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Posted by ejholmes 17 hours ago

When does MCP make sense vs CLI?(ejholmes.github.io)
375 points | 243 commentspage 10
morissette 13 hours ago|
I’ve been using the command line tools except for teams integration which I use MCP for
lukol 17 hours ago||
Couldn't agree more. Simple REST APIs often do the job as well. MCP felt like a vibe-coded fever dream from the start.
swaraj 5 hours ago||
This is spot on
raw_anon_1111 7 hours ago||
This is the dumbest most myopic take I’ve seen in awhile. MCP servers aren’t just used for geeks using Claude Code. If I have an app in production that uses an MCP server what is he suggesting? That my LLM create a shell script and run it inside of a Docker container?
vladdoster 13 hours ago||
Thoughts on Agent Context Protocol (ACP)?
lasgawe 16 hours ago||
I don't know about this. I use AI, but I've never used or tried MCP. I've never had any problems with the current tools.
I_am_tiberius 16 hours ago|
That's the way my 80 year old grandpa talks.
rvz 16 hours ago||
MCPs were dead in the water and were completely a bad standard to begin with. The hype around never made sense.

Not only it had lots of issues and security problems all over the place and it was designed to be complicated.

For example, Why does your password manager need an MCP server? [0]

But it still does not mean a CLI is any better for everything.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44528411

kgwxd 9 hours ago||
Been ignoring this junk for a long but I had to look since the front page is littered with "MCP". Is acronym on purpose?
irishcoffee 11 hours ago||
*when does an LLM make sense vs writing your own code.

Dang, I fixed the title for you.

dnautics 16 hours ago|
what honestly is the difference between an mcp and a skill + instructions + curl.

Really it seems to me the difference is that an mcp could be more token-efficient, but it isn't, because you dump every mcp's instructions all the time into your context.

Of course then again skills frequently doesn't get triggered.

just seems like coding agent bugs/choices and protocol design?

wmil 11 hours ago||
The difference is that the server gives a description of the api it understands in enough detail that the llm can make use of it.

MCP is still going to be handy enough for iot type devices, where an llm can discover what's actually supported by that device without needing to query about the specific version.

Swagger / OpenAPI just aren't detailed enough to use without other documentation.

Skills & instructions will always have the limit that they run locally, so if they don't match the server there is a problem.

ejholmes 14 hours ago||
Author here! Biggest difference is composition. MCP tools don't chain (there's people trying to fix that, but it's still true right now).
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