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We put a coding agent in a while loop

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Re: We put a coding agent in a while loop

#161

Post by ath3nd »

bitexploder wrote: post #76
rogerrogerr wrote: post #45

Does anyone else get dull feelings of dread reading this kind of thing? How do you combat it?

Stoicism. Dichotomy of control. Is this something you can control? If no, don’t dread. If yes, do something. Often, all you have firmly in your grasp are things inside of your brain. Catch the negative thought. Acknowledge it. Move on. Do not dwell. Take proactive steps to be ready in your career. You do tech ling enough and you live through multiple cycles like this.

I kind of want to do something to stop it though. It feels like not doing something is a betrayal of all that's good in the world, staying mildly by while evil is happening just in front of us.

With collective action and targeted scorn we might be able to prevent these abominations from becoming commonplace. At the same time, I know that the more people go for this approach, the more work there will be for me to fix their mess..but I still think we should stop them somehow.

Re: We put a coding agent in a while loop

#162

Post by popcorncowboy »

efitz wrote: post #82

I honestly think that partially-OSS SaaS is in for a rocky road; many popular paid or freemium tools are likely to be rewritten by AI and published as OSS with permissive licenses over the next year or two. I also think that the same capability will largely invalidate the GPL, as people point agents at GPL software and write new software that performs the same function as OSS with more permissive licenses. My reasoni…

> partially-OSS SaaS is in for a rocky road

Agent-in-a-loop gets you remarkably far today already. It's not straightforward to "rip" capability even when you have the code, but we're getting closer by the week to being able to go "Project X has capability Y. Use [$approach] and port this into our project". This HAS to put a fat question mark over the viability of any SaaS that makes their code visible.

Re: We put a coding agent in a while loop

#164

Post by thyristan »

worldsayshi wrote: post #157
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and it will be harder to find someone to talk to understand what they were trying to do at the time. This will be the big counter to AI generated tools; at one point they become black boxes and the only thing people can do is to try and fix them or replace them altogether. Of course, in theory, AI tooling will only improve; today's vibe coded software that in some cases generate revenue can be fed into the models o…

The prevailing counter narrative around vibe coding seems to be that "code output isn't the bottle neck, understanding the problem is". But shouldn't that make vibe coding a good tool for the tool belt? Use it to understand the outermost layer of the problem, then throw out the code and write a proper solution.

> [create prototype], then throw out the code and write a proper solution.

Problem is, that in everyones' experience, this almost never happens. The prototype is declared "good enough, just needs a few small adjustments", rewrite is declared too expensive, too time-consuming. And crap goes to production.

Re: We put a coding agent in a while loop

#165

Post by ath3nd »

rogerrogerr wrote: post #96
evanmoran wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very seriously, try not to read about it. Delete the apps that make you most anxious. Then eat better, exercise three times a week, and together those will help you feel better and sleep better. Finally search for people or activities that give you energy and focus on those. Maybe it’s jamming on a guitar. Maybe it’s reading. Just embrace the moment you’re in for a bit and I think you will be better prepared for anyt…

Appreciate it, genuinely.

If passivity doesn't work out, there are active ways to achieve fulfillment.

I think we should stand up for what is important in life: craft, fulfillment, skills, and actively oppose people, tools and activities that trample on good.

Still do the workouts, still do the best job you can, but also make sure to use satire, ridicule and humor to make the people writing posts like this just a tad more uncomfortable and second guess themselves before posting a link to a vibed blog with such low quality.

Re: We put a coding agent in a while loop

#167

Post by keeperofdakeys »

keeda wrote: post #46
NitpickLawyer wrote: post #14

> After finishing the port, most of the agents settled for writing extra tests or continuously updating agent/TODO.md to clarify how "done" they were. In one instance, the agent actually used pkill to terminate itself after realizing it was stuck in an infinite loop. Ok, now that is funny! On so many levels. Now, for the project itself, a few thoughts: - this was tried before, about 1.5 years ago there was a project…

> After finishing the port, most of the agents settled for writing extra tests or continuously updating agent/TODO.md to clarify how "done" they were. In one instance, the agent actually used pkill to terminate itself after realizing it was stuck in an infinite loop. Is that... the first recorded instance of an AI committing suicide?

A bit out of context, but it reminded me of this funny moment. The only winning move is not to play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&t=10&v=xOCurBYI_gY

(Background: Someone training an algorithm to win NES games based on memory state)

Re: We put a coding agent in a while loop

#168

Post by franze »

I coded (well code directed) Floktoid https://floktoid.franzai.com/ via Claude Code in the Cloud (a cheap Hetzner Server). whenever it goes idle it self prompts it to "Continue, if nothing else to do, read CLAUDE.md and continue from there." max 5 times per hour, if this is reached I get an email to check (I hardly get emails).

see the repo to judge code quality

Re: We put a coding agent in a while loop

#170

Post by swader999 »

shaky-carrousel wrote: post #66
rogerrogerr wrote: post #45

Does anyone else get dull feelings of dread reading this kind of thing? How do you combat it?

By being there when FrontPage was released. This is just the same, all over again.

FrontPage with Clippy of to the corner yelling 'You're absolutely right!'
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