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sshadmand

26 karma · joined February 11, 2010

http://seanshadmand.com/about-me
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sshadmand··on Ask HN: Does anyone keep prompts and reasoning as part of dev cycle?
On the same track:

https://x.com/Khaliqgant/status/2019124627860050109

Here he mentions "Store trajectories " is a tent pole to see vectors of work over time which goes back to the point above. But also, will that trajectory be stored in the agent/framweork, or will it also need live elsewhere for us humans?

sshadmand··on Ask HN: Does anyone keep prompts and reasoning as part of dev cycle?
I have a similar flow, but do you connect that back to roadmap, tickets, or workflow for posterity or tracking?

Also, some say they use the tickets themselves for the prompt and have Claude CLI (or alike) just work off the tickets directly.

sshadmand··on Ask HN: Does anyone keep prompts and reasoning as part of dev cycle?
like with most agentic dev I do these days, I go between "I need this" to "I used to need this when humans were involved but is it just vestigial" a lot. In this case, why am I documenting at all if the agent is pretty good at understanding things quickly via the context and indexes it creates from the code itself.

...on the other hand... since we still have humans using the features and interacting with them, knowing what is going on and why it made a decisions (for better or worst) doesn't seem like something to let go of.

sshadmand··on JavaScript Demos in 140 Characters
What a cool concept to turn the SM 140 chars concept into a programming demo list! Is there a reverse to this that work to compress a JS script into 140 chars to help show some creative ideas without needing to fully understand the code? Also, how good is AI at generating these in your experiences?
sshadmand··on Ask HN: What agent frameworks are you using, and how well do they work?
A friend of mine is using N8N a lot, but he isn't a developer and I think that is the main reason. I think LangChain is the most popular, but there is always a trade off between upstart costs, and the cost of forcing a pre-fab to fit your needs as you grow. I personally have used NextJS's AI SDK a a lot since it is very web friendly (nodejs/JS) https://ai-sdk.dev/docs/introduction.
sshadmand··on Ask HN: Is There a Shell Revival?
Interesting. I use a lot of python and nodejs for my apps, maybe this shell angle is a weird quirk I developed for no particular reason. I keep a seperate repo called “manager” and use it to manage my other parts of the stack like, “run tests for each repo, bump version, commit to git” with a single CLI command. I have no idea why that started. My guess is an agent created a shell script and I just went with it and built up around it. Good to hear other perspectives. Thanks!
sshadmand··on Ask HN: Is There a Shell Revival?
There is a reshaping of what we think is “right”. Like, I am less and less interested in SDKs since I can just ask for a lightweight, custom, integration into anything I want based on API docs. I mean, I still use a lot of SDKs…buuuut it feels like I’m forcing the AI to use them for my monkey brain’s sake. Is predefined mashup of structured services even necessary anymore?
sshadmand··on iPhone Typos? It's Not Just You – The iOS Keyboard Is Broken [video]
Dude - crazy. When I saw this post I was like - finally someone said it. But it isn't just "iPhone". Why is spell check so bad EVERYWHERE..... still?. Like, how is it I am still even able to share texts, emails, etc that have mistakes at all? I feel like "spell check" is so old school. Intent, and matching intent, without typos is way over due. A bit meta: but, I am going to have to re-read this post - why? I still send texts that say "What re you doing?" - hwy?
sshadmand··on Is it a bubble?
Finance people are funny. They are so wrong when you hear their logic and references, but I also realized it doesn't matter. It is trends they try to predict, fuzzy directional signals, not facts of the moment.
sshadmand··on Is it a bubble?
What you make of this memo really depends on who you are and how you're positioned. The dot-com era was absolutely a bubble. Tons of companies died, but the internet itself didn't go away, and the people who backed the right companies did extremely well. The 2007 housing bubble, on the other hand, was a totally different kind of event: broad, systemic, long lasting, and painful for almost everyone.

AI looks a lot more like the former. Some companies will fail, valuations will swing, but the underlying technology isn't going anywhere. In fact, many of the AI firms that will end up mattering are probably still undervalued because we're early in what will likely be another decade long technology expansion.

If you're managing a portfolio that needs quick returns and can't tolerate a correction, then sure, it probably feels like a bubble, because at some point people will take profits and the market will reset.

But if you're an entrepreneur or a long-term builder, that framing is almost irrelevant. This is where the next wave of value gets created. It's never smooth and it's never easy, but the long-term opportunity is enormous.

