Hacker News Reader

Comment by ekusiadadus | Hacker News Reader

Markdown is certainly easy for humans to write, but as OpenAI pointed out last week, wouldn’t an XML-based format be easier for LLMs to parse and understand?

View on HN

> but as OpenAI pointed out last week

What are you referring to here?

https://cdn.openai.com/API/docs/gpt-5-for-coding-cheatsheet....

From OpeAI's last week document for coding with gpt5.

> #3. Use XML-like syntax to help structure instructions

I don't know if GPT-5 is an exception and is overcooked on XML specifically, but in general Markdown and XML seem to work about equally well for LLM inputs, the important part is just that they like hierarchical structured formats. The example on that page could probably be replaced with:

  ## Code Editing Rules

  ### Guiding Principles

  - Every component should be modular and reusable
  ...

  ### Frontend Stack Defaults

  - Styling: TailwindCSS

Without any meaningful change in effectiveness.

LLMs should make it easier for us, not the opposite

they are just moving goal posts because agents still largely suck for everything except a couple of super saturated problem domains that really shouldn’t require anything special from a dev anyways

Reply on news.ycombinator.com