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Gas Town Decoded

alilleybrinker.com

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Re: Gas Town Decoded

#181

Post by ivankra »

vessenes wrote: post #154
jamestimmins wrote: post #5

I actually love the idea of totally new naming schemes for experimental software. Certain name types are so normalized (agent, worker, etc) that while they serve their role well, they likely limit our imagination when thinking about software, and it's a worthwhile effort to explore alternatives.

Not just this, but I’ve been thinking that naming things with aggressively strong connotations might help Claude get out of ‘nice/helpful’ mode. “You are the Deacon, grrrrr”. So there might be actually be a bit of effectiveness added by naming an agent appropriately. I offer no opinion on the word polecats.

Maybe helps the LLM, but at the cost of confusing humans. It would've been better left as an internal implementation detail. I've got better things to keep in my head that remembering wtf deacon is, etc.

Re: Gas Town Decoded

#182

Post by hnlmorg »

lordnacho wrote: post #170
Ntrails wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Programming is just shifting to a language that looks more like Jira tickets than source code. Sure, but now I need to be fluent in prompt-lang and the underlying programming language if you want me to be confident in the output (and you probably do, right?)

No, you have to be fluent in the domain. That is ultimately where the program is acting. You can be confident it works if it passes domain level tests. You save all the time that was wasted forcing the language into the shape you intended. A lot of trivial little things ate up time, until AI came along. The big things, well, you still need to understand them.

I think the GP is correct.

You can get some of the way writing prompts with very little effort. But you almost always hit problems after a while. And once you do, it feels almost impossible to recover without restarting from a new context. And that can sometimes be a painful step.

But with learning to write effective prompts will get you a lot further, a lot quicker and with less friction.

So there’s definitely an element of learning a “prompt-lang” to effective use of LLMs.

Re: Gas Town Decoded

#183

Post by colin_jack »

alecco wrote: post #174
keyle wrote: post #66

I'd help build Gas City and Gas State, and Gas Country if that would mean we actually would solve the things AI promised to solve. All sickness, famine, wealth ... The problem is, we're just fidgeting yolo-fizzbuzz ad nauseam. The return on investment at the moment is probably one of the worst in the history of human investments. AI does improve over time, still today, but we're going to run out of planet before we g…

That doesn't make any sense. Yegge named it Gas Town as in "refinery" because the main job for the human at this stage is reviewing the generated code and merging. " The whole point of the project is to be in control. Yegge even says the programmers who can read/review a lot of code fast are the new 10x (paraphrasing).

"I’ve never seen the code, and I never care to, which might give you pause"

https://steve-yegge.medium.com/welcome-to-gas-town-4f25ee16d...

Re: Gas Town Decoded

#184

Post by triceratops »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #31
bobjordan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure you’ve actually tried using it, but beads has been an absolute game changer for my projects. “Game changer” is even underselling it.

How do you handle the dogs ignoring the deacons and going after the polecats though? Seems like the mayor should get involved to me.

Without context I would have thought this post came from a video game forum or a mentally ill person. I'm not dissing you personally.

Re: Gas Town Decoded

#185

Post by krupan »

Gas town and the like all basically sound to me like, "AI is amazing! Ok, actually it isn't very good, but maybe we can just use more AI with our AI and then it'll be good!"

And I'm not surprised at all to learn that this path took us to a "Maintenance Manager Checker Agent." I wonder what he'll call the inevitable Maintenance Manager Checker Agent Checker Agent?

Maybe I've been in this game too long, but I've encountered managers that think like this before. "We don't need expensive, brilliant, developers, we just need good processes for the cheap inexperienced developers to follow." I think what keeps this idea alive is that it sort of works for simple CRUD apps and other essentially "solved" problems. At least until the app needs to become more than just a simple CRUD app

Re: Gas Town Decoded

#186

Post by draw_down »

krupan wrote: post #185

Gas town and the like all basically sound to me like, "AI is amazing! Ok, actually it isn't very good, but maybe we can just use more AI with our AI and then it'll be good!" And I'm not surprised at all to learn that this path took us to a "Maintenance Manager Checker Agent." I wonder what he'll call the inevitable Maintenance Manager Checker Agent Checker Agent? Maybe I've been in this game too long, but I've encoun…

[dead]

Re: Gas Town Decoded

#187

Post by colin_jack »

krupan wrote: post #185

Gas town and the like all basically sound to me like, "AI is amazing! Ok, actually it isn't very good, but maybe we can just use more AI with our AI and then it'll be good!" And I'm not surprised at all to learn that this path took us to a "Maintenance Manager Checker Agent." I wonder what he'll call the inevitable Maintenance Manager Checker Agent Checker Agent? Maybe I've been in this game too long, but I've encoun…

This might be worth a read, just as its from a trusted source and is more grounded: https://antirez.com/news/158

Re: Gas Town Decoded

#188

Post by jaapz »

krupan wrote: post #185

Gas town and the like all basically sound to me like, "AI is amazing! Ok, actually it isn't very good, but maybe we can just use more AI with our AI and then it'll be good!" And I'm not surprised at all to learn that this path took us to a "Maintenance Manager Checker Agent." I wonder what he'll call the inevitable Maintenance Manager Checker Agent Checker Agent? Maybe I've been in this game too long, but I've encoun…

I think in the end people will realise AI is not a silver bullet that will solve all problems and make all software engineers obsolete. Instead it will just become an extra tool in our toolbelt right alongside LSP, linters/fixers, unit test frameworks, well though out text editors and IDE's, etc.

When the bubble has burst in a few years, the managers will have moved on to the next fad.

Re: Gas Town Decoded

#189

Post by krupan »

colin_jack wrote: post #187
krupan wrote: post #185

Gas town and the like all basically sound to me like, "AI is amazing! Ok, actually it isn't very good, but maybe we can just use more AI with our AI and then it'll be good!" And I'm not surprised at all to learn that this path took us to a "Maintenance Manager Checker Agent." I wonder what he'll call the inevitable Maintenance Manager Checker Agent Checker Agent? Maybe I've been in this game too long, but I've encoun…

This might be worth a read, just as its from a trusted source and is more grounded: https://antirez.com/news/158

Still the same. "Hey look, I got these crappy developers (LLMs) to actually produce working code! This is a game-changer!" When the working code is a very small, limited thing.

Re: Gas Town Decoded

#190

Post by krupan »

jaapz wrote: post #188
krupan wrote: post #185

Gas town and the like all basically sound to me like, "AI is amazing! Ok, actually it isn't very good, but maybe we can just use more AI with our AI and then it'll be good!" And I'm not surprised at all to learn that this path took us to a "Maintenance Manager Checker Agent." I wonder what he'll call the inevitable Maintenance Manager Checker Agent Checker Agent? Maybe I've been in this game too long, but I've encoun…

I think in the end people will realise AI is not a silver bullet that will solve all problems and make all software engineers obsolete. Instead it will just become an extra tool in our toolbelt right alongside LSP, linters/fixers, unit test frameworks, well though out text editors and IDE's, etc. When the bubble has burst in a few years, the managers will have moved on to the next fad.

Yes, if it even becomes as useful as a good linter or LSP. It actually has very little I'm common with those, but maybe it could be as useful.
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