Comment by sour-taste | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sour-taste | Hacker News Reader

Most interesting part to me, the prompts:

https://github.com/context-labs/autodoc/blob/83f03a3cee62d6e...

> You are acting as a code documentation expert for a project called ${projectName}. Below is the code from a file located at \`${filePath}\`. Write a detailed technical explanation of what this code does. Focus on the high-level purpose of the code and how it may be used in the larger project. Include code examples where appropriate. Keep you response between 100 and 300 words. DO NOT RETURN MORE THAN 300 WORDS. Output should be in markdown format. Do not say "this file is a part of the ${projectName} project". Do not just list the methods and classes in this file. Code: ${fileContents} Response:

This basically matches my experience in trying to get it to do the right thing. BEING VERY EXPLICIT AND ANGRY WORKS TO REINFORCE A POINT. Specifically telling it to not do a thing it will otherwise do is often necessary.

The only part that surprises me is `Output should be in markdown format`. Usually being that vague results in weird variation in output; I'd have expected a formatted example in the prompt for GPT to copy.

It understands most things without being given examples in my experience. Being explicit is helpful. Being angry is likely inconsequential, but I can't say for sure since I never felt the need TBH. What I can say is that the bot has become spookily like a person, "someone" that I conceive as helpful, courteous and friendly, albeit sometimes wildly wrong in spite of the assertive tone in the response.

I'll probably get used to it over time, as I get a deeper sense of how it works, and how it differs from real persons. ATM the distinction is blurred.

There's a subreddit where people post angry prescriptive memos or notices from their terrible bosses, and this would fit right in.

Quick, someone make a project which gets ChatGPT to answer those memos

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