bit101bit101
Jun 29, 2026, 12:43 PMI'm going to go out on a limb and say that most "agentic tasks" could be replaced with a cron job and a script with a few conditionals.
Replies
- bit101bit101Jun 29, 2026, 1:07 PM
of course I don't mean the "refactor this code base, commit the result, and release a new build" kind of tasks, but the "buy this item when the price gets below $x" ones, which is what people are promoting as the amazing new capability. We've had that for ages .
Matildajunklight@mastodon.artJun 29, 2026, 12:45 PM@bit101 yeah but you know that would be deterministic, reliable and efficient - that's not the "AI" way ;-)
Gabriel Nwtrmt@mastodon.socialJun 29, 2026, 1:05 PM@bit101 for the rest, there’s Yahoo Pipes.
Oh, wait!
Dave bauerdavebauerart@mastodon.socialJun 30, 2026, 2:15 AM@wtrmt @bit101 There's still https://ifttt.com
- Dave bauerdavebauerart@mastodon.socialJun 30, 2026, 2:16 AM
- bit101bit101Jun 30, 2026, 2:49 AM
@wtrmt i tried ifttt several times over the years but never to a great result. I can blame myself. Sad but not surprised it went this route.
- Dave bauerdavebauerart@mastodon.socialJun 30, 2026, 10:17 PM
@bit101 Yeah I tried it when it was new but never take time to automate my own tasks.
- Gabriel Nwtrmt@mastodon.socialJun 30, 2026, 3:35 AM
@davebauerart @bit101 Yahoo Pipes was so special: I had never seen an interfase like that before. It felt like the promise of Mtropolis: visual programming. I did a number of complex projects with it. Amazing tool.
- Dave bauerdavebauerart@mastodon.socialJun 30, 2026, 10:17 PM
@wtrmt True pipes was unique!
mittenmitten@social.lolJun 30, 2026, 10:21 PM@davebauerart @wtrmt @bit101 Make.com is better than ifttt, in my opinion. It’s not as cool as Pipes was, but it is more visually oriented. It handles some pretty complex workflows for my Etsy shop stuff. https://www.make.com/en
- Gabriel Nwtrmt@mastodon.socialJun 30, 2026, 11:44 PM
@mitten @davebauerart @bit101 that is an incredible URL. I’m going to check it out.
- mittenmitten@social.lolJul 1, 2026, 12:08 AM
@wtrmt @davebauerart @bit101 Just as a note: I don't use any of the AI/agentic stuff at Make. I just do stuff like: when I get an Etsy order, add it to this spreadsheet and make a todo for me, etc etc etc.
- Dave bauerdavebauerart@mastodon.socialJun 30, 2026, 11:47 PM
Jun 29, 2026, 6:02 PM@bit101
Normal people do tend to struggle with 'if' statements and cron jobs.An LLM to a tool that created a script with some easily verifiable conditionals and a cron job would probably be more useful, of course.
Ether Diveretherdiver@ravenation.clubJun 29, 2026, 6:09 PM@bit101 Have definitely run into multiple variations of this-- people insisting gen LLM is the "only" (or at least "best") way to do a task that is EASILY solved by a simple python script or tiny, dedicated app/extension/etc.
Chalk it to laziness, lack of intellectual curiosity, and a refusal to learn anything new in order to solve a problem. (And no coincidence that the lazy, the intellectually incurious, and the willfully ignorant are exactly the target audience for LLMs).