frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Ask HN: LLM is useless without explicit prompt

4•revskill•1y ago
After months playing with LLM models, here's my observation:

- LLM is basically useless without explicit intent in your prompt.

- LLM failed to correct itself. If it generated bullshits, it's an inifinite loop of generating more bullshits.

The question is, without explicit prompt, could LLM leverage all the best practices to provide maintainable code without me instruct it at least ?

Comments

ben_w•1y ago
Your expectations are way too high.

> - LLM is basically useless without explicit intent in your prompt.

You can say the same about every dev I've worked with, including myself. This is literally why humans have meetings rather than all of us diving in to whatever we're self-motivated to do.

What does differ is time-scales of the feedback loop with the management:

Humans meetings are daily to weekly.

According to recent research*, the state-of-the-art models are only 50% accurate at tasks that would take a human expert an hour, or 80% accurate at tasks that would take a human expert 10 minutes.

Even if the currently observed trend of increasing time horizons holds, we're 21 months from having an AI where every other daily standup is "ugh, no, you got it wrong", and just over 5 years from them being able to manage a 2-week sprint with an 80% chance of success (in the absence of continuous feedback).

Even that isn't really enough for them to properly "leverage all the best practices to provide maintainable code", as archiecture and maintainability are longer horizon tasks than 2-week sprints.

* https://youtu.be/evSFeqTZdqs?si=QIzIjB6hotJ0FgHm

revskill•1y ago
It's not as high as you think.

LLM failed at the most basic things related to maintainable code. Its code is basicaly a hackery mess without any structure at all.

It's my expectation is that, at least, some kind of maintainable code is generated from what's it's learnt.

ben_w•1y ago
Given your expectation:

> It's my expectation is that, at least, some kind of maintainable code is generated from what's it's learnt.

And your observation:

> LLM failed at the most basic things related to maintainable code. Its code is basicaly a hackery mess without any structure at all.

QED, *your expectations* are way too high.

They can't do that yet.

Mass Surveillance Wasn't an Accident

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvsgrhS5bV8
1•soupspaces•1m ago•0 comments

US postgraduate student visas will be limited to 4 years

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/07/16/trump-administration-issues-final-rule-end-foreign-student-vi...
1•macleginn•4m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: What are you working on(2026)?

1•adithyaharish•6m ago•0 comments

Mario Kart Wii recompiled for PC using AI, with 4K potential and uncapped FPS

https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/retro-gaming/mario-kart-wii-recompiled-for-pc-using-ai-w...
2•gloxkiqcza•11m ago•0 comments

Is the AI Boom over for Kospi and Asian Tech Stocks?

https://www.disruptionbanking.com/2026/07/17/is-the-ai-boom-over-for-kospi-and-asian-tech-stocks/
1•technewssss•11m ago•0 comments

Time-Series Language Models for Reasoning over Multivariate Data at Scale (ICML)

https://www.aioniclabs.ai/research/opentslm
5•rjakob•13m ago•4 comments

Company Blew $500M on Claude Because Nobody Set a Spending Limit

https://mrkt30.com/company-blew-500m-on-claude-because-nobody-set-a-spending-limit/
2•technewssss•13m ago•0 comments

The Self-Driving Company

https://twitter.com/amasad/status/2077802290304684404
1•tosh•15m ago•0 comments

How OpenAI's Sol Learned Design Taste

https://notes.designarena.ai/how-openais-sol-finally-learned-design-taste/
1•tomduncalf•15m ago•1 comments

Turn an existing CV into a personal website in under a minute

https://self.cv/en/blog/why-we-built-self
1•javier_yc_new•18m ago•1 comments

AI can now control Reaper DAW

https://github.com/xDarkzx/Reaper-MCP/tree/main/reaper_mcp/tools
2•DanHodgetts•22m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Senbonzakura – remove the safety guardrails from open AI models

https://github.com/elementmerc/senbonzakura
2•ElementMerc•22m ago•0 comments

M-PESA cornered the market in Kenya (2024)

https://www.wbs.ac.uk/news/how-mpesa-cornered-the-market/
2•zeristor•23m ago•0 comments

Using AI to build your own software

https://lemire.me/blog/2026/07/16/using-ai-to-build-your-own-software/
1•ingve•24m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I applied for a position at PostHog, so I built a game

https://www.alexis-fournier.com/hognarok/
1•alxfrnr•26m ago•0 comments

Principia Artificialis Open mathematical research program onthe theory of AI

https://github.com/holland202/Principia-Artificialis
1•badatchess•26m ago•0 comments

SpaceX scrubs Starship launch after some of its engines didn't start

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/07/spacex-scrubs-starship-launch-after-some-of-its-engines-did...
4•rbanffy•30m ago•0 comments

Tell HN: AWS said I was projected to spend $5B this month on my personal account

3•throwaway_5753•32m ago•1 comments

Which IELTS writing scorer is more accurate? A test on 73 official responses

https://ieltswritingchecker.org/blog/ielts-writing-checker-accuracy-study
1•iamin•33m ago•0 comments

AxiomProver at IMO 2026 (perfect score)

https://github.com/AxiomMath/IMO2026
1•chaoxu•34m ago•0 comments

Compliant-Mechanism Mattress for Preventing Pressure Ulcers – First Prototype [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfIB_e_6rzY&list=PLWeErkRyxkhJLAOiogjiNLPDU5KPlRVwm
1•o4c•36m ago•0 comments

Representations of Power and Rarity (2026)

https://icely.neocities.org/articles/representations-of-power-and-rarity
1•icely•36m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Monocoque – ZMTP 3.1 (ZeroMQ) messaging library in pure Rust

https://github.com/vorjdux/monocoque
1•vorjdux•38m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Prompts for Self-Help

https://plastithink.com/
1•andsko•39m ago•0 comments

Nvidia Showcases Japanese AI Development Built on Nemotron Models

https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/nvidia-showcases-japanese-ai-development-built-on-nemotron-m...
1•rbanffy•40m ago•0 comments

End of Line: Replacing MCP with Standard Filesystem Tools

https://www.sicpers.info/2026/07/end-of-line-replacing-mcp-with-standard-filesystem-tools/
1•ingve•41m ago•0 comments

New Viking music Odin´s eye

https://open.spotify.com/track/5HvBJ2KBGetjlIeMJiJq8b
1•mrhappypappy•41m ago•1 comments

Porous material harvests water from the air and enable energy-efficient cooling

https://www.uni-kiel.de/en/university/details/news/kieler-material-gewinnt-trinkwasser-aus-luft-u...
1•geox•43m ago•0 comments

I Owe My Life to the Commodore 64

https://www.goto10retro.com/p/i-owe-my-life-to-the-commodore-64
6•ingve•43m ago•0 comments

AWS: Inaccurate Estimated Billing Data - $1.7 BILLION

10•nprateem•46m ago•14 comments