sshadmand··on Vibe coding is mad depressing
I feel like it allows me do more of the fun bits of coding and creating. It's not too different than giving the easy/basic/annoying stuff to consultants and less senior engineers. Do people get mad when the hire more devs? You still get to machinate over how to attack a problem in clever ways. Also, you can give 4 out of 5 tasks to the AI and leave the fun bits for yourself.
sshadmand··on 30 Years Ago Windows 95 Changed Everything
No mentioned of Xerox in there. You can't have a mac/win recap without a blip about Xerox getting abused.
sshadmand··on I Pitched Netflix a Friends-Style Casablanca Sitcom
This is perfect for AI video creation. Everyone is dead so you can easily get likeness for the actors and produce a teaser real for pennies on the dollar. Did you try that yet? Throwing that on a post and/or youtube will get a nice ghetto test of interest you can then show some execs - 1M views is the new "here is my idea".
sshadmand··on Rust in the kernel is no longer experimental
I haven't had time to experiment with it yet. How is agent directed development doing with Rust 0-to-1 an 1-inf. product gen?
sshadmand··on Bruno Simon – 3D Portfolio
How he created a world around his CV may not be groundbreaking, but very creative and done exceptionally well. I caught myself driving around for a couple minutes. Accepting cookies bakes a cookie, you get hidden easter eggs when you complete certain actions (like lift driving in water). Just like with any creative endeavor (movies, music, dance) doing something no one has ever seen isn't always the goal (striving for that can often feel forced/cringe); creating an emotion in someone is art - and this did that for me.
sshadmand··on It is counterproductive to force cache on all tools of an agent
Don't they have to cache in order to access the tools quickly enough to run the agents? I imagine not doing slow would slow down the progress considerably. Or, maybe I misunderstand which part of the flow/agent/work you mean by "cache on tools"
sshadmand··on Oliver Sacks put himself into his case studies – what was the cost?
Loved Oliver Sacks. He was such a kid at heart with a big brain and soft demeanor. His interviews are great. Here is one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AnuxDdg2II It is rare a lisp can improve how one sounds, but I like his.
sshadmand··on Bruno Simon – 3D Portfolio
Takes a min to load even when it shows the circle complete. But a 1-2xrefreshes load it and yes, it is pretty sick. Wish you could zoom out more though. Nice work to Bruno!
sshadmand··on If you're going to vibe code, why not do it in C?
My gut reaction is, if AI was really good at vibe coding all the infra it could be nice, but getting C deployed and productized is the potential challenge. The "roads" we built for hyper scaling apps doesn't strike me as C friendly. And, even with the friendlier deployment strateies on next, python, etc, AI still slips up a lot.
sshadmand··on Is there any value from "coming soon" placeholders?
haha - yah. From a pure marketing perspective - vapor ware is here 100%. I'm pretty sure we are all supposed to be in self driving cars by the end of this year.
sshadmand··on Is there any value from "coming soon" placeholders?
I agree with the marketing side, but I am more on the implementation side. Could you imagine iPhone having a section "coming soon" in their OS? To me it seems impatient and wishful thinking than prioritized and thoughtful execution. When I talk to other founders/designers I feel like their reasoning falls apart pretty quickly when asked "why did you add that there?".
sshadmand··on What's the "best" way to version your product?
Agreed. It is funny that any idea can open a rabbit hole if you let it. e.g. why not do year.mo.day.min.second :-D

I suppose it is finding the "perfect balance" for human reading and customer support.

sshadmand··on What's the "best" way to version your product?
Exactly! I mean, as long as the number moves forward and is unique it works. So, this idea that using year.number is the most human AND uid based version makes a lot of sense.
sshadmand··on What's the "best" way to version your product?
Yah - OSs have been doing it since window 95 at least, but seeing products "Switch" this year, that aren't OSs, was interesting.
sshadmand··on What's the "best" way to version your product?
Yeah, that is a good way to look at it. Since this is for a website/web-app then we WILL "only support the latest". So will add that to the calculus. What I like about the trend toward "year" in the version is the instant ability to see the age of the version.
sshadmand··on Why Enterprise Software Sucks
I was surprised to not find a single instance of "fear" or "accountability" in all the comments. The major driving force in "Big Enterprise" is putting a price tag on "are you prepared for something to go wrong." Either with bad actors, stupid mistakes, or lack of resources. The overhead and settings required to increase or decrease how much exposure the customer is willing to take is what drives the indu$try. That being said, I don't disagree with a lot of the comments. There is definitely the case of over engineering, but that is a bi-product of a business having to decide between making money or turning away a customer. Great companies have kept it simple while steered their users toward simplicity (which drives down cost and errors for all parties).
sshadmand··on Great series on the 3 ways Russia crafts fake news into real real
We got into a discussion at work on this. How do you battle a strategy that injects fake news stories into publishers hands, and does it over the course of 3-10 years or more, internationally. Basically sabotaging any chance for valid researcher by those trying to seek the truth on a given (potentially planted) subject. It is a brilliant tactic, if not so insanely nefarious. Has anyone figured out a counter measure that comes close to helpful?
sshadmand··on NPM i event-stream 3.3.6 “404s”. Turns out was removed due to BC hack
The project has been archived and closed for comments, but the issues posted 3 days ago are - special: https://github.com/dominictarr/event-stream/issues/121
sshadmand··on Ask HN: Is there a better way to document complex software architectures?
Piggy backing on your post, I have a very large and complex systems of architectures (both hardware and software). I'd love to take that documentation and run analyzation on the data/node and their relationships (maybe via a graph DB in the backend and some rich search capabilities). Anyone know of any tools that not only help you draw and document, but interface with the diagrams via API?
sshadmand··on Ask HN: Online banks where I can open account worldwide?
Love revolut. The ability to store income in multiple currencies (and transition between them easily) is great. Personal accounts are free, so it is easy to try out. It is a zero interest account for business AND they charge a fee on top of that. I think they (or someone else) could do it more intelligently (like a Robinhood) for a zero fee setup.
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