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.

MP resigns over allegations she duped South Africans to fight for Russia

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2dndy228xo
2•breve•2m ago•0 comments

The Slow Grind That Sets You Free

https://medium.com/@naveensky/the-slow-grind-that-sets-you-free-97abd8b9bf2c
1•naveensky•4m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Structural Genesis – structure emerging from nothing (Ø₀)

https://github.com/jengbeng/structural-genesis
1•jengbeng•7m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: How are you preparing for the impending Android sideloading changes?

1•BrenBarn•11m ago•0 comments

Show HN: VidBee – A cross-platform video downloader with RSS auto-download

https://vidbee.org
1•nexmoe•15m ago•0 comments

Extreme Go Horse Process

https://gist.githubusercontent.com/banaslee/4147370/raw/fde1036073a94af5b0ee1f3c38d96bcef63e24d7/...
1•ArcHound•17m ago•0 comments

ChatGPT prompt consumes equivalent to 10s of Netflix

https://simonwillison.net/2025/Nov/29/chatgpt-netflix/
4•makeavish•27m ago•1 comments

LLM Agents Demystified

https://github.com/Dobiasd/articles/blob/master/llm_agents_demystified.md
2•Dobiasd•28m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Created free tool for Roblox Videos

https://www.inreels.ai/tools/text-to-brainrot
1•Onekiran•32m ago•0 comments

Stanford CS230 – Autumn 2025 – Lecture 7: Agents, Prompts, and RAG [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1njvbBmfsw
1•vismit2000•32m ago•0 comments

KDE going all-in on a Wayland future

https://blogs.kde.org/2025/11/26/going-all-in-on-a-wayland-future/
3•dualogy•44m ago•0 comments

Corecore

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corecore
2•pizza•45m ago•0 comments

Garfield's Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garfield%27s_proof_of_the_Pythagorean_theorem
2•benbreen•45m ago•1 comments

Pat Gelsinger: 'I've been called here for a purpose'– Lunch With the FT

https://on.ft.com/3LZnfeq
2•microsoftedging•1h ago•0 comments

UAPs as Coherent Field Entities

https://abacusnoir.com/2025/11/29/field-entities-not-craft/
1•agambrahma•1h ago•1 comments

Planes grounded after Airbus discovers solar radiation could impact systems

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8e9d13x2z7o
3•djtango•1h ago•1 comments

Engineering.fyi

https://www.engineering.fyi/
2•Kinrany•1h ago•0 comments

Cutting C++ Exception Time by +90%? – Khalil Estell – CppCon 2025 [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNPfs8aQ4oo
2•aw1621107•1h ago•0 comments

Plastic can be programmed to have a lifespan of days, months or years

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2506104-plastic-can-be-programmed-to-have-a-lifespan-of-days...
8•thunderbong•1h ago•1 comments

Shopify pulls off real time 8K browser rendering on the Exosphere

https://twitter.com/pushmatrix/status/1994445450527519085
5•dsr12•1h ago•1 comments

The 'S&P 493' reveals a different U.S. economy

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-s-p-493-reveals-a-very-different-us-economy/ar-AA1R1VUJ
31•MilnerRoute•2h ago•5 comments

It's time for our own Space Age

https://www.thomasmoes.com/52obsessions/its-time-for-our-own-space-age
1•freediver•2h ago•0 comments

Show HN: ChikkaDB – A Translation Layer to Use SQLite as a JSON Database

https://github.com/athkishore/chikkadb-ts
4•athkishore•2h ago•0 comments

From Cells to Selves

https://aeon.co/essays/why-you-need-your-whole-body-from-head-to-toes-to-think
2•the-mitr•2h ago•0 comments

The Real-Life Hunt for Red October Happened 50 Years Ago

https://www.twz.com/sea/the-real-life-hunt-for-red-october-happened-50-years-ago
3•NewCzech•2h ago•0 comments

AI Companions shape socio-emotional learning and metacognitive development

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-025-02737-5
4•bettik•2h ago•1 comments

Seven years later, Airbus is still trying to kick its Microsoft habit

https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/26/microsoft_airbus_migration/
4•tbakker•2h ago•0 comments

All the Way Down

https://www.futilitycloset.com/2025/11/17/all-the-way-down-2/
1•surprisetalk•2h ago•0 comments

Wacky Fun Physics Ideas

https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2025/11/22/wacky-fun-physics-ideas/
3•surprisetalk•2h ago•0 comments

The Great Downzoning

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-great-downzoning/
4•barry-cotter•2h ago•0 comments