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.

What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? (1984) [pdf]

https://linguistics.berkeley.edu/kay/Kay&Kempton.1984.pdf
1•the-mitr•2m ago•0 comments

Vue Streaming Tutorial: Build a Live Video Streaming App with WebRTC (WHEP)

https://www.red5.net/blog/how-to-create-webrtc-publisher-clients-with-adaptive-live-encoding/
2•mondainx•3m ago•0 comments

The UK Power Grid Has a Phantom Data Center Problem

https://www.wired.com/story/uk-data-centers-logjam-ofgem-regulations/
2•kuuuzya•4m ago•0 comments

The Seniors Against Senior Housing

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-08-19/senior-housing-faces-opposition-from-seniors-t...
1•littlexsparkee•8m ago•0 comments

Claudeforce

https://twitter.com/salesforce/status/2092741578045497762
1•tosh•8m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Flint

https://flint.thingg.co
2•aosmith•11m ago•0 comments

AWS billing bug causes 1000x increase in token prices

https://repost.aws/questions/QUveO4Hv5ITKmWvfoCNizR4A/from-1k-to-400k-monthly-usage-billing-with-...
2•nawitus•11m ago•0 comments

Launching Aroha Astrology – would love feedback from fellow founders

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aroha.astrology&hl=en_US
1•subir17•11m ago•0 comments

Whoop just made its most stylish band yet

https://mashable.com/tech/whoop-meridian-band-announcement-price
1•kuuuzya•12m ago•0 comments

Lounge Discussion

https://dis.tinychan.net/lounge/
1•allgirl•14m ago•1 comments

C can be memory-safe

https://blog.erratasec.com/2023/02/c-can-be-memory-safe.html
1•signa11•15m ago•0 comments

Why Israeli Authorities Are Encouraging Settler Violence Against Palestinians

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-israeli-authorities-are-encouraging-settler-violence-a...
1•hebelehubele•15m ago•1 comments

Metaⁿ: Recursive Self-Improvement Through Emergent Depth

https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.24735
1•sbulaev•15m ago•0 comments

The U.K. Is Falling for Palantir's Salesmanship

https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/08/26/palantir-operator-starmer-united-kingdom-nhs-software/
2•CaptainZapp•15m ago•0 comments

Flat vs. segmented memory – it's recursive

https://www.humprog.org/~stephen/blog/2026/08/25/#flat-vs-segmented
1•signa11•20m ago•0 comments

Meta $16.68B settlement with 29 states

https://oag.dc.gov/release/attorney-general-schwalb-announces-meta-will-pay
2•Sentralis•22m ago•1 comments

Claudeforce

https://www.salesforce.com/claudeforce/?bc=HL
1•makeramen•25m ago•0 comments

Baltimore neighborhoods rely on private security to fill policing gaps

https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/09/20/baltimore-neighborhoods-rely-on-private-security-to-fill-...
1•allgirl•25m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Text editor that does it all

https://kraa.io/about?s=hn
1•levmiseri•30m ago•1 comments

C++26: Std:Inplace_vector

https://www.sandordargo.com/blog/2026/08/26/cpp26-inplace-vector
1•signa11•34m ago•1 comments

SpaceX plans a $100B spaceport built for launches a year

https://thenextweb.com/news/spacex-louisiana-spaceport-100bn-europe-launch-cadence
1•ksec•36m ago•1 comments

Composition and Modular Verification of TLA+ Specs

http://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2026/08/composition-and-modular-verification-of.html
2•matt_d•37m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: How do you protect self-hosted websites from LLM scrapers?

1•atmosx•39m ago•1 comments

OpenAI staff observed warning signs before AI agents attack on Hugging Face

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/26/openai-staff-observed-warning-signs-before-ai-...
4•nreece•40m ago•1 comments

Prefix Sliding for efficient test-time scaling

https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.26070
2•E-Reverance•41m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Wallps: set different live wallpapers for macOS desktop and lock screen

https://deepanshumishraa.github.io/wallps/
3•dipxsy•42m ago•0 comments

The choices we make about AI now are critical

https://www.gatesnotes.com/home/home-page-topic/reader/a-turbulent-ai-era-and-critical-choices-to...
1•kristianp•45m ago•1 comments

Social Link Vault – Local-first Android bookmark manager (Never forget a link))

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yzh.social_link_vault_ai&hl=en_US
1•yhammadieh•46m ago•0 comments

DRM/xe: Don't hand out the flat CCS storage as usable VRAM

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=818bebeb63dd6bf5f4e...
1•DarmokJalad1701•47m ago•0 comments

Centuries-old hunger stones are emerging as Europe's rivers recede

https://www.dw.com/en/hunger-stones-the-history-behind-if-you-see-me-weep/a-78345729
1•divbzero•47m ago•0 comments