[freejazz]

>I can have my agentic system read a few data sheets, then I explain the project requirements and have it design driver specifications, protocols, interfaces, and state machines. Taking those, develop an implementation plan. Working from that, write the skeleton of the application, then fill it in to create a functional system using a novel combination of hardware.

When you put it that way, isn't it crazy you have to tell it to do that? Like shouldn't it just figure out it needs to do that?

[Silamoth]

This is exactly it. A human capable of reasoning might not know how to write code. But they can learn and be taught. Eventually, you can give them a vague problem, and they’ll know what clarifying questions to ask and how to write the code. LLMs cannot do that.

If you have to do the reasoning and tell the LLM the results of your reasoning before it can generate the code you want, surely that tells you the LLM isn’t reasoning. Agentic workflows hide some of it, but anyone who’s interacted even a little with an LLM can tell they’re not reasoning, no matter how OpenAI and Anthropic label their models.

[K0balt]

I’m not really sure. I’m constantly presented with a blurry line and it isn’t getting less blurry. If anything it’s slowly dissolving. Or maybe it’s me, falling victim to AI psychosis lol.

[K0balt]

To be fair, I also have had to explain this same basic workflow to junior devs in the past, so I guess not?

[freejazz]

> I also have had to explain this same basic workflow to junior devs

That would not surprise me.

[K0balt]

The difference is that the LLM will -probably- make an attempt to follow my instructions, whereas there is an even chance that the junior dev will decide all that pedantic reflection is below their genius, and will launch straight into hacking together something that usually works fine within its own scope, but has to be mostly thrown out anyway.

Structure exists for a reason, and I say that as someone who loves to go into deep hack and produce some ultra clever jamboozle that works spectacularly well, as long as you don’t ever have to touch it. In production, there is no worse code than clever code. It’s soul sucking, but we have to make peace with elegance = maintainability / portability. Often, that means 30 LOC instead of ten, but future you thanks you, and the (modern, optimised) compiler doesn’t care.