frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Ask HN: LLM is useless without explicit prompt

4•revskill•6mo 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•6mo 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•6mo 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•6mo 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.

Shor's algorithm: the one quantum algo that ends RSA/ECC tomorrow

https://blog.ellipticc.com/posts/what-is-shors-algorithm-and-why-its-the-single-biggest-threat-to...
2•iliasabs•2m ago•0 comments

After such knowledge, what forgiveness?

https://www.stevesailer.net/p/after-such-knowledge-what-forgiveness
1•tartoran•6m ago•0 comments

PpenPanzer: JavaScript/HTML5 rewrite of Panzer General 2 game

https://github.com/nicupavel/openpanzer
1•ibobev•8m ago•0 comments

CiaoTool – No-Code Multi-Chain Token Creation and Management Platform

https://ciaotool.io/en-US
1•CiaoTool•9m ago•1 comments

OpenAI Codex Plan / Spec Mode – We'd Love Your Input

https://github.com/openai/codex/discussions/7355
1•wahnfrieden•11m ago•0 comments

The VPN panic is only getting started

https://www.theverge.com/tech/827435/uk-vpn-restrictions-ban-online-safety-act
2•cebert•13m ago•1 comments

Local LLM based code reviews at Scripbox

https://medium.com/@jpranav97/zero-cost-code-reviews-self-hosted-qwen2-5-coder-on-gitlab-ci-80104...
1•vasuadari•14m ago•1 comments

Tell HN: Gemini 3 found a stack smash in a hex dump that I missed

1•leo_e•16m ago•0 comments

Quantica: A Python-like language with native quantum computing built in

https://github.com/Quantica-Foundation/quantica-lang
1•gurukasi2006•22m ago•0 comments

My car charger can boil water really fast [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INZybkX8tLI
1•zdw•23m ago•0 comments

What's in a Button?

https://belkadan.com/blog/2025/11/Whats-in-a-Button/
2•todsacerdoti•28m ago•0 comments

Nvidia reportedly no longer supplying VRAM to GPU partners due to memory crunch

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/nvidia-reportedly-no-longer-supplying-vram-to-its...
1•lysp•29m ago•0 comments

Jeffrey Epstein Was the Unofficial Advice Columnist for the Elites

https://defector.com/jeffrey-epstein-was-the-unofficial-advice-columnist-for-the-elites
2•tartoran•32m ago•0 comments

Former MIT scientist Joscha Bach funded by Epstein made racist claims in private

http://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/21/metro/epstein-emails-mit-joscha-bach/
1•tartoran•33m ago•0 comments

Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism's AI Era

https://thelocal.to/investigating-scam-journalism-ai/
1•pseudolus•40m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: What's the point of starting a startup if the failure rate is so high?

2•anon115•41m ago•5 comments

Can RGB light strips produce 16M colors?

2•emmasuntech•48m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I built a website for games that catch my eye

https://alistof.games
2•RaycatRakittra•51m ago•1 comments

Show HN: RcloneView – a GUI for rclone with 50% Black Friday deal

https://rcloneview.com/
1•newclone•53m ago•0 comments

Software Freedom Conservancy 2025 Fundraiser launched with largest match yet

https://sfconservancy.org/news/2025/nov/26/2025-fundraiser-launched-with-largest-match-yet/
1•pabs3•1h ago•0 comments

Calcium Deposits in the Arteries Not Always a Worry (2023)

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medical/calcium-deposits-arteries-not-always-worry
1•stacktrust•1h ago•0 comments

Former Google chief accused of spying on employees through account 'backdoor'

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-11-20/former-google-chief-accused-of-spying-on-employ...
4•perihelions•1h ago•1 comments

Clog and Clog Builder 2.4

https://github.com/rabbibotton/clog/releases/tag/v2.4
4•mike_ivanov•1h ago•1 comments

A Boy They Called a Horse

https://biblicalman.substack.com/p/the-boy-they-called-a-horse
2•koolhead17•1h ago•0 comments

Secure Programming with Static Analysis [pdf]

https://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/9780321424778/samplepages/9780321424778.pdf
1•ibobev•1h ago•0 comments

Eric Schmidt's ex-mistress sues former Google CEO over alleged stalking, abuse

https://nypost.com/2025/10/20/business/eric-schmidts-ex-mistress-31-sues-former-google-ceo-70-ove...
2•perihelions•1h ago•0 comments

Baikonur launch pad damaged after Russian Soyuz launch to ISS

https://www.aol.com/articles/baikonur-launch-pad-damaged-russian-210512525.html
3•thunderbong•1h ago•1 comments

HunyuanVideo 1.5: High-Quality AI Video Generation with Stable Motion

https://www.hunyuanvideox.com
1•Viaya•1h ago•1 comments

How a bunch of Starbucks baristas built a labor movement (2022)

https://www.vox.com/recode/22993509/starbucks-successful-union-drive
1•thunderbong•1h ago•0 comments

Intellect-3: A 100B+ MoE trained with large-scale RL

https://www.primeintellect.ai/blog/intellect-3
1•anacleto•1h ago•1 comments