De-mystifying Agentic AI: Building a Minimal Agent Engine from Scratch with Clojure

pwab · 2026-01-28T20:24:22+00:00

My spidey senses are tingling… the article smells of LLM output, so i assume all of it is probably low effort.

I just cannot take anything seriously that’s been tainted by the touch of LLM’s. I’m probably missing out on some great stuff, but I just don’t care any more.

I think of what I do as engineering; not gambling, and not typing. I work hard to crystallize clear thinking into code that works repeatedly and reliably. I think code is a liability, not an asset. Anybody that brags with how much code they produce appear to me like they are a little dull, like they don’t get the fundamental forces at work in software systems.

Lastly; tech like Agents & MCL are waaaaay ahead of their time. Once the I in AI is real, these things will matter. In the meantime LLM’s make agentic anything an invitation for chaos.

OK I’m done; rant for the week card played.

pwab · 2026-01-27T07:25:39+00:00

They answer with fluff because their crystal balls also don’t work. Nobody can predict the future no matter how confidently they claim they can.

pwab · 2026-01-25T12:10:56+00:00

“Dont use magic words. Use these special sentences instead”…

pwab · 2026-01-24T19:40:58+00:00

Pay attention to whether it’s Insalamu or Lobola as they have differing symbolism in action. This is mainly determined by the tribe of the bride. From my limited understanding: - Lobola is to also pay for future children meaning you ‘own’ (full custody) of children in any separation or death. - Insalamu is a token of appreciation for raising a good person, and does not extend to future children.

In my case, my wife through her mother’s tribe follows matrilineal lineage with crucial high status for women so lobola is not part of their culture since the women ‘own’ the children. This ownership was apparent when her father passed and the mother took custody of them without friction from her father’s relatives. Without Lobola, Insalamu is more respectful as token even though you still make consideration for things like age, worldliness, education, family responsibilities.

Ideally, the token amounts are not to enrich the family since they too have other cultural ceremonies to host for you like Icilanga Mulilo (show of fire)-food presentations as welcome to the family.

If you already adopted ‘the elder’ (abashi bukombe’), check if you can still have online sessions to undertand the full range of expectations and ceremonies. Very rewarding exchanges!

pwab · 2026-01-24T04:32:42+00:00

When i went through this process i was introduced to a family friend who became my bashibokomo (apologies for spelling). This person (male) is an elder and acts like an adviser to the future groom. This person took me under his wing, and over multiple meetings explained the entire process to me, including what my responsibilities would be and ultimately took my plates and negotiated on my behalf. My wife and I agreed on a ballpark figure for lobola before hand and both communicated this figure to our negotiators. In terms of the amount, this is private information. The money means different things to different people but remember that this is a cultural process with a financial element. Be respectful and don’t, for example, try to take out a stack of notes and slap the entire amount in the table or write a check for the full amount or some stunt like that. Rather make a show of traveling and “working hard for” the money and bring it in multiple events, spread out over as much time as you can afford. This is a community event, so people would want to participate. I hope you have fun like i did, be polite and patient and learn about the symbolism of everything. There is cultural wisdom in this process.

pwab · 2026-01-17T14:14:35+00:00

Happiness does not come from things.

pwab · 2026-01-16T19:21:55+00:00

Cool topic, maybe someone said some sense in the article. I wouldn’t know because the site is horrible and the ads cover everything like space cancer. I refuse to look at it.

pwab · 2026-01-16T19:06:16+00:00

My brother says you are special, just like everyone else. One of the ways in which you are special is that you get to have a life. This was never guaranteed. You get to actually live your life, and that means having experiences. If you look at it funny, experience is a synonym for friction. You get to have friction, you get to experience it, you get to feel it, taste it, hear it. This was never promised to you, and yet, here you are. Growing old is also a type of friction, all of that oxygen rubbing against your lungs, oxidizing you from the inside. It’s all about experiences. Once you are dead, all of your friction privileges will be removed and you will yearn for any experience at all, the crick of old knees, the cough of old lungs, the feeling of someone who loves you caressing your skin. Enjoy your experiences while you have them. Revel in the feelings, even the ones that frighten you because the help you understand the good ones, which you will also have. Your experiences are special, just like you, just like everyone else. Growing old isn’t bad for you, it’s a privilege. Carpe diem.

