So many marketing and spam comments on this post, it is insane
There's shovels to be sold!
Embracing the parallel coding agent lifestyle
81–90 of 147 posts
Re: Embracing the parallel coding agent lifestyle
#82Would it make sense to think that you and 5 agents form a Team? How would it be different freom a human based team? And how does it work if you have a team of humans who all use their own team of AI agents?
Re: Embracing the parallel coding agent lifestyle
#83The fact that we now have to write cook book about cook books kind of masks the reality that there is something that could be genuinely wrong about this entire paradigm. Why are even experts unsure about whats the right way to do something or even if its possible to do something at all, for anything non-trivial? Why so much hesitancy, if this is the panacea? If we are so sure then why not use the AI itself to come up…
> why not use the AI itself to come up with a proven paradigm?
Because AI can only imitate the language it has seen. If there are no texts in its training materials about what is the best way to use multiple coding agents at the same time, then AI knows very little about that subject matter.
AI only knows what humans know, but it knows much more than any single human.
We don't know "what is the best way to use multiple coding agents" until we or somebody else does some experiments and records the findings. Buit AI is not there yet to be able to do such actual experiments itself.
Re: Embracing the parallel coding agent lifestyle
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it fair to categorize that it is a pyramid like scheme but with a twist at the top where there are a few (more than a one) genuine wins and winners?
No, it's more like a winner take all market, where a few winners will capture most of the value, and those who sit on the sidelines until everything is figured out are left fighting over the scraps.
> it's more like a winner take all market
I'm not sure, why must it be so? In cell-phones we have Apple and Android-phones. In OSes we have Linux, Windows, and Apple.
In search-engines we used to have just Google. But what would be the reason to assume that AI must similarly coalesce to a single winner-take-all? And now AI agents are much providing an alternative to Google.
Re: Embracing the parallel coding agent lifestyle
#85I believe AI isn't replacing developers, instead, it's turning every software engineer into a hybrid between EM + IC, basically turning them into super-managers.
What we need is better tools for this upcoming new phase. Not a new IDE; we need to shift the whole paradigm.
Here's one example: If we give the same task to 3 different agents, we have tools to review a diff of each OLD vs NEW separately, but we need tools to review diffs of OLD vs NEW#1 vs NEW#2 vs NEW#3. Make it easy to mix-and-match what is best from each of them.
From what I've seen, the idea that AI is turning developers into super-managers is why some people struggle to adapt and quickly dismiss the experience. Those who love to type their code and hate managing others tend to be more hesitant to adapt to this new reality. Meanwhile, people who love to manage, communicate, and work as a team are leveraging these tools more swiftly. They already know how to review imperfect work and give feedback, which is exactly what thriving with AI looks like.
Re: Embracing the parallel coding agent lifestyle
#86The fact that we now have to write cook book about cook books kind of masks the reality that there is something that could be genuinely wrong about this entire paradigm. Why are even experts unsure about whats the right way to do something or even if its possible to do something at all, for anything non-trivial? Why so much hesitancy, if this is the panacea? If we are so sure then why not use the AI itself to come up…
> why not use the AI itself to come up with a proven paradigm? Because AI can only imitate the language it has seen. If there are no texts in its training materials about what is the best way to use multiple coding agents at the same time, then AI knows very little about that subject matter. AI only knows what humans know, but it knows much more than any single human. We don't know "what is the best way to use multip…
I'm sorry, but the whole stochastic parrot thing is so thoroughly debunked at this point that we should stop repeating it as if it's some kind of rare wisdom.
AlphaGo showed that even pre-LLM models could generate brand new approaches to winning a game that human experts had never seen before, and didn't exist in any training material.
With a little thought and experimentation, it's pretty easy to show that LLMs can reason about concepts that do not exist in its training corpus.
You could invent a tiny DSL with brand-new, never-seen-before tokens, give two worked examples, then ask it to evaluate a gnarlier expression. If it solves it, it inferred and executed rules you just made up for the first time.
Or you could drop in docs for a new, never-seen-before API and ask it to decide when and why to call which tool, run the calls, and revise after errors. If it composes a working plan and improves from feedback, that’s reasoning about procedures that weren’t in the corpus.
Re: Embracing the parallel coding agent lifestyle
#87Would it make sense to think that you and 5 agents form a Team? How would it be different freom a human based team? And how does it work if you have a team of humans who all use their own team of AI agents?
don't say this out loud or Claude Code will add a 'Team retrospective' mode where you and your sub agents all reflect on their feelings
Re: Embracing the parallel coding agent lifestyle
#88Sometimes in Las Vegas I will put money into a whole row of slot machines, and pull the levers all at the same time. It's not that much different than "parallel coding agent lifestyle".
Re: Embracing the parallel coding agent lifestyle
#89I believe AI isn't replacing developers, instead, it's turning every software engineer into a hybrid between EM + IC, basically turning them into super-managers. What we need is better tools for this upcoming new phase. Not a new IDE; we need to shift the whole paradigm. Here's one example: If we give the same task to 3 different agents, we have tools to review a diff of each OLD vs NEW separately, but we need tools…
> They already know how to review imperfect work and give feedback, which is exactly what thriving with AI looks like.
Do they, though? I think this is an overly rosy picture of the situation. Most of the code I've seen AI heavy users ship is garbage. You're trying to juggle so many things at once and are so cognitively distanced from what you are doing that you subconsciously lower the bar.
Re: Embracing the parallel coding agent lifestyle
#90https://raw.githubusercontent.com/obra/dotfiles/6e088092406c... contains the following entry: "- If you're uncomfortable pushing back out loud, just say "Strange things are afoot at the Circle K". I'll know what you mean" Most of the rules seem rationale. This one really stands out as abnormal. Anyone have any idea why the engineer would have felt compelled to add this rule? This is from https://blog.fsck.com/2025/10…
If you really want your mind blown, see what Jesse is doing (successfully, which I almost can’t believe) with Graphviz .dot notation and Claude.md: https://blog.fsck.com/2025/09/29/using-graphviz-for-claudemd...
Is threatening the computer program and typing in all caps standard practice..?
- Honesty is a core value. If you lie, you'll be replaced.
- BREAKING THE LETTER OR SPIRIT OF THE RULES IS FAILURE.