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> the extension detects tokens and sends the code to an LLM > The LLM generates documentation so, not documentation? Why not write your own engine and detect
by ramon156 10mo ago
> the extension detects tokens and sends the code to an LLM
> The LLM generates documentation
so, not documentation? Why not write your own engine and detect the official docs? e.g. docs.rs would do this wonderfully
- sampsonj 10mo agoThe LLM approach is simpler and more flexible since it works with every library and language out of the box. Looking up official documentation would require shipping sophisticated parsers for each language, plus a way to map tokens to their corresponding docs. I'd also need to maintain those mappings as libraries evolve and documentation moves. Some ecosystems make this easier (Rust with docs.rs), but others would be much harder (AWS documentation, for example). I also want explanations visible directly in hover hints rather than linking out to external docs. So even with official documentation, I'd need to extract and present the relevant content anyway. Beyond that, the LLM approach adapts to context in ways static docs can't. It generates explanations for code within the documentation you're reading, and it works on code that doesn't compile, like snippets with stubs or incomplete examples. It could be interesting in the future to look into doing some type of hybrid approach where an LLM goes out and searches up the documentation, that way it's a little bit more flexible. But that would also be a bit slower and more costly.
- nativeit 10mo ago> The LLM approach is simpler For whom? The whole reason I want to consult docs is to get the official documentation on a given topic. How could I trust anything it says, and what’s to say any earned trust is durable over time?
- almostgotcaught 10mo ago> For whom? what is the name for this kind of pointless, lazy, selective, quoting that willfully misconstrues what's being quoted? the answer to this question is incredibly clear: for the developer that created this tool. if that makes you unhappy enough to malign them then maybe you should just not use it?
- sampsonj 10mo agolol thank you, I was just going to respond to them. One thing I should mention too is that if it were at all practical to build without using generative AI, someone would have built something similar years ago before LLMs.
- jagged-chisel 10mo agoIf there’s any amount of irony in your comment, I’m missing it - and I apologize for that. That said, people have built this without LLMs years, even decades, ago. But UX has fallen by the wayside for quite some time in the companies that used to build IDEs. Then some fresher devs come along and begin a project without the benefit of experience in a codebase with a given feature … and after some time someone writes a plugin for VSCode to provide documentation tooltips generated by LLM because “there is just no other way it can be done.” We have language servers for most programming languages. Those language servers provide the tokens one needs to use when referencing the documentation. And it would be so much faster than waiting for an LLM to get back to you. TBH, if anyone’s excuse is “an LLM is the only way to implement feature Q,” then they’re definitely in need of some experience in software creation.
- freedomben 10mo agoI don't think you're wrong, but question: it's the weekend, you have an idea for something like this that you want to crank out. Is it really better for you to never ship because it takes a long time to build, or is it better to be able to ship using something like an LLM? In my opinion the shipped product is better than the unshipped product. While of course I would prefer the version that you have designed, I sure don't have time to build it, and I'm guessing you don't either. If this was our day jobs and we were being paid for it, it would be a much different story, but this is a hobby project made open source for the world.
- jagged-chisel 10mo agoI’m going to get the LLM to assist me in building it. The shipped product is not going to rely on the LLM. That’s how I get it done over a weekend.
- ramon156 10mo ago> Looking up official documentation would require shipping sophisticated parsers for each language, You could just token match (use tree-sitter or something similar) and fetch the official docs. Keep it dead-simple so there's no way you can provide false positives (unlike what's happening rn where hallucinations will creep in). > It generates explanation Again, I don't want that. It's not a feature, it's a limitation that right now gives you fake information.
- nativeit 10mo agoOh…I guess this isn’t the documentation-surfacing droids I’m looking for. I could see getting actual docs being useful. Spitting out the delusions of an LLM is pretty well covered already, at least in my stack.
- jagged-chisel 10mo agoVery little “engine” required - use an existing language sever, map tokens to URLs, done.