mitsuhiko: For code porting, let the agent build its own test suite instead of reusing the old one
mitsuhiko · x · 2026-11-01
mitsuhiko pushes back on the common reply that "the value is in the test suite" when rebuilding software. He argues an existing suite helps but isn't necessary — and that pre-existing tests are often bad for hill climbing. Better: have the agent build its own test suite specifically for the port. He cites an agent that re-implemented Excel's formula engine, building its test suite from scratch.
Related event: mitsuhiko and antirez Debate Agent-Built Test Suites for Code Migration(3 posts)→
More from coding & agent
- After Railway credential leak, Every used Codex to triage exposed keys — danshipper · 2026-11-01
- antirez: ablation study needed on whether coding agents do better in C than Rust — antirez · 2026-11-01
- Karpathy builds HackerTube in ~2 hours with zero code: 6,454 HN-recommended videos — minchoi · 2026-11-01
- Solo dev ships Pokemon-like autobattler built almost entirely with Claude Code — columbus3d · 2026-11-01
- vista8 links DeepSeek's article backing the Super-agent architecture thesis — vista8 · 2026-11-01
- AI agents' next bottleneck is humans: people track only 3–5 active sessions — vista8 · 2026-11-01