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The approach of treating the LLMs like a junior engineer that is uninterested in learning seems to be the best advice, and correctly leverages the existing intu
by alphazard 1y ago
The approach of treating the LLMs like a junior engineer that is uninterested in learning seems to be the best advice, and correctly leverages the existing intuitions of experienced engineers.
Spend more time on interfaces and test suites. Let the AI toil away making the implementation work according to your spec. Not implementing the interface is a wrong answer, not passing the tests is a wrong answer.
If you've worked in software long enough you will have encountered people who are uninterested in learning or uncoachable for whatever reason. That is all of the LLMs too. If the LLM doesn't get it, don't waste your time; it will probably never get it. You need to try a different model or get another human involved, same as you would for an incompetent and uncoachable human.
As an aside: my advice to junior engineers is to show off your wetware, demonstrate learning and adaptation at runtime. The models can't do that yet.
- giancarlostoro 1y agoWhat's really funny is, if you copy its output, and start a new prompt, and ask it "From the perspective of Senior / Staff level engineer, what is wrong with this code?" and you paste the code you got from the LLM, it will trash all over its own code with a fresh mind. Technically you can do it in the existing prompt, but sometimes LLMs get a bug up their butts about what they've decided is reality all of a sudden. When switching context in any way, I start a new prompt.
- lomase 1y agoI never use LLMs but what happens if you use the same code and write: "From the perspective of Senior / Staff level engineer, what is good about this code" Does it praise it?
- giancarlostoro 1y agoProbably points out the bits it got correct I suppose.
- svieira 1y ago"This is a clever usage of the too—little—used plus operator to perform high performance addition"
- jeffrallen 1y agoYou're absolutely right! /s
- mierz00 1y agoI do this to code I have personally written as well. Taking a step back and reviewing all my changes gives a different perspective and often find things I didn’t see when in the weeds.