Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An Honest Review of AI Programming

mropert.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 90 posts

Re: An Honest Review of AI Programming

#11

Post by duskdozer »

lnenad wrote: post #2

> An Honest Review > I do admit that this approach immediately triggered my contrarian side and made me very defiant of any AI tool. Makes sense. > While this could be partially remedied by always asking for a primary source or citation, I dislike the idea that one has to add magical incantations to their queries to get the right results. It’s a good laugh to make fun of “make no mistake” memes, until you start havin…

It just seems silly to need to beg in English for things like that. What's the entire space of things you need to think about? Can you be sure the specific way you asked would be correct, or do you also have to add "don't lie about following this instruction:"? Why not have an interface `ai --make-no-mistakes --dont-make-things-up`? I don't want to have to talk to the computer like it's people.

Re: An Honest Review of AI Programming

#12

Post by abirch »

Sharlin wrote: post #8
daishi55 wrote: post #3

> “Agentic workflow” (or whatever they’re calling it at the time you’re reading this article) > Unlike the silver bullets of the past (like microservices or NoSQL) > Hallucinations are an inherent property of how LLMs work. > It’s all marketing and buzzwords Not a serious article or thinker. I can get this stuff on Reddit if I want to read thrice-regurgitated cliches about AI.

I'd like to hear actual rebuttals to those quotes.

If you're using an LLM and not an agentic workflow then you're doing things wrong in 2026.

My agents have to pass tests meaning that if their LLM hallucinates, the agent tools capture it and not me.

Re: An Honest Review of AI Programming

#15

Post by dr0idattack »

I liked the two original experiments in the article, which in a microcosm gels with my 1+ year of deep agentic development. But I would like a whole article about his experience, and with which model (Opus? Fable? erg, Sonnet?) and effort he used.

I've progressed in using latest Claude-kins and the GPTs as usually competent teammate/buddies, and generally know to sort out the fluff confidence with the realz (shoot, that was how I was when I was but a wee little coder lad: overconfident because of an error-free compile and one non-segfault run.)

You have to put in the time, the skill creation, the system prompt/personalization, the (sometimes adversarial) automation, the testing, verification, kicking down the loop castles (as usually caused by being cheeky with highest effort levels.)

Re: An Honest Review of AI Programming

#16

Post by lnenad »

duskdozer wrote: post #11
lnenad wrote: post #2

> An Honest Review > I do admit that this approach immediately triggered my contrarian side and made me very defiant of any AI tool. Makes sense. > While this could be partially remedied by always asking for a primary source or citation, I dislike the idea that one has to add magical incantations to their queries to get the right results. It’s a good laugh to make fun of “make no mistake” memes, until you start havin…

It just seems silly to need to beg in English for things like that. What's the entire space of things you need to think about? Can you be sure the specific way you asked would be correct, or do you also have to add "don't lie about following this instruction:"? Why not have an interface `ai --make-no-mistakes --dont-make-things-up`? I don't want to have to talk to the computer like it's people.

But English is literally the interface. It's the *same* as `--make-no-mistakes`, it's just your preference compared to directly telling it to the AI which is ok. That doesn't change the fact the using the tool correctly != using the tool.

Re: An Honest Review of AI Programming

#17

Post by daishi55 »

nesarkvechnep wrote: post #10
daishi55 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the author can’t put in the effort to think of something original to say that hasn’t been said 1000x, why should I put the effort into rebutting cliches that were last relevant in 2024?

So you basically agree but complain there are no new arguments against AI programming in the article?

No, I’m not sure where you are getting the idea that I agree with what I am referring to as cliches last relevant in 2024.

Re: An Honest Review of AI Programming

#18

Post by lnenad »

Sharlin wrote: post #5
lnenad wrote: post #2

> An Honest Review > I do admit that this approach immediately triggered my contrarian side and made me very defiant of any AI tool. Makes sense. > While this could be partially remedied by always asking for a primary source or citation, I dislike the idea that one has to add magical incantations to their queries to get the right results. It’s a good laugh to make fun of “make no mistake” memes, until you start havin…

It's more like a hammer that never drives nails straight unless you hold it in a specific uncomfortable manner. You shouldn't be required to tell an information retrieval tool to actually retrieve information rather than making it up!

> It's more like a hammer that never drives nails straight unless you hold it in a specific uncomfortable manner.

I mean sure, pick any analogy, still doesn't change the fact that there are right uses and wrong uses; right ways to use it and wrong ways to use it.

> information retrieval tool

How is an LLM this? It's a non-deterministic word generator.

Re: An Honest Review of AI Programming

#19

Post by joshribakoff »

abirch wrote: post #12
Sharlin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to hear actual rebuttals to those quotes.

If you're using an LLM and not an agentic workflow then you're doing things wrong in 2026. My agents have to pass tests meaning that if their LLM hallucinates, the agent tools capture it and not me.

Some people have the agent hallucinating its own meaningless tests

Re: An Honest Review of AI Programming

#20

Post by lnenad »

K0balt wrote: post #7
lnenad wrote: post #2

> An Honest Review > I do admit that this approach immediately triggered my contrarian side and made me very defiant of any AI tool. Makes sense. > While this could be partially remedied by always asking for a primary source or citation, I dislike the idea that one has to add magical incantations to their queries to get the right results. It’s a good laugh to make fun of “make no mistake” memes, until you start havin…

To be fair, hammers are bad screwdrivers. They are faster at driving screws and require less finesse to do so, but are really bad at taking them out, often break the screw, and often result in a fastening that superficially looks correct but fails to perform well under stress. Two new types of screw, the ring-shank nonhelical fastener and the rivet, however, are changing everything. Soon, using screwdrivers will be r…

I don't really see your point. You're still using the screwdriver and it's up to you to use it when it makes sense, see if it's doing it's job properly, fix issues it creates etc... If it's not doing a good job for your particular screw don't use it. But don't say it's a horrible tool since you choose to not use it properly.

There is a middle ground between CEOisms "LLMs are literally Jesus" and people similar to this blog's author "LLMs are mostly trash."

Post reply on HN