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How I program with agents

crawshaw.io

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Re: How I program with agents

#91

Post by wrs »

Verdex wrote: post #20
hombre_fatal wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like writing code, and it definitely isn't satisfying when an LLM can one-shot a parser that I would have had fun building for hours. But at the same time, building a parser for hours is also a distraction from my higher level ambitions with the project, and I get to focus on those. I still get to stub out the types and function signatures I want, but the LLM can fill them in and I move on. More likely I'll even ha…

Parsing is an area that I'm interested in. Can you talk more about your experience getting LLMs to one-shot parsers? From scratch LLMs seem to be completely lost writing parsers. The bleeding edge appears to be able to maybe parse xml, but gives up on programming languages with even the most minimal complexity (an example being C where Gemini refused to even try with macros and then when told to parse C without macro…

A few weeks ago I gave an LLM (Gemini 2.5 something in Cursor) a bunch of examples of a new language, and asked it to write a recursive descent parser in Ruby. The language was nothing crazy, intentionally reminiscent of C/JS style, but certainly the exact definition was new. I didn’t want to use a parser generator because (a) I’d have to learn a new one for Ruby, and (b) I’ve always found it easier to generate useful error messages with a handwritten recursive descent parser.

IIRC, it went like this: I had it first write out the BNF based on the examples, and tweaked that a bit to match my intention. Then I had it write the lexer, and a bunch of tests for the lexer. I had it rewrite the lexer to use one big regex with named captures per token. Then I told it to write the parser. I told it to try again using a consistent style in the parser functions (when to do lookahead and how to do backtracking) and it rewrote it. I told it to write a bunch of parser tests, which I tweaked and refactored for readability (with LLM doing the grunt work). During this process it fixed most of its own bugs based on looking at failed tests.

Throughout this process I had to monitor every step and fix the occasional stupidity and wrong turn, but it felt like using a power tool, you just have to keep it aimed the right way so it does what you want.

The end result worked just fine, the code is quite readable and maintainable, and I’ve continued with that codebase since. That was a day of work that would have taken me more like a week without the LLM. And there is no parser generator I’m aware of that starts with examples rather than a grammar.

Re: How I program with agents

#92

Post by infecto »

voidUpdate wrote: post #54
falcor84 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do people enjoy going to the gym? Do they? I would assume that the overwhelming majority of people would be very happy to be able to get 50% of the results for twice the membership cost if they could avoid going.

If you pay twice the membership, they provide you a forklift so you can lift twice the weight. I prefer to lift the weight myself and only spend half as much

I suspect you are in the vast minority. Most folks are moving weights around for the result feedback, the fitness. Similarly, a lot of engineers are writing code to get to the end result, the useable product. Not writing code to be writing code.

Re: How I program with agents

#93

Post by xmprt »

vmg12 wrote: post #13
zOneLetter wrote: post #7

Maybe it's because I only code for my own tools, but I still don't understand the benefit of relying on someone/something else to write your code and then reading it, understand it, fixing it, etc. Although asking an LLM to extract and find the thing I'm looking for in an API Doc is super useful and time saving. To me, it's not even about how good these LLMs get in the future. I just don't like reading other people's…

Here are the cases where it helps me (I promise this isn't ai generated even though im using a list...) - Formulaic code. It basically obviates the need for macros / code gen. The downside is that they are slower and you can't just update the macro and re-generate. The upside is it works for code that is slightly formulaic but has some slight differences across implementations that make macros impossible to use. - Us…

> Using apis I am familiar with but don't have memorized

I think you have to be careful here even with a typed language. For example, I generated some Go code recently which execed a shell command and got the output. The generated code used CombinedOutput which is easier to used but doesn't do proper error handling. Everything ran fine until I tested a few error cases and then realized the problem. In other times I asked the agent to write tests cases too and while it scaffolded code to handle error cases, it didn't actually write any tests cases to exercise that - so if you were only doing a cursory review, you would think it was properly tested when in reality it wasn't.

Re: How I program with agents

#94

Post by ar_lan »

zOneLetter wrote: post #7

Maybe it's because I only code for my own tools, but I still don't understand the benefit of relying on someone/something else to write your code and then reading it, understand it, fixing it, etc. Although asking an LLM to extract and find the thing I'm looking for in an API Doc is super useful and time saving. To me, it's not even about how good these LLMs get in the future. I just don't like reading other people's…

> I just don't like reading other people's code lol.

Do you work for yourself, or for a (larger than 1 developer) company? You mention you only code for your own tools, so I am guessing yourself?

I don't necessarily like reading other people's code either, but across a distributed team, it's necessary - and sometimes I'm also inspired when I learn something new from someone else. I'm just curious if you've run into any roadblocks with this mindset, or if it's just preference?

Re: How I program with agents

#95

Post by bgwalter »

zOneLetter wrote: post #7

Maybe it's because I only code for my own tools, but I still don't understand the benefit of relying on someone/something else to write your code and then reading it, understand it, fixing it, etc. Although asking an LLM to extract and find the thing I'm looking for in an API Doc is super useful and time saving. To me, it's not even about how good these LLMs get in the future. I just don't like reading other people's…

Some people cannot do anything without a tool. These people are early adopters and power users, who then evangelize their latest discovery.

