Comment by ray_v
21 days ago
Uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't bash and GNU tools ALSO code? They're ROCK SOLID, battle tested, well understood APIs for performimg actions, including running other CLIs, and any OTHER code it's written. It makes the the MOST sense for the agent to live at that level!
This was my first thought as well, I found the examples of `ls` and `grep` amusing in this context.
I think the author's point is: instead of exposing `grep`/`head`/`awk` as their own distinct tools, expose a single tool for writing the language. They chose Python but one could just as easily choose bash.
I think the point is being able revert to the initial state, and to have a single step between the initial state and final state. It’s hard to rollback a series of tool calls, and your search for a solution continues at every step. With a “code only” agent, the goal is to get to the final state in a single step, and you can keep reverting state and modifying the code until you get there. You can’t do that with a series of tool calls.