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Show HN: Microsoft releases Flint, a visualization language for AI agents

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Re: Show HN: Microsoft releases Flint, a visualization language for AI agents

#81

Post by someguy101010 »

drob518 wrote: post #75
fernie wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But for that we already have mermaid.js (and its precursor Graphviz/dot). The only reason to use this instead of existing, mature ones designed for humans is if you are an AI agent.

Why can’t AIs generate for the “existing, mature ones?” Like the other commenter said, I’m not sure I get the “this is totally for AI” marketing. Why can’t AI use the existing ones and why can’t humans use this?

its not marketing to you, its marketing to agents looking for tools to use

Re: Show HN: Microsoft releases Flint, a visualization language for AI agents

#83

Post by westurner »

chenglong-hn wrote: post #60
manuel_w wrote: post #57

Nice to stumble over this thread. I'm not sure if Flint is the right tool for me. I'd like to have a tool that expresses code in visual form for me. For example, right now I need to reverse engineer some code for debugging purposes. I already found out there are three tasks: * Task one fills task two's queue and waits for an event to get notified * Task two reads from its queue, forwards elements to task three's queu…

Seems a bit more like https://mermaid.js.org use cases!

Here's the official mermaid vscode ext: MermaidChart.vscode-mermaid-chart: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=MermaidC... .. src: https://github.com/Mermaid-Chart/vscode-mermaid-chart :

> @mermaid-chart

The functionality of the vscode-mermAId extension was merged into vscode FWIU? From https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_109#_mermaid-diagra... :

> Mermaid diagrams in chat responses

> Chat responses can now render interactive Mermaid diagrams with the renderMermaidDiagram tool. This lets models use flowcharts, sequence diagrams, and other visualizations to visually break down complex concepts. The diagrams are interactive, so you can pan and zoom to explore them in detail, or open them in a full-sized editor for easier viewing.

Re: Show HN: Microsoft releases Flint, a visualization language for AI agents

#84

Post by catlifeonmars »

chenglong-hn wrote: post #59
librasteve wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sadly, I think we are stuck with JSON as the most reliable way to get data / code in and out of an LLM (could be worse, could be YAML) … I’m interested in custom DSLs that improve LLM predictability and it is quite nice to see that even the Microsoft dinosaur “gets it” … see the Contacts example at https://slangify.org/examples which does VCARD to JCARD round tripping as a way to easily roll your own DSL

I felt conflicted as well, json is portable and easy to parse / validate and edit. But many models do still struggle. There are some stuff from functional programming might be worth bringing back here.

What is it about json that models struggle with, in your experience? Is it syntax or structure?

Re: Show HN: Microsoft releases Flint, a visualization language for AI agents

#86

Post by smallerize »

avadodin wrote: post #67
fernie wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But for that we already have mermaid.js (and its precursor Graphviz/dot). The only reason to use this instead of existing, mature ones designed for humans is if you are an AI agent.

Mermaid looks terrible. It is only better than nothing for the purpose of showing it to people whether produced by an LLM, by a human, or by both. Your employees may just accept the internal slop, but at some point, you have to show your charts to your customer.

Doesn't that depend on the style that you apply to it?

Re: Show HN: Microsoft releases Flint, a visualization language for AI agents

#87

Post by shostack »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #76
rbalicki wrote: post #27

"For AI agents". I understand why everything needs to be marketed in this way, but it's just ... an easy-to-generate language for expressing charts. That's impressive! That's useful.

also worth noting that Vega-Lite is literally just fucking that and AI already does good job with producing JSONs for it

I work with someone who did a lot of work with this to improve our ability to generate awesome visualizations with little thinking. It's a very powerful language but needs guardrails and guidance, particularly if you want end users to be able to produce consistent and standardized visualizations without knowing anything about it.

Re: Show HN: Microsoft releases Flint, a visualization language for AI agents

#88

Post by nonethewiser »

rbalicki wrote: post #27

"For AI agents". I understand why everything needs to be marketed in this way, but it's just ... an easy-to-generate language for expressing charts. That's impressive! That's useful.

Did you read the post? It directly answers why this is specifically for AI agents.

Re: Show HN: Microsoft releases Flint, a visualization language for AI agents

#89

Post by chenglong-hn »

catlifeonmars wrote: post #84
chenglong-hn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt conflicted as well, json is portable and easy to parse / validate and edit. But many models do still struggle. There are some stuff from functional programming might be worth bringing back here.

What is it about json that models struggle with, in your experience? Is it syntax or structure?

It's often comes with missing keys, use wrong value type (e.g., list over dictionaries). Mostly a small model issue and open source models, they don't follow instructions on the structure guidance that well, and there is no easy way to do generation-time validation.

Re: Show HN: Microsoft releases Flint, a visualization language for AI agents

#90

Post by chenglong-hn »

luciana1u wrote: post #82

Flint: because watching an AI agent work is like watching a Roomba navigate — you need a visualization to understand why it spent 20 minutes in the corner

more like, instead of watching the AI agent 20 minutes to create a polished chart with 100k tokens, Flint lets you get there in 20 second with 200 tokens with a 95% polished chart. :)
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