents isnt the framework it's discovery, context, traditional engineering, handling the last mile

there are some invariants like the loop, tools, observability, guardrails, monitors etc...

Re: Apache Burr: Build reliable AI agents and applications

#25
post #6

I'm still on the fence about agent frameworks, they have their place, and it depends on the nature of the agent: e.g. "Low latency, return a good enough response in 3 seconds, vs. working for 3 hours on a problem." BUT, if you boil it down, an agent really is context building, making an LLM call, executing requested tool calls, parsing the final model output, returning it to some frontend. There's extensions like mem…

Obscuring core logic is the most egregious part of most agent frameworks. One needs a clear view of what, exactly, is being sent to the underlying language model, and what's coming back. Everything in an 'agentic' application is realized as a sequence of tokens or a call to a provider eventually. It should be clear and obvious from ~all layers of the app what that's going to look like.

Re: Apache Burr: Build reliable AI agents and applications

#26
post #13

A builder pattern and decorators. Yes, Python has decorators, but they're best used as "filters" that apply to functions or methods. Cache this, serialize the output of this function always, prepare this function to be used as a tool by an agentic harness. Not registration, not flow control. You may disagree but someone has to say it; FastAPI influenced the modern use of decorators far too much in the wrong direction…

Builder pattern isn't only used in Rust, but I agree it's hideous to use in Python.

Doesn't look any different than doing the same in C# or Java to me, it is kind of pointless in Python, the one thing the pattern gives you is building a class in such a way that you the developer know exactly what's what, so its really a developer ergonomics thing is how it looks like to me.

Re: Apache Burr: Build reliable AI agents and applications

#27

How does this compare to https://strandsagents.com/ ? I'm interested in tools in this space, right now I'm not attached to one, but Bedrock + Serverless on Agent Core feels like the "easy guided path" though I don't like the platform lock-in

Curious about other experiences.

I’ve been playing with this stack and left wondering if Strands provides any secret sauce with Agent Core. So far it doesn’t feel that way and sometimes they even feel at odds with each other.

Re: Apache Burr: Build reliable AI agents and applications

#28
post #23
post #6

I'm still on the fence about agent frameworks, they have their place, and it depends on the nature of the agent: e.g. "Low latency, return a good enough response in 3 seconds, vs. working for 3 hours on a problem." BUT, if you boil it down, an agent really is context building, making an LLM call, executing requested tool calls, parsing the final model output, returning it to some frontend. There's extensions like mem…

my job rn is just building agents the hard part about building agents isnt the framework it's discovery, context, traditional engineering, handling the last mile there are some invariants like the loop, tools, observability, guardrails, monitors etc...

100% agreed, the "this is what an agent looks like to write" is the wrong pitch for a new agent framework.

The better pitch would be, "this is how easy observability, guardrails, monitoring, deployment, evals, versioning, A/B testing are with our framework." What the agent code looks like is somewhat incidental.

Re: Apache Burr: Build reliable AI agents and applications

#29
post #6

I'm still on the fence about agent frameworks, they have their place, and it depends on the nature of the agent: e.g. "Low latency, return a good enough response in 3 seconds, vs. working for 3 hours on a problem." BUT, if you boil it down, an agent really is context building, making an LLM call, executing requested tool calls, parsing the final model output, returning it to some frontend. There's extensions like mem…

Obscuring core logic is the most egregious part of most agent frameworks. One needs a clear view of what, exactly, is being sent to the underlying language model, and what's coming back. Everything in an 'agentic' application is realized as a sequence of tokens or a call to a provider eventually. It should be clear and obvious from ~all layers of the app what that's going to look like.

Have a look at pi.

Re: Apache Burr: Build reliable AI agents and applications

#30
post #6

I'm still on the fence about agent frameworks, they have their place, and it depends on the nature of the agent: e.g. "Low latency, return a good enough response in 3 seconds, vs. working for 3 hours on a problem." BUT, if you boil it down, an agent really is context building, making an LLM call, executing requested tool calls, parsing the final model output, returning it to some frontend. There's extensions like mem…

I like to think of it as "AI prompting algorithms". Like instead of just this prompt gets this result it's A prompt then B prompt the C prompt gets a result.

And just like when people were trying to figure out which sorting algorithm made the most sense, we are all just trying to figure out which prompt algorithms with which models lead to good results.

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