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MCP is a fad

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Re: MCP is a fad

#101

Post by karussell »

fzaninotto wrote: post #73

I think this article misses the most important point of MCP: Authentication. Granted, it wasn't in the initial spec, but it is now, and it really opens interoperability without compromising on security. Think about how to provide your SaaS service to users of ChatGPT or Claude.ai (not only coding tools like VSCode). At one time, the user will need to allow the SaaS service to interact with their agent, and will have…

Wouldn't the OpenAPI spec work too? Then no additional components are necessary. Just a link to the spec file...

Re: MCP is a fad

#102

Post by karussell »

fergie wrote: post #64

You only have to spend 5 minutes browsing for MCP servers to see that there is an issue with AI slop. MCP is probably the first "standard" to be built out in the vibe-coding era and it really shows. As mentioned in the article, its not clear to me what the advantage over OpenAPI is. Surely a swagger file solves more or less the same issue. That said, one minor nice thing about the MCP servers is that they operate loc…

What do you mean with "locally over stdin/stdout"? This is only true if the MCP server (and original service) runs locally.

Re: MCP is a fad

#103

Post by karussell »

whoevercares wrote: post #88

From an enterprise adoption standpoint, remote MCP addresses the connector problem and can be easily retrofitted into enterprise-wide gateway services. In contrast, building tools is significantly more expensive for enterprises with large, existing API surfaces. Most of the concerns can be addressed by a gateway service

But why the effort if a description (like OpenAPI spec) of your existing API is completely sufficient for using the API? A new and separate MCP service will introduce new and separate issues where the OpenAPI spec helps you strengthening your existing API.

Re: MCP is a fad

#105

Post by bschmidt800 »

kburman wrote: post #18

This analysis dismisses MCP by focusing too narrowly on local file system interactions. The real value isn't just running scripts; it's interoperability. MCP allows any client (Claude, Cursor, IDEs) to dynamically discover and interact with any resource (Postgres, Slack) without custom glue code. Comparing it to local scripts is like calling USB a fad because parallel ports worked for printers. The power is standardi…

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Re: MCP is a fad

#106

Post by bschmidt900 »

m4rtink wrote: post #14

I don't think MCP is a fad - I think it is the 2020s equivalent of: - Active X - asbestos - leaded gasoline and paint - radium medicines Well, with the exception of the first 3 actually being quite useful.

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Re: MCP is a fad

#107

Post by owebmaster »

"MCP is a fad!" Vs "Claude Code is amazing!"

I think Anthropic is happy with this development. Open sourced their secret sauce but many people are missing it

Re: MCP is a fad

#108

Post by nextaccountic »

> Robust security against agent actions going haywire can be achieved via command runners like just or make. These tools provide everything that MCP does - command specifications, descriptions, arguments. Agents allow you to specify what command prefixes can be invoked without approval - put your agent commands in a justfile, and only auto-allow shell commands prefixed with just.

Shell scripting isn't easily sandboxed like that, just by checking a string to see if it beings with "just". If you want security you need to run commands inside an actual sandbox, and get data in/out of the sandbox in a well thought manner. See how browsers manage to run untrusted Javascript and wasm from actual malicious sites, and do exactly the same.

In this sense, MCP is much better than running commands in the local machine because all MCP does is an HTTP request. I don't need to run a MCP server that runs LLM-provided commands in my local machine, like, at all.

Re: MCP is a fad

#109

Post by Aldipower »

0manrho wrote: post #99
Aldipower wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, and call me wrong, I think "Protocol" in MCP is somehow misused. Sure it is somehow a protocol, because it commits on something, but not in the technical sense. MCI (Model Context Interface) would probably the better name?

I agree that interface would be a better name than protocol, but Model Context Integration/Integrator would be even better as that is it's core intent: To integrate context into the model. Alternatively, Universal Model Context Interface (or integrator) would be an even better name imo, as that actually explains what it intends to do/be used for, whereas MCP is rather ambiguous/nebulous/inaccurate on the face of it a…

Wow, this is great. Calling it UMCI would have saved me a lot of confusion in the first place. But yeah I think the ship has sailed and it shows that a lot of things there were cobbled together in a hurry maybe.

Re: MCP is a fad

#110

Post by jjfoooo4 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #5

Fair warning, if you load the site in dark-mode the diagrams are completely broken. They're PNGs with an alpha-transparency background and gray/black for the actual content, when the site is in dark mode you can see nothing at all... So make sure to change to light-mode in the top-right if you want to read this article at all.

(I'm the author)

Thanks for flagging! I just pushed an update that should fix this

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