Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, framed as you stated it is indeed a win-win. However, there will be cases where lacking the LLM output, there isn't any output at all. Creating a stigma over technology which is easily observed as being, in some form, accessible is expected in the world we live. As it is on HN. Not to say you are being any type of anything, I just don't believe anyone has given it all that much thought. I read the complaints and…
> However, there will be cases where lacking the LLM output, there isn't any output at all. Why would there be? You're using something to prompt the LLM, aren't you - what's stopping you from sharing the input? The same logic can be applied in an even larger extent to foreign-language content. I'd 1000x rather have a "My english not good, this describe big LangChain bug, click if want Google Translate" followed by a…
Critical vulnerability in LangChain – CVE-2025-68664
61–70 of 93 posts
Re: Critical vulnerability in LangChain – CVE-2025-68664
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not sure what's the stereotype, but I tried using langchain and realised most of the functionality actually adds more code to use than simply writing my own direct API LLM calls. Overall I felt like it solves a problem doesn't exist, and I've been happily sending direct API calls for years to LLMs without issues.
JSON Structured Output from OpenAI was released a year after the first LangChain release. I think structured output with schema validation mostly replaces the need for complex prompt frameworks. I do look at the LC source from time to time because they do have good prompts backed into the framework.
The bigger problem is that LangChain/Python is the least set up to take advantage of strong schemas even when you do have it.
Agree about pillaging for prompts though.
Re: Critical vulnerability in LangChain – CVE-2025-68664
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
IME you could get reliable JSON or other easily-parsable output formats out of OpenAI's going back at least to GPT3.5 or 4 in early 2023. I think that was a bit after LangChain's release but I don't recall hitting problems that I needed to add a layer around in order to do "agent"-y things ("dispatch this to this specialized other prompt-plus-chatgpt-api-call, get back structured data, dispatch it to a different spec…
Can guarantee this was not true for any complicated extraction. You could reliably get it to output json but not the json you wanted Even on smallish ~50k datasets error was still very high and interpretation of schema was not particularly good.
Re: Critical vulnerability in LangChain – CVE-2025-68664
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll admit that I haven't looked it in a while, but as originally released, it was a textbook example on how to complicate a fundamentally simple and well-understood task (text templates, basically) with lots of useless abstractions that made it all sound more "enterprise". People would write complicated langchains, but then when you looked under the hood all it was doing is some string concatenation, and the result…
What do you suggest instead? Handrolled code with “import openai”? BAML?
Re: Critical vulnerability in LangChain – CVE-2025-68664
#65The best part about this is that you know the type of people/companies using langchain are likely the type that are not going to patch this in a timely manner.
Langchain is great because it provides you an easy method to filter people out when hiring. Candidates who talk about langchain are, more often than not, low quality candidates.
Re: Critical vulnerability in LangChain – CVE-2025-68664
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you say the same for Mastra? If so, what would you say indicates a high quality candidate when they are discussing agent harnessing and orchestration?
I somewhat take issue as a LangChain hater + Mastra lover with 20+ years of coding experience and coding awards to my name (which I don't care about, I only mention it for context). Langchain is `left-pad` -- a big waste of your time, and Mastra is Next.js -- mostly saving you infrastructure boilerplate if you use it right. But I think the primary difference is that Python is a very bad language for agent/LLM stuff (…
If we’re going to throw experience around, after 30+ years of coding experience, I really don’t care too much anymore as long as it gets the job done and it doesn’t get in the way.
LangChain is ok, LangGraph et al I try to avoid like the plague as it’s too “framework”-ish and doesn’t compose well with other things.
Re: Critical vulnerability in LangChain – CVE-2025-68664
#67Re: Critical vulnerability in LangChain – CVE-2025-68664
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I somewhat take issue as a LangChain hater + Mastra lover with 20+ years of coding experience and coding awards to my name (which I don't care about, I only mention it for context). Langchain is `left-pad` -- a big waste of your time, and Mastra is Next.js -- mostly saving you infrastructure boilerplate if you use it right. But I think the primary difference is that Python is a very bad language for agent/LLM stuff (…
Python being a very bad language for LLM stuff is a hot take I haven’t heard before. Your arguments sound mostly like personal preferences that apply to any problem, not just agentic / LLM. If we’re going to throw experience around, after 30+ years of coding experience, I really don’t care too much anymore as long as it gets the job done and it doesn’t get in the way. LangChain is ok, LangGraph et al I try to avoid l…
I guess the difference where I draw the line is that LLMs are inherently random I/O so you have to treat them like UI, or the network, where you really have no idea what garbage is gonna come in and you have to be defensive if you're going to build something complex -- otherwise, you as a programmer will not be able to understand or trust it and you will get hit by Murphy's law when you take off your blinders. (if it's simple or a prototype nobody is counting on, obviously none of this matters)
To me insisting that stochastic inputs be handled in a framework that provides strong typing guarantees is not too different from insisting your untrusted sandbox be written in a memory safe language.
Re: Critical vulnerability in LangChain – CVE-2025-68664
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, not sure why anyone is using it still.
What would you use instead? I built an internal CI chat bot with it like 6 months ago when I was learning. It’s deployed and doing what everyone needs it to do. Claude Code can do most of what it does without needing anything special. I think that’s the future but I hate the vendor lock in Anthropic is pushing with CC. All my python tools could be skills, and some folks are doing that now but I don’t need to chase af…
Accepting any kind of vendor lock in within this space at the moment is an incredibly bad idea. Who knows what will get released next week, let alone the next year. Anthropic might be dead in the water in six months. It's unlikely but not impossible. Expand that to a couple of years and it's not even that unlikely.
Re: Critical vulnerability in LangChain – CVE-2025-68664
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you say the same for Mastra? If so, what would you say indicates a high quality candidate when they are discussing agent harnessing and orchestration?
I somewhat take issue as a LangChain hater + Mastra lover with 20+ years of coding experience and coding awards to my name (which I don't care about, I only mention it for context). Langchain is `left-pad` -- a big waste of your time, and Mastra is Next.js -- mostly saving you infrastructure boilerplate if you use it right. But I think the primary difference is that Python is a very bad language for agent/LLM stuff (…
I literally invoke sglang and vllm in Python. You are supposed to (if not using them over-the-network) use the two fastest inference engines there is via Python.