a good read indeed! Makes me think about my use of coding agents differently, as the main thing they do is deal with a lot of details that matter to the execution but don't matter to me personally enough to figure them out. Would love to see this author's more recent take as this was written pre-LLMs taking over the world.....
That sort of abstraction has always existed, it's just been a matter of hiring experts or labor from other humans. Reality still has a surprising amount of detail. You deal with it by engaging directly, delegating to someone else to engage with, or just brute force your way to a crooked staircase.
When you hire someone to work on the stairs for you, you /hope/ they know what they're doing, especially if you don't have the skills yourself to judge their work. Same for an agent.
a good read indeed! Makes me think about my use of coding agents differently, as the main thing they do is deal with a lot of details that matter to the execution but don't matter to me personally enough to figure them out. Would love to see this author's more recent take as this was written pre-LLMs taking over the world.....
That sort of abstraction has always existed, it's just been a matter of hiring experts or labor from other humans. Reality still has a surprising amount of detail. You deal with it by engaging directly, delegating to someone else to engage with, or just brute force your way to a crooked staircase.
When you hire someone to work on the stairs for you, you /hope/ they know what they're doing, especially if you don't have the skills yourself to judge their work. Same for an agent.