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Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

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Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#161

Post by gozucito »

2 to 5 tabs in warp. Kinda want to figure out how to properly use iterm+tmux to have the boris cherny experience. already used both but there were issues with tmux with either scroll back, or copy paste or other similar things that get broken, even after mesing with settings.

i use git worktrees in different tabs as needed.

i have git push hooks that audit the code diffs for security issues by 2+ frontier models For code quality with a FAIL/CLOSED condition where both have to give the OK.

i have to do a pass and ask it to shorten the code, remove unnecessary comments and excessive exception gathering, etc. Generally cuts the code by half. The process is repeatable.

i just use claude code or codex with minimal plugins (HUD, frontend design). I would do even more if I had 10x or 100x the tokens and/or token/s available. I spend a lot of time waiting on 5.5 or Fable 5 to work, even when multi-tasking.

I spend the downtime writing detailed follow up or unrelated prompts.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#162

Post by weitendorf »

aleqs wrote: post #140
weitendorf wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company tried to build something like this pre-TUI as a tool-AI-IO dag dispatcher. The biggest mistake I made was thinking that people would have no problem figuring out how they could translate their work or define multi-step automations, and focusing on the orchestration and sandboxing thinking that was the core, when it was really figuring out how to get the onboarding UX/complexity to not feel daunting or more…

I'm my case a workflow is basically an active/living graph of nodes/sub-tasks. One node can process a task (with all relevant context) and create multiple fan-out tasks, or it can add additional context/requirements and pass it along to another node. The message/task passing is all implemented as queue - nodes subscribe to messages/tasks addressed to them and execute them, producing more tasks (or zero new tasks). Fo…

How do you test it across different workloads and are you running it in a datacenter or cloud provider?

I forgot to mention it but the other major problem I underestimated was giving the permission to potentially spend lots of money to AI calling each other in ways I didn't have a good way to monitor, and didn't want to actively watch. So I wanted to set budgets and have them get passed to children, and realized that meant I had to build a pretty complicated billing/scheduling system with a way to keep the part of it with all the permissions and money safe from the AI doing AI stuff on its own, and set up NAT and firewalls and all this other stuff.

If every child can loop back up to its parent, and everything can run stuff from the Internet, and make expensive resource decisions, and get restarted if it fails, then it might not ever converge on being done, or get infected or just mess up and spend a lot of money. I ask about the testing matrix/driver you're using because that's where I realized there was a lot of work and cost involved in getting that part working well enough to run real workloads.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#163

Post by [deleted] »

ninjis wrote: post #153
vitally3643 wrote: post #116

I, like many nerds of the same stripe, have a dragon's hoard of every PC component I've owned in the last 20 years. I've attached as much of it to my homelab as is practical, but there's still a pile of GPUs from the last decade plus. So I decided to load up everything with more then 3GB of VRAM into various machines on the network. Anything that could conceivably run an LLM of any utility. I've been experimenting wi…

Does this unit have a soul?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#164

Post by pkoird »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #101

I'm using what I call "hermetic agents", where completely sandboxed agents write code and tests from the same specification, where the code writer can't see the test and the test writer can't see the code. The idea is that we can get better quality this way (by avoiding confirmation bias between code and tests). It is more painful to set up however, since you have to distill a spec and guides that the agent would nor…

Literally converged to this same pattern over this month.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#165

Post by Tadpole9181 »

gozucito wrote: post #161

2 to 5 tabs in warp. Kinda want to figure out how to properly use iterm+tmux to have the boris cherny experience. already used both but there were issues with tmux with either scroll back, or copy paste or other similar things that get broken, even after mesing with settings. i use git worktrees in different tabs as needed. i have git push hooks that audit the code diffs for security issues by 2+ frontier models For…

Started using https://herdr.dev/ and it's fantastic as a replacement for `tmux` with _much_ better mouse support.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#166

Post by chatmasta »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #101

I'm using what I call "hermetic agents", where completely sandboxed agents write code and tests from the same specification, where the code writer can't see the test and the test writer can't see the code. The idea is that we can get better quality this way (by avoiding confirmation bias between code and tests). It is more painful to set up however, since you have to distill a spec and guides that the agent would nor…

This is similar to how our college CS problem sets were graded. We were given a spec, and we had to implement a program that conformed to it. We had access to 70% of the test suite during development, and another 30% was hidden and only evaluated after submission. We were graded out of 100.

It was effective at making you think about the problem and anticipate what tests might be missing. I can see how this would be effective for coding agents, which tend to get progressively lazier at writing tests as session context grows.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#167

Post by chatmasta »

tombot wrote: post #73

"I haven't been able to enter flow state like I can when I hand write code." new flow state is having 10 terminal tabs in diff worktrees and trying to remember what each bit is

It hits the exact same endorphin system as “one more turn” style games like Civ. You can manage a few cities and keep them healthy, but the rest of your empire eventually regresses into a set of chores. Any time you encounter one of your zero growth cities you just queue some thoughtless production automation to keep it out of your “next turn” cycle as long as possible.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#169

Post by ernsheong »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #101

I'm using what I call "hermetic agents", where completely sandboxed agents write code and tests from the same specification, where the code writer can't see the test and the test writer can't see the code. The idea is that we can get better quality this way (by avoiding confirmation bias between code and tests). It is more painful to set up however, since you have to distill a spec and guides that the agent would nor…

do you mind sharing the more specific setup or agent framework? Hermes? LangChain? DIY?

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?

#170

Post by epihelix »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #95
npollock wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

exactly, it's like Bobby Fischer playing 10 games of chess simultaneously

so Step 1: Be Bobby Fischer? super helpful for us mortals...

Try intimidating the LLM as it writes your code.

That Claude Code regex for curse words? Turns out Anthropic was just looking for the next coding Bobby Fisher ...

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