GitHub's value proposition was that mediocre coders can appear productive in the maze of PRs, reviews, green squares, todo lists etc.

LLMs again give mediocre coders the appearance of being productive by juggling non-essential tools and agents (which their managers also love).

Re: How I program with agents

#96

Post by silverlake »

zOneLetter wrote: post #7

Maybe it's because I only code for my own tools, but I still don't understand the benefit of relying on someone/something else to write your code and then reading it, understand it, fixing it, etc. Although asking an LLM to extract and find the thing I'm looking for in an API Doc is super useful and time saving. To me, it's not even about how good these LLMs get in the future. I just don't like reading other people's…

You’re clinging to an old model of work. Today an LLM converted my docker compose infrastructure to Kubernetes, using operators and helm charts as needed. It did in 10 minutes what would take me several days to learn and cobble together a bad solution. I review every small update and correct it when needed. It is so much more productive. I’m driving a tractor while you are pulling an ox cart.

Re: How I program with agents

#97

Post by flappyeagle »

addaon wrote: post #74
rgbrenner wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you work on a team most code you see isn’t yours.. ai code review is really no different than reviewing a pr… except you can edit the output easier and maybe get the author to fix it immediately

> if you work on a team most code you see isn’t yours.. ai code review is really no different than reviewing a pr… except you can edit the output easier and maybe get the author to fix it immediately And you can't ask "why" about a decision you don't understand (or at least, not with the expectation that the answer holds any particular causal relationship with the actual reason)... so it's like reviewing a PR with no…

Yes you can

Re: How I program with agents

#98

Post by arrowleaf »

addaon wrote: post #74
rgbrenner wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you work on a team most code you see isn’t yours.. ai code review is really no different than reviewing a pr… except you can edit the output easier and maybe get the author to fix it immediately

> if you work on a team most code you see isn’t yours.. ai code review is really no different than reviewing a pr… except you can edit the output easier and maybe get the author to fix it immediately And you can't ask "why" about a decision you don't understand (or at least, not with the expectation that the answer holds any particular causal relationship with the actual reason)... so it's like reviewing a PR with no…

Are you using the same tools as everyone else here? You absolutely can ask "why" and it does a better job of explaining with the appropriate context than most developers I know. If you realize it's using a design pattern that doesn't fit, add it to your rules file.

Re: How I program with agents

#99

Post by com2kid »

divan wrote: post #15
zOneLetter wrote: post #7

Maybe it's because I only code for my own tools, but I still don't understand the benefit of relying on someone/something else to write your code and then reading it, understand it, fixing it, etc. Although asking an LLM to extract and find the thing I'm looking for in an API Doc is super useful and time saving. To me, it's not even about how good these LLMs get in the future. I just don't like reading other people's…

On one codebase I work with, there are often tasks that involve changing multiple files in a relatively predictable way. Like there is little creativity/challenge, but a lot of typing in multiple parts/files. Tasks like these used to take 3-4 hours complete before just because I had to physically open all these files, find right places to modify, type the code etc. With AI agent I just describe the task, and it does…

I used to spend time writing regex's do to this for me, now LLMs solve it in less time than it takes me to debug my one off regex!

Re: How I program with agents

#100

Post by timeinput »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #10
voidUpdate wrote: post #4

I wonder how many people that use agents actually like "programming", as in coming up with a solution to the problem and then being able to express that in code. It seems like a lot of the work that the agents are doing is removing that and instead making you have to explain what you want in natural language and hope the LLM doesn't introduce bugs

I like writing code, and it definitely isn't satisfying when an LLM can one-shot a parser that I would have had fun building for hours. But at the same time, building a parser for hours is also a distraction from my higher level ambitions with the project, and I get to focus on those. I still get to stub out the types and function signatures I want, but the LLM can fill them in and I move on. More likely I'll even ha…

> I still get to stub out the types and function signatures I want, but the LLM can fill them in and I move on. More likely I'll even have my go at the implementation but then tag in the LLM when it's not fun anymore.

This is the best part for me. I can design my program the way I want. Then hack at the implementation, get it close, and then say okay finish it up (fix the current compiler errors, write and run some unit tests etc).

Then when it's time to write some boiler plate / do some boiler plate refactoring it's extract function xxx into a trait. Write a struct that does xxx and implements that trait.

I'm not over the resentment entirely, and if someone were to push me to join a team that coded by creating github issues, and reviewing the PRs I would probably hate that job, I certainly do when I try to do that in my free time.

In wood working you can use hand tools or power tools. I use hand tools when I want to use them either for a particular effect, or just the joy of using them, and I don't resent having to use a circular saw, or orbital sander when that's the tool I want to use, or the job calls for it. To stretch the analogy developing with plain text prompts and reviewing PRs feels more like assembling Ikea furniture. Frustrating and dull. A machine did most of the work cutting out the parts, and now I need to figure out what they want me to do with them.

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