5 ms·

Not sure if something like this is already on the table, but I would like to see Claude responses more in line with Simplified Technical English [1] by default.

by NL807 1mo ago

Not sure if something like this is already on the table, but I would like to see Claude responses more in line with Simplified Technical English [1] by default. I find those writing styles a lot easier to read. This has been standardised as ASD-STE100 [2]. I've seen few people making SKILL.md files with that in mind, which works great, but having this by default without invoking the skill command would be better. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Technical_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Technical_English 2. https://asd-ste100.org/ https://asd-ste100.org/

smashed 1mo ago
I must have missed something but can't you just prompt it to answer in your desired style? What am I missing here. Commenting because I am struggling with this too, claude code seems to be so verbose no matter how I prompt it.
- lukan 1mo ago
  You miss that it is not just your prompt but also the various system prompts, plus how the model was trained. But you can reduce the verbosity (also with a setting in /config).
  - kolinko 1mo ago
    And memory and code comment styles - i think that’s a big one people forget about. You can prompt it all you want, when it sees elaborate comments in memory and code it will follow the style
    - lukan 1mo ago
      But you can prompt it to reduce the verbocity of the comments as a project in itself - I will probably try Fable 5.1 for this.
- grey-area 1mo ago
  Training is far more important than user prompts
- troupo 1mo ago
  You can prompt it, and it almost immediately forgets. Or context compaxtion purges ut. Or it somewhat communicates with you in it, but writes all comments and docs in its original bloated style. Training supersedes random markdown files and prompts
- spuz 1mo ago
  No, training tends to override system prompts at lot of the time.
- crazylogger 1mo ago
  Let's say Claude Code's system prompt is updated to recommend responding in Simplified Technical English. It'll work for the current generation of models. But Anthropic will train the next generation via RL on Claude Code traces as they do today. As long as they don't change their reward design, the next generation is going to be pulled towards Claudish again, because speaking Claudish gives higher rewards, so in the end the prompt doesn't really matter. Ideally these things shouldn't work like this but this seems to be the sorry state of RL right now.
streetfighter64 1mo ago
By default? I doubt it would be useful or desirable for 95% of users. I'm guessing most people find natural language easiest to read, STE seems to be like a project almost akin to Esperanto or Lojban.
- troupo 1mo ago
  STE is a much more natural language than whatever Anthropic's models produce: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49528326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49528326
  - streetfighter64 29d ago
    I don't know, in my experience the chat output has been fairly natural. The quoted sentence seems to be from some "model internals". Of course that can be incomprehensible, what an AI assistant is really doing is just statistically generating text with some bells and whistles to make it do useful stuff. Poking around in the internals doesn't seem like a good use of time? Comparable to cat:ing a compressed file, of course you get garbage. I'm talking about the value of making the output in STE style, which doesn't seem useful. The value of having internal stuff in a given writing style would have to be evaluated as to whether it improves model performance.
    - troupo 28d ago
      > The quoted sentence seems to be from some "model internals". I get these kinds of responses all the time. > I'm talking about the value of making the output in STE style, which doesn't seem useful. It is extremely useful. Because model output is literally what you wrote: "statistically generating text with some bells and whistles to make it do useful stuff". And in the past few months all Anthropic models have been outputting insanely bloated jargon-laden bullshit. If I see another "this leg of the decision tree holds the simple fact", I will scream. I don't want this "internal" monologue when it talks to me, writes documents, or outputs comments in code. It's so bad that Anthropic employees have admitted it, including the top-voted comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49525809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49525809
gls2ro 1mo ago
IMO that would be a mistake because Simplified Technical English cannot properly represent business domains specifically when talking about using specific concepts from those domains. It can explain those concepts but I think it will fail short or naming them. So I think making that default as it is will create bugs. I ran an experiment here https://allaboutcoding.ghinda.com/explain-to-me-in-simple-technical-english https://allaboutcoding.ghinda.com/explain-to-me-in-simple-te... (of course it is fit to my usage) see section "What about understanding and facts" and ASD-STE100 fails, in my experiment, to return facts as I have defined them in those cases compared with no instruction or just saying "use Simple Technical English".
- farbklang 1mo ago
  Well that is why it is technical English. I wouldn't use it to explain business concepts, but it is perfect for explaining logical flows and how something works.
  - gls2ro 1mo ago
    I was replying to someone saying to make this the default. While this is good for _technical english_ it is not a good default as a good default should work for most of the people in most of the cases. IMHO the case for explaining logical flows and how someting works is just one case even when using Claude Code in programming so a default will not make sense.
    - NL807 29d ago
      >I was replying to someone saying to make this the default. Fair criticism and I see your point. Perhaps making this as one of the optional defaults writing styles (amongst others) would be better.
crossroadsguy 1mo ago
If someone has a way to tame GLM into doing this then please… As a workhorse, GLM is so good, but goodness, its prose, wherever needed, makes me feel like going to a park and kicking all the benches there endlessly. And it doesn't change!
- ivan_gammel 1mo ago
  I have instructions to combine style of Brooks, Steven King and Economist Style Guide, while avoiding anything that may put wrong emphasis („genuinely“, „load-bearing“) does not contribute anything meaningful („X rather than Y“). The output is quite good* so far even on Opus 4.7-5, when it concerns product requirements. The key is to identify the pattern and focus on the meaning of the undesirable language. * chemistry + regulations + infosec domains
  - crossroadsguy 1mo ago
    I've tried controlling it via fine-tuning Claude.md and in-session messages/instructions. It always results in failure and then "Yes, guardrails are already there. I still failed" and it feels like "I am like this. Deal with it". I've even tried languages that avoids negatives e.g. "Don't.." "never.." etc. Nope. Just doesn't work.
    - ivan_gammel 26d ago
      Few more tips to make failures more rare: 1. interactive orchestrator just ensures that process is followed and the progress towards North Star objective is steady and with predictable quality. 2. Agents use specific skills which have output gates, one of which is always quality of writing and reasoning. Orchestrator accepts work only if gate criteria are met. This is going to make work much slower and token consumption higher. ROI from fixed rate subscriptions is still quite good. ROI from volume-based subscriptions needs to be watched carefully.
KellyCriterion 1mo ago
Why not include this in your initial prompt when starting the session or into the global base prompt?
- nickstinemates 1mo ago
  Because skill adherence is awful, especially after a few turns.
fugaziboutit 1mo ago
"All people agree on this rule. A single man with high wealth must find a wife." -- Jane Austbot
- OrangeMusic 1mo ago
  I don't get your comment. Care to explain?
  - Bluestein 1mo ago
    I am guessing "simple English will help your dating life"? (If, any. Or, code).-
  - kees99 1mo ago
    If I have to guess, GP tried to translate following quote from Jane Austen into ASD-STE100: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
    - knollimar 1mo ago
      They gave a point that it sort of inverts tbe meaning
  - semi-extrinsic 1mo ago
    That's the opening line to Pride and Prejudice, where Jane Austen (I guess the "bot" part of the name is intentional) states something that many people of the time would superficially agree on, but which is intended to be highly ironic. I guess the point of GP (and of Jane Austen) is that people never actually universally agree on anything. And when they superficially do, there is actually a large undercurrent of disagreement. Another fun quote apropos here would be "I love standards, there are so many to choose from"
    - schnitzelstoat 1mo ago
      I think the joke is that he massively simplified the line down into simplified English. But I think that's fine as I don't want Claude to write literature, I want it to solve problems.
KptMarchewa 1mo ago
I've told ai to distill Google's developer documentation style guide and IMO it works much better. https://developers.google.com/style https://developers.google.com/style
killerstorm 1mo ago
Eh? STE is designed for procedural writing, e.g. "if you have a problem, press this button". I generally don't ask advanced AI to give me step-by-step instructions.
instagraham 1mo ago
[dead]

