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>Defaults are bad. Agents can be expected to read the documentation, register what good starting values are, and fill them all in, in place. This is not what d

>Defaults are bad. Agents can be expected to read the documentation, register what good starting values are, and fill them all in, in place. This is not what defaults are for. If, for example, you are writing a replacement CLI for git, *for the love of God and all that is holy* do not force agents to read the entire documentation and pass a value for every possible parameter

benswerd 3mo ago
Why not? The docs for git clone at https://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone https://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone are less than 4000 tokens, I don't think this is unreasonable.
- CoolestBeans 3mo ago
  Because the defaults aren't just for convenience, the API designer is also making the parameters they think should be used the most have the least resistance. Good example is runtime parameters like in the JVM. You shouldn't start with having to tune your JVM, you probably want a middle of the road place to start with even if you know you're going to tune it.
  - benswerd 3mo ago
    im not opposed to good defaults, i just believe they should be explicit. The AI should read the starting.md to fill in explicitly what its JVM configuration is. Then, when you want to tune in the future its clear what options are available and what specifically is changing.
    - grim_io 3mo ago
      I can't parse this. If you explicitly define recommended values, those are not what I consider "defaults".
- tyre 3mo ago
  Because LLMs degrade with context length. And even if they didn't, having to constantly ingest the same stuff is wasteful for execution and cost. Why stuff the context when you don't have to?
  - benswerd 3mo ago
    Conservatively speaking, LLMs degrade past 40% of a 2M context window, 4k tokens is 0.2%, so no degradation there. Thats also current generation conservative estimate. I think wasteful is an irrelevant metric. Claude ingests those tokens in a quarter of a second, if it causes it to catch any bug ever it saves far more time than it ever uses. Any individual default that causes unexpected behavior causes more problems, takes more time and costs more than the small cost of being explicit.
    - mohamedkoubaa 3mo ago
      Boiling frog problem
      - tyre 3mo ago
        the Electron problem

benswerd 3mo ago

Why not? The docs for git clone at https://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone https://git-scm.com/docs/git-clone are less than 4000 tokens, I don't think this is unreasonable.

CoolestBeans 3mo ago
Because the defaults aren't just for convenience, the API designer is also making the parameters they think should be used the most have the least resistance. Good example is runtime parameters like in the JVM. You shouldn't start with having to tune your JVM, you probably want a middle of the road place to start with even if you know you're going to tune it.
- benswerd 3mo ago
  im not opposed to good defaults, i just believe they should be explicit. The AI should read the starting.md to fill in explicitly what its JVM configuration is. Then, when you want to tune in the future its clear what options are available and what specifically is changing.
  - grim_io 3mo ago
    I can't parse this. If you explicitly define recommended values, those are not what I consider "defaults".
tyre 3mo ago
Because LLMs degrade with context length. And even if they didn't, having to constantly ingest the same stuff is wasteful for execution and cost. Why stuff the context when you don't have to?
- benswerd 3mo ago
  Conservatively speaking, LLMs degrade past 40% of a 2M context window, 4k tokens is 0.2%, so no degradation there. Thats also current generation conservative estimate. I think wasteful is an irrelevant metric. Claude ingests those tokens in a quarter of a second, if it causes it to catch any bug ever it saves far more time than it ever uses. Any individual default that causes unexpected behavior causes more problems, takes more time and costs more than the small cost of being explicit.
  - mohamedkoubaa 3mo ago
    Boiling frog problem
    - tyre 3mo ago
      the Electron problem