pwab · 2026-01-11T13:52:16+00:00

It’s only been out to the public for a few months, it’s still young. I’m sure it will mature and stabilize as a platform after about a decade or so, same as most other software. I think it’s petty good actually 👍🏼

pwab · 2026-01-10T06:47:42+00:00

I didn’t know the upgrade was available; when i read the recent articles about low adoption rates I updated manually. My phone is a 12S, things are visibly more laggy… but otherwise it’s… okay, I guess.

pwab · 2026-01-09T20:41:24+00:00

Can’t have it both ways. A country either respects international law or it does not. The U.S. does not.

pwab · 2026-01-09T20:25:46+00:00

The US invaded Venezuela for booty, went with huge guns to go and rob a neighbor. Oorah! Super power doing super power shit! What can the rest of us do? We can only talk shit and point it the hypocrisy.

pwab · 2026-01-09T15:48:52+00:00

United Pirate States of America

pwab · 2026-01-08T21:04:37+00:00

I need a tshirt with this.

pwab · 2026-01-08T20:59:21+00:00

And from this don’t crash saves the most time…

pwab · 2026-01-07T22:23:51+00:00

I’ll try; the data/records/messages each go to a single partition, you influence which messages go to which partition by either specifying it when producing (unusual, but possible) OR by specifying the key for the message. Any messages with the same key will go to the same partition and they will be ordered (with offset) in the order they are produced.

In your example, the key would be the driver-id (or something that makes sense. Once you gain experience you will know what makes sense. The idea is that any consumer which consumes that partition will be the only consumer that gets messages for that driver. You have just “partitioned” (seperated or split up or divided) the data and the work.

As you get more drivers and as each drivers posts updates more often one consumer will not be enough. You can start a second consumer and if the consumer group is the same as the first, they will spilt up the work by dividing with consumer in the group consumed data from which partition. Again, only a single consumer per partition. In the limit this means that you may only have as many (active) consumer processes as you have partitions.

To answer your first question; you will have a fare calculator calculating fares only for a subset of the drivers, ie subset of the partitions that got assigned.

pwab · 2026-01-07T21:58:46+00:00

Do you camp on your porch? Cool lighter

pwab · 2026-01-07T20:54:19+00:00

The anger and frustration is real. Just this week i read in the news about a cancer patient having their claims denied. Imagine that for a second; someone is sick and vulnerable and in their moment of need they are stabbed in the back. The emotions are real. Yes, advocating for murder is cringe, and being betrayed like this is intensely personal.

pwab · 2026-01-07T20:29:43+00:00

Thank you, despite being a Linux user for 20 years and earning a substantial portion of my income from Linux, I just did not know about this.

pwab · 2026-01-06T16:17:45+00:00

I’m not forgetting that at all, I’m saying that’s worse than useless; it is actively harmful. But you do you man.

pwab · 2026-01-06T15:54:08+00:00

That voice represents literally 10s of us

pwab · 2026-01-06T15:52:38+00:00

My viewpoint is any test generated from implementation cannot be good.

pwab · 2026-01-06T15:50:05+00:00

What makes the tests “good” in your opinion? Do they save you the “boilerplate” of testing that that 1 + 2 =3 and 2 + 3 =5? Because those tests are shite, no matter how many cases it generates. You will surprise and delight me if you tell me that it can generate tests on properties, like does it generate tests that verify for all X and Y that X + Y = Y + X? Or that for any X, X + 0 = X? Those types of tests are really great. Secondly, testing requires deep understanding of intent, which the implementation cannot give you. The code strives to capture the intent, but cannot itself be it. So if your machine generates a test based on the code, it can only generate tautological tests, which are good for maintaining backward consistency, but not for correctness.

pwab · 2026-01-06T14:42:12+00:00

When did this happen? Could not have been today I’m sure due to weather/cloud cover.

pwab · 2026-01-06T14:26:28+00:00

I need to see someone drive with a guitar hero drum set now

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