by NL807 1mo ago

smashed 1mo ago

I must have missed something but can't you just prompt it to answer in your desired style? What am I missing here. Commenting because I am struggling with this too, claude code seems to be so verbose no matter how I prompt it.

lukan 1mo ago
You miss that it is not just your prompt but also the various system prompts, plus how the model was trained. But you can reduce the verbosity (also with a setting in /config).
- kolinko 1mo ago
  And memory and code comment styles - i think that’s a big one people forget about. You can prompt it all you want, when it sees elaborate comments in memory and code it will follow the style
  - lukan 1mo ago
    But you can prompt it to reduce the verbocity of the comments as a project in itself - I will probably try Fable 5.1 for this.
grey-area 1mo ago
Training is far more important than user prompts
troupo 1mo ago
You can prompt it, and it almost immediately forgets. Or context compaxtion purges ut. Or it somewhat communicates with you in it, but writes all comments and docs in its original bloated style. Training supersedes random markdown files and prompts
spuz 1mo ago
No, training tends to override system prompts at lot of the time.
crazylogger 1mo ago
Let's say Claude Code's system prompt is updated to recommend responding in Simplified Technical English. It'll work for the current generation of models. But Anthropic will train the next generation via RL on Claude Code traces as they do today. As long as they don't change their reward design, the next generation is going to be pulled towards Claudish again, because speaking Claudish gives higher rewards, so in the end the prompt doesn't really matter. Ideally these things shouldn't work like this but this seems to be the sorry state of RL right now.

streetfighter64 1mo ago

By default? I doubt it would be useful or desirable for 95% of users. I'm guessing most people find natural language easiest to read, STE seems to be like a project almost akin to Esperanto or Lojban.

