frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Ask HN: LLM is useless without explicit prompt

4•revskill•12mo 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•12mo 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•12mo 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•12mo 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.

AI dictation apps, tested and ranked

https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/02/the-best-ai-powered-dictation-apps-of-2025/
1•oguzhaneksi•4s ago•0 comments

Ask HN: How long do you commute by car each day?

1•roschdal•1m ago•1 comments

LLMs can hide text in other text of the same length

https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.20075
1•m-hodges•3m ago•0 comments

Pitney Bowes Data Breach (April 2026)

https://haveibeenpwned.com/Breach/PitneyBowes
1•gnabgib•3m ago•0 comments

A Note on TurboQuant and the Earlier Eden Work

https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.18555
1•amitport•3m ago•0 comments

Outline of Thought

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_thought
1•cainxinth•4m ago•0 comments

The Dunning-Kruger effect is probably just from bimodal skill distributions

https://bosoncutter.substack.com/p/the-dunning-kruger-effect-is-probably
2•the_tyger•10m ago•1 comments

So, About That AI Bubble

https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/2026/05/ai-bubble-revenue-anthropic/687022/
2•saikatsg•10m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A Universal Stability Criterion for Symbolic Complex Systems

https://zenodo.org/records/18883274
1•M_Samir333•12m ago•1 comments

From toroids to helical tubules: Kirigami-inspired programmable assembly

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2516695122
2•bryanrasmussen•15m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Rust library for Undo/Redo using deltas, snapshots or commands

https://github.com/mikwielgus/undoredo
2•mikolajw•15m ago•1 comments

Privacy Dependencies (2020)

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3447384
1•wslh•15m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Sentient OS – On-device intelligence layer for your entire digital life

https://sentient-os.ai
2•TechExpert2910•15m ago•1 comments

Unsigned Sizes: A Five Year Mistake

https://c3-lang.org/blog/unsigned-sizes-a-five-year-mistake/
6•lerno•16m ago•0 comments

Forgiving can improve well-being

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/04/how-forgiving-can-improve-well-being/
1•gnabgib•18m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Native agent runtime for Conductor OSS

https://github.com/agentspan-ai/agentspan
1•opiniateddev•18m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Where can I go to ask for help?

5•downbad_•20m ago•1 comments

Oscars says AI actors and writing cannot win awards

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx21dl3v7d3o
2•Brajeshwar•21m ago•0 comments

Simplebanking: German open-source banking in your Mac menu bar (with CLI/MCP)

https://www.simplebanking.de
1•klotzbrocken•22m ago•0 comments

Tenacity: Cross-platform multi-track audio editor

https://codeberg.org/tenacityteam/tenacity
1•saikatsg•25m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Vim and centaur chess inspired app, where you choose from top moves

https://chess-cheaters.vercel.app/
1•lackoftactics•27m ago•0 comments

A silly little C++ quiz

https://katherinemohr.github.io/2026/04/20/cpp-quiz.html
1•kmohr•27m ago•0 comments

It's Hard to Get a British Driving License

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/02/world/europe/uk-driving-tests-backlog.html
3•saikatsg•28m ago•0 comments

Craig Newmark on Institutional Maintenance, Giving Away Control

https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/craig-newmark/
1•momentmaker•33m ago•0 comments

In Amsterdam, Ads for Fossil Fuels or Meat Are Now Verboden

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/climate/in-permissive-amsterdam-ads-for-fossil-fuels-or-meat-a...
3•bookofjoe•34m ago•1 comments

Atomdns

https://codeberg.org/miekg/dns/src/branch/main/cmd/atomdns
1•themaxdavitt•34m ago•0 comments

Bieber Coachella performance leads to catalog boost

https://liveclip.substack.com/p/top-songs-billboard-20260502
1•firasd•38m ago•0 comments

Richard Dawkins and The Claude Delusion: The great skeptic gets taken in

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/richard-dawkins-and-the-claude-delusion
10•RedReign•42m ago•3 comments

LLMs Are Complex Coherence Resolution Engines

https://robmealey.substack.com/p/using-claude-or-any-llm-backed-tool
1•rbbymls•43m ago•1 comments

Seattle's mayor waves goodbye to prosperity

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/05/01/seattle-mayor-katie-wilson-waves-goodbye-busin...
1•loeg•45m ago•0 comments