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What if you don't need MCP at all?

(mariozechner.at)
237 points jdkee | 6 comments | 16 Nov 25 18:58 UTC | HN request time: 0.557s | source | bottom
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whoknowsidont ◴[16 Nov 25 21:37 UTC] No.45948637[source]▶
MCP was a really shitty attempt at building a plugin framework that was vague enough to lure people into and then allow other companies to build plugin platforms to take care of the MCP non-sense.

"What is MCP, what does it bring to the table? Who knows. What does it do? The LLM stuff! Pay us $10 a month thanks!"

LLM's have function / tool calling built into them. No major models have any direct knowledge of MCP.

Not only do you not need MCP, but you should actively avoid using it.

Stick with tried and proven API standards that are actually observable and secure and let your models/agents directly interact with those API endpoints.

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1. voidhorse ◴[17 Nov 25 00:28 UTC] No.45949815[source]▶
Yeah there's no there there when it comes to MCP. It's crazy to me that the world bought into the idea when the "spec" literally boils down to "have your server give the LLM some json". Just illustrates how powerful it is to attach names to things, especially in a hypestorm in which everyone is already frothing at the mouth and reason is hard to come by. Give people some word they can utter to help them sound like they're on the "bleeding edge" and they'll buy into it even if it's totally pointless.
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2. tptacek ◴[17 Nov 25 00:52 UTC] No.45949936[source]▶
"Have your XYZ give the LLM some JSON" is pretty close to how all tool calling works with or without MCP.
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3. mycall ◴[17 Nov 25 01:33 UTC] No.45950118[source]▶
Markdown is for output too.
4. what-the-grump ◴[17 Nov 25 02:33 UTC] No.45950384[source]▶
What next you are going to tell me rest and async are implemented in code?! And not just willed into existence by the compiler!
5. anon84873628 ◴[18 Nov 25 01:59 UTC] No.45960553[source]▶
It gave everyone a reason to think about the usability of the interfaces they were exposing.

Many endpoints have tons of fields irrelevant to 95% of external users. Now those are gone.

Or they implemented higher level abstractions for the actual tasks instead of making developers compose a bunch of little pieces.

And it has a standardized manifest.

Execs, PMs, and customers having that word to utter as part of the AI hype train created the opportunity for that industry-wide cleanup to happen. Calling it pointless is very naive. It's actually kind of extraordinary.

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6. voidhorse ◴[18 Nov 25 05:21 UTC] No.45961673[source]▶
Thanks for offering another perspective on it. I can buy into this partially.

At the same time, I'm skeptical that this won't just become yet another dead protocol once the hype abates, at which point all of the perceived benefits were for naught.