troupo 1mo ago
STE is a much more natural language than whatever Anthropic's models produce: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49528326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49528326
- streetfighter64 29d ago
  I don't know, in my experience the chat output has been fairly natural. The quoted sentence seems to be from some "model internals". Of course that can be incomprehensible, what an AI assistant is really doing is just statistically generating text with some bells and whistles to make it do useful stuff. Poking around in the internals doesn't seem like a good use of time? Comparable to cat:ing a compressed file, of course you get garbage. I'm talking about the value of making the output in STE style, which doesn't seem useful. The value of having internal stuff in a given writing style would have to be evaluated as to whether it improves model performance.
  - troupo 28d ago
    > The quoted sentence seems to be from some "model internals". I get these kinds of responses all the time. > I'm talking about the value of making the output in STE style, which doesn't seem useful. It is extremely useful. Because model output is literally what you wrote: "statistically generating text with some bells and whistles to make it do useful stuff". And in the past few months all Anthropic models have been outputting insanely bloated jargon-laden bullshit. If I see another "this leg of the decision tree holds the simple fact", I will scream. I don't want this "internal" monologue when it talks to me, writes documents, or outputs comments in code. It's so bad that Anthropic employees have admitted it, including the top-voted comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49525809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49525809

gls2ro 1mo ago

IMO that would be a mistake because Simplified Technical English cannot properly represent business domains specifically when talking about using specific concepts from those domains. It can explain those concepts but I think it will fail short or naming them. So I think making that default as it is will create bugs. I ran an experiment here https://allaboutcoding.ghinda.com/explain-to-me-in-simple-technical-english https://allaboutcoding.ghinda.com/explain-to-me-in-simple-te... (of course it is fit to my usage) see section "What about understanding and facts" and ASD-STE100 fails, in my experiment, to return facts as I have defined them in those cases compared with no instruction or just saying "use Simple Technical English".

farbklang 1mo ago
Well that is why it is technical English. I wouldn't use it to explain business concepts, but it is perfect for explaining logical flows and how something works.
- gls2ro 1mo ago
  I was replying to someone saying to make this the default. While this is good for _technical english_ it is not a good default as a good default should work for most of the people in most of the cases. IMHO the case for explaining logical flows and how someting works is just one case even when using Claude Code in programming so a default will not make sense.
  - NL807 29d ago
    >I was replying to someone saying to make this the default. Fair criticism and I see your point. Perhaps making this as one of the optional defaults writing styles (amongst others) would be better.

crossroadsguy 1mo ago

If someone has a way to tame GLM into doing this then please… As a workhorse, GLM is so good, but goodness, its prose, wherever needed, makes me feel like going to a park and kicking all the benches there endlessly. And it doesn't change!

ivan_gammel 1mo ago
I have instructions to combine style of Brooks, Steven King and Economist Style Guide, while avoiding anything that may put wrong emphasis („genuinely“, „load-bearing“) does not contribute anything meaningful („X rather than Y“). The output is quite good* so far even on Opus 4.7-5, when it concerns product requirements. The key is to identify the pattern and focus on the meaning of the undesirable language. * chemistry + regulations + infosec domains
- crossroadsguy 1mo ago
  I've tried controlling it via fine-tuning Claude.md and in-session messages/instructions. It always results in failure and then "Yes, guardrails are already there. I still failed" and it feels like "I am like this. Deal with it". I've even tried languages that avoids negatives e.g. "Don't.." "never.." etc. Nope. Just doesn't work.
  - ivan_gammel 26d ago
    Few more tips to make failures more rare: 1. interactive orchestrator just ensures that process is followed and the progress towards North Star objective is steady and with predictable quality. 2. Agents use specific skills which have output gates, one of which is always quality of writing and reasoning. Orchestrator accepts work only if gate criteria are met. This is going to make work much slower and token consumption higher. ROI from fixed rate subscriptions is still quite good. ROI from volume-based subscriptions needs to be watched carefully.

KellyCriterion 1mo ago

Why not include this in your initial prompt when starting the session or into the global base prompt?

nickstinemates 1mo ago
Because skill adherence is awful, especially after a few turns.

fugaziboutit 1mo ago

"All people agree on this rule. A single man with high wealth must find a wife." -- Jane Austbot

OrangeMusic 1mo ago
I don't get your comment. Care to explain?
- Bluestein 1mo ago
  I am guessing "simple English will help your dating life"? (If, any. Or, code).-
- kees99 1mo ago
  If I have to guess, GP tried to translate following quote from Jane Austen into ASD-STE100: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
  - knollimar 1mo ago
    They gave a point that it sort of inverts tbe meaning
- semi-extrinsic 1mo ago
  That's the opening line to Pride and Prejudice, where Jane Austen (I guess the "bot" part of the name is intentional) states something that many people of the time would superficially agree on, but which is intended to be highly ironic. I guess the point of GP (and of Jane Austen) is that people never actually universally agree on anything. And when they superficially do, there is actually a large undercurrent of disagreement. Another fun quote apropos here would be "I love standards, there are so many to choose from"
  - schnitzelstoat 1mo ago
    I think the joke is that he massively simplified the line down into simplified English. But I think that's fine as I don't want Claude to write literature, I want it to solve problems.

KptMarchewa 1mo ago

I've told ai to distill Google's developer documentation style guide and IMO it works much better. https://developers.google.com/style https://developers.google.com/style

killerstorm 1mo ago

Eh? STE is designed for procedural writing, e.g. "if you have a problem, press this button". I generally don't ask advanced AI to give me step-by-step instructions.

instagraham 1mo ago

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