Why would I do that? Well, I wanted to understand more deeply how differences in my prompting might impact the outcomes of the model. I also wanted to get generally better at writing prompts. And of course, improving at controlling context and seeing how models can go off the rails. Just by being better at understanding these patterns, I feel more confident in general at when and how to use LLMs in my daily work.

I think, in general, understanding not only that earlier models are weaker, but also _how_ they are weaker, is useful in its own right. It gives you an extra tool to use.

I will say, the biggest findings for "weaknesses" I've found are in training data. If you're keeping your libraries up-to-date, and you're using newer methods or functionality from those libraries, AI will constantly fail to identify with those new things. For example, Zod v4 came out recently and the older models absolutely fail to understand that it uses some different syntax and methods under the hood. Jest now supports `using` syntax for its spyOn method, and models just can't figure it out. Even with system prompts and telling them directly, the existing training data is just too overpowering.

I'll admit to being a "one prompt to rule them all" developer, and will not let a chat go longer than the first input I give. If mistakes are made, I fix the system prompt or the input prompt and try again. And I make sure the work is broken down as much as possible. That means taking the time to do some discovery before I hit send.

Is anyone else using many smaller specific agents? What types of patterns are you employing? TIA

1. https://github.com/humanlayer/advanced-context-engineering-f...

And what about users like this, whose comment are very much entirely LLM generated and possibly even a bot? https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=BelVisgarra

  - Learning French and Japanese
  - Drinking tea and exploring tea culture
  - Playing Geoguessr (or in my case, Geotastic) to see different places in the world and just generally have a fun time figuring out languages, and unique traits of different countries and cultures
  - Reading and watching science fiction, lots and lots of it!
  - Coding. I really do love writing code.
  - Trying to improve my communication skills, and ability to break down and describe tasks. It relates to AI, but also relates to working and interacting with other humans. :)
  - Working
  - Hanging out with my family
  - Eating yummy food that I enjoy
  - Doing crosswords
  - Playing video games
  - Writing
  - Rock climbing, other physical activities like walking or doing a quick work out
  - Cleaning and fixing the home.

I think optimally, you'd do something more akin to a "group ironman" with some friends. This guarantees you've got others around.

An example I've seen is find and replace in a file, instead of using the built-in editor tool, or a tool such as sed, possibly combined with regular expressions.

What are your thoughts?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44243442

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Edit: Amending to mention that there are companies that do quite well at upholding standards. To those, thank you for trying.

I like doing 4g of Japanese sencha leaves, 80-100mL of water, at 60-70C for 30s to a minute. Second steep 10 seconds, and third 30-40 seconds. But honestly the fun is in experimenting! (plus at lower temperatures you can drink it right away!)

1. https://americanaddictioncenters.org/alcohol/withdrawal-deto...