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How I write software with LLMs

stavros.io

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Re: How I write software with LLMs

#201

Post by stavros »

cpt_sobel wrote: post #84
qsera wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is easier to be polite always and not switch between polite and non-polite mode depending on who you are talking to.

I get what you're saying, but I'm not talking about swearing at the model or anything, I'm only implying that investing energy in formulating a syntactically nice sentence doesn't or shouldn't bring any value, and that I don't care if I hurt the model's feelings (it doesn't have any). Note, why would the author write "Email will arrive from a webhook, yes." instead of "yy webhook"? In the second case I wouldn't be im…

It's just easier for me to write that way. In that specific sentence, I also kind of reaffirmed what was going on in my head and typed my thought process out loud. There's no deeper logic than that, it's just what's easier for me.

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#203

Post by layer8 »

cpt_sobel wrote: post #84
qsera wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is easier to be polite always and not switch between polite and non-polite mode depending on who you are talking to.

I get what you're saying, but I'm not talking about swearing at the model or anything, I'm only implying that investing energy in formulating a syntactically nice sentence doesn't or shouldn't bring any value, and that I don't care if I hurt the model's feelings (it doesn't have any). Note, why would the author write "Email will arrive from a webhook, yes." instead of "yy webhook"? In the second case I wouldn't be im…

> investing energy in formulating a syntactically nice sentence

It would cost me energy to deliberately not write with proper grammar and orthography. I would never want to write sloppily to a colleague either.

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#205

Post by stavros »

christofosho wrote: post #2

I like reading these types of breakdowns. Really gives you ideas and insight into how others are approaching development with agents. I'm surprised the author hasn't broken down the developer agent persona into smaller subagents. There is a lot of context used when your agent needs to write in a larger breadth of code areas (i.e. database queries, tests, business logic, infrastructure, the general code skeleton). I'v…

I don't think that splitting into subagents that use the same model will really help. I need to clarify this in the post, but the split is 1) so I can use Sonnet to code and save on some tokens and 2) so I can get other models to review, to get a different perspective.

It seems to me that splitting into subagents that use the same model is kind of like asking a person to wear three different hats and do three different parts of the job instead of just asking them to do it all with one hat. You're likely to get similar results.

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#206

Post by make_it_sure »

miguelgrinberg wrote: post #151

> One thing I’ve noticed is that different people get wildly different results with LLMs, so I suspect there’s some element of how you’re talking to them that affects the results. It's always easier to blame the prompt and convince yourself that you have some sort of talent in how you talk to LLMs that other's don't. In my experience the differences are mostly in how the code produced by the LLM is reviewed. Develope…

you are overestimating the skill of code review. Some people have very specific ways of writing code and solving problems which are not aligned what LLMs wrote, but doesn't mean it's wrong.

I know senior developers that are very radical on some nonsense patterns they think are much better than others. If they see code that don't follow them, they say it's trash.

Even so, you can guide the LLM to write the code as you like.

And you are wrong, it's a lot on how people write the prompt.

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#207

Post by ozgrakkurt »

miguelgrinberg wrote: post #151

> One thing I’ve noticed is that different people get wildly different results with LLMs, so I suspect there’s some element of how you’re talking to them that affects the results. It's always easier to blame the prompt and convince yourself that you have some sort of talent in how you talk to LLMs that other's don't. In my experience the differences are mostly in how the code produced by the LLM is reviewed. Develope…

Unfortunately it is impossible to ascertain what is what from what we read online. Everyone is different and use the tools in a different way. People also use different tools and do different things with them. Also each persons judgement can be wildly different like you are saying here.

We can't trust the measurements that companies post either because truth isn't their first goal.

Just use it or don't use it depending on how it works out imo. I personally find it marginally on the positive side for coding

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#208

Post by stavros »

jumploops wrote: post #20

This is similar to how I use LLMs (architect/plan -> implement -> debug/review), but after getting bit a few times, I have a few extra things in my process: The main difference between my workflow and the authors, is that I have the LLM "write" the design/plan/open questions/debug/etc. into markdown files, for almost every step. This is mostly helpful because it "anchors" decisions into timestamped files, rather than…

I don't know if I explained this clearly enough in the article, but I have the LLM write the plan to a file as well. The architect's end result is a plan file in the repo, and the developer reads that.

You can see one here: https://github.com/skorokithakis/sleight-of-hand/blob/master...

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#209

Post by stavros »

ashwinsundar wrote: post #11
plastic041 wrote: post #9

I wanted to know how to make softwares with LLM "without losing the benefit of knowing how the entire system works" and "intimately familiar with each project’s architecture and inner workings", while "have never even read most of their code". (Because obviously, you can't.) But OP didn't explain that. You tell LLM to create something, and then use another LLM to review it. It might make the result safer, but it does…

Hot take: you can't have your cake and eat it too. If you aren't writing code, designing the system, creating architecture, or even writing the prompt, then you're not understanding shit. You're playing slots with stochastic parrots The code grows beyond my usual comprehension, I'd have to really read through it for a while. Sometimes the LLMs can't fix a bug so I just work around it or ask for random changes until i…

There are two ways to approach this. One is a priori: "If you aren't doing the same things with LLMs that humans do when writing code, the code is not going to work".

The other one is a posteriori: "I want code that works, what do I need to do with LLMs?"

Your approach is the former, which I don't think works in reality. You can write code that works (for some definition of "works") with LLMs without doing it the way a human would do it.

Re: How I write software with LLMs

#210

Post by stavros »

xhale wrote: post #23

Hi, anyone has a simple example/scaffold how to set up agents/skills like this? I’ve looked at the stavrobots repo and only saw an AGENTS.md. Where do these skills live then? (I have seen obra/superpowers mentioned in the comments, but that’s already too complex and with an ui focus)

These skills live in my home directory, that's why they aren't in the repos. I can upload them if you want.
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