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Comment by Stevvo | Hacker News Reader

Interesting they are renting out agent skills. You can pick up "Java Modernization" at $20 a month for "Specialist workflows to help with modernizing Java applications", or "IBM i" for "Specialist modes, workflows, and skills to work with IBM i applications".

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markdown as a service is crazy

Is it that diff from code as a service? It’s human intent transcribed into something useful.

Code is precise. Human intent is anything but.

I lol'd so hard at this comment that it hurt.

This is the most IBM thing IBM ever IBM'd.

What do you mean by renting out an agent skill? How can one even rent a Skill? It’s just a markdown file

You periodically pay a fee that gives you the right to use a licensed markdown file, in the same way you can rent movies or fonts.

When you stop paying but keep using the skill, that’s called pirating.

But if you point your LLM at it and say you want something like this, then it’s all ok. :) If you can’t legally copy it, just launder it through AI.

so it's just a prompt?

It could be added to context only on the inference server, with the model heavily instructed not to repeat its contents. Not foolproof, obviously.

depending on what the skill does, it can be a whole collection of python/other code files, resource files (i.e., js libs, css/html templates) and markdown files with orchestration instructions

how long before some hero puts them on github?

Does anyone actually care about what IBM's skill files say?

IBM hasn't made a product that works since Db2 so I am fairly confident this is a flaming pile of garbage.

No, you are wrong. IBMer here. I was at first agains it, my background is for 2 decades startup(s) before I joined IBM, and I started slowly using IBM Bob and I must say it is really good and helping. With many integrations that works :)

Is it true that employees have to earn Bobcoins before they can use Bob?

You get more bobcoins by using your old allowance and running out, then submitting GitHub issues that get ignored.

No.

When people say they have been in startups for long periods, does this mean they worked at a chain of failed companies?

No no no :) They want(ed) just change :)

What is good about it then? What model do you use? Which integration are we talking about? Is it open source? How much the "transparent pricing" "bobcoin" is worth?

It's not good, they hide the model (their whole thing is hidden model routing to keep costs low, but predictably yields bad results), there are no novel integrations not available in any other harness, it's closed source, and bobcoin is worthless because it's only usable with Bob.

And what? IDK about BOB that is available for IBM customers, but closed source? As someone wrote in different thread is based on VScode, calling BOB's API. Also do you know how chatgpt works? same for claude? Agents? Governance? You know nothing and now just hating here :)

the bob team aggressively blocks you from calling the bob api and is constantly finding new ways to thwart calling the api directly

It uses hidden models, mostly Claude and open ai models. They try to check the prompt and route to the model that is capable of it, thus saving money.

I think this is it ^^^ Routing and optimizations :)

Are you allowed to use Cursor, Codex, Claude, or OpenCode or is Bob all they allow?

Official policy is to only use Bob. All of the best people I work with are using other tools because Bob is trash.

I have been told only Bob is allowed but not 100% on that.

Also copilot and MS365 copilot, many local models etc... Many haters (companies, etc...) can only dream about availability of models we usually have here.

is bob helping with ur writing too? ;p

lol, I've used it and Bob is a dumpster fire.

Do you have to have experience with AWS Kiro? I'd be interested in a comparision between them. :)

rlly? cs it is IMHO based on anthropic / openai models. Perhaps they identified BFU and gave you some

so it tops out at sonnet 4.5 as the largest model it will use. the harness gives you no choice in the model so you have to hope it doesn't decide your task isn't complex enough and auto-route you to a smaller/weaker model which you then go round and round in circles with where a larger model would've 1 shotted it

Lol

Not an IBMer, but IBM MQ and Sterling Connect:Direct are both solid, I use them daily and they work wonderfully, although they can be a real bitch to set up and use in certain scenarios.

A bit of hyperbole by me since db2 was made in 1983. But MQ was created in 1993. Sterling was an acquisition. The majority of products that actually work were acquired. Very little if anything of value since 2005+ that was actually IBM created. (Bob appears fully IBM created)

I wish you study the Wikipedia page, please. it's a very old company and we have invented really cool stuff.

signed: a proud IBMer

What makes you proud about IBM currently? IBM’s “RA” culture fostering Machiavellian politics, singleminded view of next quarter’s success, and asinine yet draconian bureaucracy are three out of MANY reasons why I’m embarrassed to have had IBM forced into my career and got the hell out as fast as possible each time.

I don't work at IBM but there are many things to admire. e.g. You can take software written 40 years and run on a new IBM system today without even recompiling it thanks to the Machine Interface. Have fun trying to run a 40 year old C++ program.

easy.

"claude, get this c++ program working"

these types of moats are all but obliterated.

I have worked for IBM, I do gotta say I was impressed with what they are doing in storage.

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