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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

#211

Post by thyristan »

jmathai wrote: post #205
ceuk wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching was supposed to be a prototype become the production code is one of the most constant themes of my 20 year career

Software takes longer to develop than other parts of the org want to wait. AI is emerging as a possible solution to this decades old problem.

Everything takes longer than ppl want to wait. But when building a house, ppl are more patient and tolerant about the time taken, because they can physically see the progress, the effort, the sweat. Software is intangible and invisible except maybe for beta-testers and developer liaisons. And the visual parts, like the nonfunctional GUI or web UI, are often taken as "most of the work is done", because that is what people see and interact with.

Re: We put a coding agent in a while loop

#212

Post by thyristan »

camgunz wrote: post #207
worldsayshi wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Coding is how I build a sufficiently deep understanding of the problem space--there's no separating coding and understanding for me. I acknowledge there's different ways of working (and I imagine this is one of the reasons a lot of people think they get a lot more value out of LLMs than I do), but like, having Cursor crank code out for me actually slows me down. I have to read all the stuff it does so I can coach it…

Well, actually there could be a separate step: understanding is done during and after gathering requirements, before and while writing specifications. Only then are specifications turned into code.

But almost no-one really works like that, and those three separate steps are often done ad-hoc, by the same person, right when the fingers hit the keys.

Re: We put a coding agent in a while loop

#213

Post by thyristan »

torginus wrote: post #150
ofjcihen wrote: post #97

As a security professional who makes most of my money from helping companies recover from vibe coded tragedies this puts Looney Toons style dollar signs in my eyes. Please continue.

Since the entire concept of Vibe Coding existed for a grand total of 5 months, how do companies reach the level of saturation with vibe coding, that it's not only prevalent, but makes sense to specialize in helping them recover from it?

It only takes one tiny vibe-coded insecure extension to a pre-existing codebase (that might have been good secure code), to turn the whole thing into a catastrophe.

It's basically the same as in other parts of IT security: It only takes one lost root password, one exploited software/device/oversight, one slip, to let an attacker in (yes, defense-in-depth architecture might help, but nonetheless, every long exploit-chain starts with the first tiny crack in the armor).

Re: We put a coding agent in a while loop

#214

Post by poniko »

ofjcihen wrote: post #101
discordance wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love to hear more about your work and how you have tapped into that market if you're keen to share. Even if it's just anecdotes about vibe-in-production gone wrong, that would be really entertaining.

Absolutely. Before vibe coding became too much of a thing we had the majority of our business coming from poorly developed web applications coming from off shore shops. That’s been more or less the last decade. Once LLMs became popular we started to see more business on that front which you would expect. What we didn’t expect is that we started seeing MUCH more “deep” work wherein the threat actor will get into core…

This is the best thread response I've seen in a while, made me chuckle because i can't understand how people say they vibe code stuff and it works (My experience is not that) and i just feel out of the loop reading all other HN posts and comments about how good it is.

Re: We put a coding agent in a while loop

#216

Post by [deleted] »

bwestergard wrote: post #26

There are always two major results from any software development process: a change in the code and a change in cognition for the people who wrote the code (whether they did so directly or with an LLM). Python and Typescript are elaborate formal languages that emerged from a lengthy process of development involving thousands of people around the world over many years. They are non-trivially different, and it's neat th…

[deleted]

Re: We put a coding agent in a while loop

#217

Post by dudefeliciano »

jmathai wrote: post #205
ceuk wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching was supposed to be a prototype become the production code is one of the most constant themes of my 20 year career

Software takes longer to develop than other parts of the org want to wait. AI is emerging as a possible solution to this decades old problem.

until the whole company fails because lack of polishing and security in the software. Think tea app openly accessible databases...

Re: We put a coding agent in a while loop

#218

Post by hirako2000 »

torginus wrote: post #150
ofjcihen wrote: post #97

As a security professional who makes most of my money from helping companies recover from vibe coded tragedies this puts Looney Toons style dollar signs in my eyes. Please continue.

Since the entire concept of Vibe Coding existed for a grand total of 5 months, how do companies reach the level of saturation with vibe coding, that it's not only prevalent, but makes sense to specialize in helping them recover from it?

on the other juicing side, starting to see service companies like these popping up: https://perfect.codes/

Re: We put a coding agent in a while loop

#219

Post by sunir »

I have been developing long lived self-directing agent loops. Longest with problem solving has been about 4 hours. Longest without problem solving has been nearer 8 hours until it was done.

The biggest problem is simply what we think is clear is confusing to the AIs. They seem like they speak English fluently but they are aliens. You need to force them to active listen first and write out what they understand then reload them with a clean context with the written understanding and confirm.

Ideation is also mostly limited to synthesis. So it’s better to work on problems that get progressively more complete towards a known objective rather than problems that require exploration.

Re: We put a coding agent in a while loop

#220

Post by ghuntley »

sunir wrote: post #219

I have been developing long lived self-directing agent loops. Longest with problem solving has been about 4 hours. Longest without problem solving has been nearer 8 hours until it was done. The biggest problem is simply what we think is clear is confusing to the AIs. They seem like they speak English fluently but they are aliens. You need to force them to active listen first and write out what they understand then re…

> So it’s better to work on problems that get progressively more complete towards a known objective rather than problems that require exploration.

Yes. The longest I've had a self-directing agent loop running is a cumulative of three months. One goal, one purpose. Every now and then I modify the prompt in the background, and the agent picks up the updated prompt on the next loop.

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