[HN Gopher] An AI agent coding skeptic tries AI agent coding, in...
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An AI agent coding skeptic tries AI agent coding, in excessive
detail
Author : minimaxir
Score : 17 points
Date : 2026-02-27 18:09 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (minimaxir.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (minimaxir.com)
| simonw wrote:
| This is my favorite yet of the genre of "OK, coding agents got
| good in November" posts. It starts with relatively simple
| examples (YouTube metadata scraping) and by the end Max is
| rewriting Python's skikit-learn framework in Rust and _making it
| way faster_.
| 7777777phil wrote:
| The sharp results all came from pairing domain expertise with
| detailed AGENTS.md files. The impressive Rust output happened
| because someone who knows Rust was steering it. Vague prompts got
| mediocre output. A model on its own converges to the mean of its
| training data, which is why the "vibe code everything" thesis
| keeps not holding up: https://philippdubach.com/posts/the-
| impossible-backhand/
| busssard wrote:
| this post reflects my experience with the model...
| ej88 wrote:
| Thanks Max! This was a really interesting article and closely
| matches my own experience with how the agents have been
| progressing
|
| one of the takeaways I get when reading skilled engineers'
| experiences with these tools is that they essentially offer
| leverage, and the more skill someone already has the higher their
| ceiling will be
| verdverm wrote:
| I second that spending effort on your AGENTS.md is game changing.
| Don't auto generate these, work with them and learn how to make
| them good (sparknotes and table of contents, keep minimal,
| distribute over dirs)
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