DEV Community

andrew-lastmile
andrew-lastmile

Posted on

Config vs. Code in Gen AI

Has the time finally come for Config and Code to come together for developing Gen AI applications?

Image description


For countless years, we've had numerous debates about whether ML should be more config-driven or more code-driven. There are pros and cons to both:

Attribute Code Config
Iteration speed Con: usually slower iteration speed especially as the code base gets more complicated Pro: faster to iterate and adjust configurations
Debugging Pro: easier to identify and fix issues within a single place Con: can be difficult to navigate in between code and config to isolate issues
Maintenance Con: code maintenance can become complex without clean organization and abstractions Pro: configs are already abstractions of critical settings of the application
Dependency Management Pro: libraries and dependencies are usually better managed Con: dependency issues are more common due to implicit dependencies

Given the nature of Generative AI enabling more model settings, parameters, and prompts requiring to be iterated upon, it's opened up the opportunity for Code + Config to come together to enable a better Gen AI developer experience.

We open-sourced a library, AI Config, that blends the experience together to create a seamless way to develop GenAI applications while managing GenAI components within a configuration. Let us know what you think!

Github repo

Image description

Top comments (1)

Collapse
 
tanyarai profile image
tanya rai

⚙️ configs