Third run of the SMA authoring probe, this time with Qwen fully equipped: a
distilled complete Form-A construct grammar (with explicit arity/paren rules),
the mini-spec, and the verbatim Series library source. Hypothesis: the formal
grammar clears the bracket failures of runs 1-2. It did the opposite.
With ~80k prompt tokens the model degenerated into an identical pathological
(seq (seq (seq ...))) tower every turn (321 open parens vs 10 close,
byte-identical across all 6 turns, indentation exploding). Doubling max_tokens
to confirm it was not mere truncation produced HTTP 413 (request too large) —
more budget yields an even larger degenerate output, confirming degeneration.
Verdict (n=1 model): Qwen3-Coder-Next wrote no working SMA in any of three
configurations; more reference material made it WORSE, not better (the lean
run 2 got the algorithm right, the fully-equipped run 3 looped); it never
converged from ail-check feedback in any run; all failures are Form-A
bracket-shape errors, never semantics. Driver + raw logs updated.
Probe whether a foreign model can write the Series SMA worked example in
AILang Form-A from the mini-spec + Series API alone. Two live runs, neither
reached green, but a clean progression:
- Run 1 (stock API doc): 6 byte-identical turns, blocked on (app new ...) —
Qwen treats the term head as an ordinary function.
- Run 2 (new clarified as a term head): clears that; ownership threading
comes out idiomatically right (nested let s = Series.push s v), but
S-expression bracketing breaks (push sees 4 args, not 2).
Cross-cutting: Qwen clears a hurdle only with per-quirk guidance and never
converges from the ail check diagnostic (same failure repeated all 6 turns
in both runs); the failures are Form-A bracket-shape errors, not semantic.
n=1 model, single session. Driver: sma_probe.py; raw logs sma-probe-run{1,2}.md.
Live IONOS run, with consent.
Brummel