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Context is king. Start out with Typescript and have it answer data science questions - won't know its way around. Start out with Python and ask the same quest

Context is king. Start out with Typescript and have it answer data science questions - won't know its way around. Start out with Python and ask the same question - great answers. LLMs can't (yet) really transfer knowledge between domains, you have to prime them in the right way.

christophilus 1y ago
Dunno. I was working on a side project in TypeScript, and couldn’t think of the term “linear regression”. I told the agent, “implement that thing where you have a trend line through a dot cloud”, or something similarly obtuse, and it gave me a linear regression in one shot. I’ve also found it’s very good at wrangling simple SQL, then analyzing the results in Bun. I’m not doing heavy data processing, but so far, it’s remarkably good.
- whoknowsidont 1y ago
  Linear regression is a non-niche, well understood topic that's used in many other domains other than data science. However, asking it to implement "that thing that groups data points into similar groups" needs a bit more context (I just tried it) as K-means is very much specific to machine learning.
  - throw2342412314 1y ago
    From a fresh session: initial prompt: Start a new typescript file. It will be used for data science purposes second prompt: Implement that "that thing that groups data points into similar groups" The output was a full function implementing K-means (along with a Euclidean distance function). https://chatgpt.com/share/68420bd4-113c-8006-a7fe-c2d0c9f91d51 https://chatgpt.com/share/68420bd4-113c-8006-a7fe-c2d0c9f91d...
    - whoknowsidont 1y ago
      >It will be used for data science purposes Doesn't this ruin / ignore the point we're discussing? I don't think anyone thought otherwise?
0points 1y ago
That's your made up magical explanation right there dude. Every day tech broism gets closer to a UFO sect.
- LPisGood 1y ago
  I think it’s not really a magical explanation; it’s pretty grounded in how LLMs work. Obviously how exactly they work still isn’t fully explained, but calling basic principles magical is too far in my opinion.
  - apwell23 1y ago
    > how LLMs work. maybe to gp but i thought no one knows how they work.
nxobject 1y ago
I see that as applying to niche platforms/languages without large public training datasets - if Rust was introduced today, the productivity differential would be so stacked against it that I’m not sure it would hypothetically survive.

christophilus 1y ago

Dunno. I was working on a side project in TypeScript, and couldn’t think of the term “linear regression”. I told the agent, “implement that thing where you have a trend line through a dot cloud”, or something similarly obtuse, and it gave me a linear regression in one shot. I’ve also found it’s very good at wrangling simple SQL, then analyzing the results in Bun. I’m not doing heavy data processing, but so far, it’s remarkably good.

whoknowsidont 1y ago
Linear regression is a non-niche, well understood topic that's used in many other domains other than data science. However, asking it to implement "that thing that groups data points into similar groups" needs a bit more context (I just tried it) as K-means is very much specific to machine learning.
- throw2342412314 1y ago
  From a fresh session: initial prompt: Start a new typescript file. It will be used for data science purposes second prompt: Implement that "that thing that groups data points into similar groups" The output was a full function implementing K-means (along with a Euclidean distance function). https://chatgpt.com/share/68420bd4-113c-8006-a7fe-c2d0c9f91d51 https://chatgpt.com/share/68420bd4-113c-8006-a7fe-c2d0c9f91d...
  - whoknowsidont 1y ago
    >It will be used for data science purposes Doesn't this ruin / ignore the point we're discussing? I don't think anyone thought otherwise?

0points 1y ago

That's your made up magical explanation right there dude. Every day tech broism gets closer to a UFO sect.

LPisGood 1y ago
I think it’s not really a magical explanation; it’s pretty grounded in how LLMs work. Obviously how exactly they work still isn’t fully explained, but calling basic principles magical is too far in my opinion.
- apwell23 1y ago
  > how LLMs work. maybe to gp but i thought no one knows how they work.

nxobject 1y ago

I see that as applying to niche platforms/languages without large public training datasets - if Rust was introduced today, the productivity differential would be so stacked against it that I’m not sure it would hypothetically survive.