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First Principles Thinking

287 points · 138 comments · sunils34

  1. trwhite · · focus · HN ↗
    I'm really struggling to see how to make architectural decisions with an agent. It's great when you're at a total loss for ideas, but when you already have some of the pieces it ultimately wants to drive all of the thinking and takes over. Then it just feels like you're deferring your experienced judgement. I've seen colleagues lose the ability to reason any more without asking the agent to do it for them, because they inherently don't see the point if the agent is going to end up doing the whole piece (and probably auditing/overruling anything they came up with on their own).
    1. bheadmaster · · focus · HN ↗
      This is one thing I actually do with a chatbot, instead of an agent. Voice mode even.

      I start talking to it while doing menial tasks like cleaning or doing the laundry, and I discuss the architectual decisions and options until I come to some resemblance of a plan.

      Good side of this approach is that I can't just "skim over" or "copy paste" things - either I understood them and can repeat them myself, or I can't. It takes more time than /grill-me and similar approaches, but it's the only approach that doesn't make me want to claw my brain out.

      1. infecto · · focus · HN ↗
        +1. I have found that most coding harnesses are too focused on the doing that using a Claude/chatgpt chat gives me a lot better quality.
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