frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Ask HN: LLM is useless without explicit prompt

4•revskill•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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.

A Lack of Corporate Focus

https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/12/02/windows-11-needs-its-own-windows-xp-sp2-moment-without-a...
1•razodactyl•1m ago•1 comments

Show HN: XDA Forum discussion on sideloading (2009)

https://xdaforums.com/t/android-market-updates-on-sideloaded-apps.557028/
1•estimator7292•2m ago•0 comments

Chasing agentic AI success at scale in 2026

https://www.fastforward.blog/chasing-agentic-ai-success-at-scale-in-2026/
1•nadis•3m ago•0 comments

Client side quantum computing in the browser (OSS)

https://twitter.com/i/status/2015927372714017129
2•gnarbarian•3m ago•0 comments

Stop blaming yourself for expanding waistline. Food supply working against you

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/22/health/food-intelligence-kevin-hall-wellness
1•paulpauper•4m ago•0 comments

Behavioral Biases in LLM Models

https://www.nber.org/papers/w34745
1•paulpauper•6m ago•0 comments

Show HN: OptionIncome – auto tracker for option sellers

https://www.optionincome.io
1•yx_wang•7m ago•0 comments

U.S. marshals investigate claim of $40M crypto theft

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/01/26/u-s-marshals-investigate-claims-that-son-of-governme...
1•paulpauper•8m ago•0 comments

The Relative Trap

https://blog.sebastiansastre.co/posts/the-relative-trap/
1•sebastianconcpt•8m ago•0 comments

Clawdbot Control Vulnerability Exposes AI System to Remote Code Execution

https://thecyberedition.com/clawdbot-control-vulnerability-exposes-ai-system-to-remote-code-execu...
1•thehacknews•8m ago•1 comments

Arcan Explained – A browser for different webs

https://arcan-fe.com/2026/01/26/arcan-explained-a-browser-for-different-webs/
1•ingenieroariel•9m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Strata AI-powered ops platform

https://precision-heavens-earth.lovable.app
1•lavandar-admin•10m ago•0 comments

DarkCode – 8-color barcode, 140k chars (decoder 50% broken)

https://github.com/Typexex/DarkCode-Bardo
2•typexaitypexex•11m ago•2 comments

We Are Letting LLMs Decide Who Gets Hired and Doing It Wrong

https://dokasto.com/blog/we-are-letting-llms-decide/
2•ud0•11m ago•0 comments

TIL the Apple TV Remote pairs with MacBooks for presentations and playback

https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/mac-help/welcome/mac
2•no_creativity_•14m ago•0 comments

The Refragmentation (2016)

https://paulgraham.com/re.html
2•virgildotcodes•17m ago•0 comments

Passengers to start riding De Lijn's self-driving buses in Leuven

https://www.belganewsagency.eu/passengers-to-start-riding-de-lijns-self-driving-buses-in-leuven
3•riffraff•20m ago•1 comments

Researchers achieve 3D forest reconstruction from remote sensing data

https://phys.org/news/2026-01-ai-trees-forest-3d-reconstruction.html
1•PaulHoule•20m ago•0 comments

Ending tax refunds by check risks sidelining people who don't have bank accounts

https://theconversation.com/ending-tax-refunds-by-check-will-speed-payments-but-risks-sidelining-...
1•geox•20m ago•0 comments

AI by Hand: Deep Learning Math Workbook

https://www.byhand.ai/p/deep-learning-math-workbook
2•teleforce•21m ago•0 comments

Pwn2own: Escaping VMware Workstation

https://www.synacktiv.com/en/publications/on-the-clock-escaping-vmware-workstation-at-pwn2own-ber...
1•alphax314•21m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Agent OS – 0% Safety Violations for AI Agents

https://github.com/imran-siddique/agent-os
1•mosiddi•22m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Mirascope – The LLM Anti-Framework

https://github.com/Mirascope/mirascope/tree/main/python
5•wbakst•23m ago•3 comments

You have to know how tech companies work

https://www.seangoedecke.com/knowing-how-to-drive-the-car/
3•alexwennerberg•24m ago•0 comments

Why does your database cost more than your application?

https://launchly.io/about
2•justpeek•29m ago•0 comments

Claude Subconscious

https://cameron.stream/blog/claude-subconscious/
2•cpfiffer•29m ago•0 comments

Why doesn't mataroa block AI scrapers?

https://hey.mataroa.blog/p/why-doesnt-mataroa-block-ai-scrapers/
2•sirodoht•29m ago•0 comments

Growing crops on Martha's Vineyard (2013) [video]

https://vimeo.com/72446065
1•indigodaddy•30m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Translate any document while preserving original layouts and formatting

https://qopywriter.ai/ai-doc-translator
1•robgehring•30m ago•0 comments

Show HN: JSON spreadsheets with vi bindings (proof of concept)

https://awalgarg.me/untitled_project
1•awalGarg•30m ago•0 comments