Judging agents+LLMs to be convoluted because they're a complex solution to writing code in a small scale programming language, feels similar to judging excavators and dump trucks to be convoluted tools because they're a complex solution to changing potting soil for a house plant. You don't need an excavator or dump truck to change potting soil for a house plant, but that doesn't mean excavators and dump trucks are therefore simply convoluted tools, from every point of view.

Sure, excavators and dump trucks do require some training and maintenance in order to be used well, but then they're potentially tremendously productive and useful, because they dramatically extend native human capabilities for many purposes that are far more challenging than changing potting soil.

You certainly wouldn't want to use your raw fingers to do the job of an excavator, especially if you've got 10 big construction jobs to complete. Similarly, you wouldn't want to forego the use of LLMs and agents, if you're a software developer or IT manager with seriously challenging daily demands from clients.

There is likely no other tool in all the technology landscape, which provides as much value returned, for the time invested in learning, as LLMs and agents.

Judging agents+LLMs to be convoluted tools because they're a complex solution to writing little code examples in a small-scale programming language, feels similar to judging excavators and dump trucks to be convoluted because they're a complex solution to changing the potting soil for a house plant on your kitchen counter. You don't need any tools to change the potting soil for your house plant, but that doesn't mean that excavators and dump trucks have no valid purpose in the world. Of course, those tools are tremendously useful, and can be used to dramatically extend native human capabilities. You don't want to use your raw fingers to do the job of an excavator, when you have 10 big construction jobs to complete. Agents and LLMs are analogously useful in software development, IT resource management, and for other complex computing tasks. If you're a software developer with serious daily demands from clients, you don't want to work without LLMs and agents - just like if you're a contractor constructing huge buildings, you don't want to work without excavators and dump trucks.