Define “prompt” [LWN.net]

Define “prompt”

Posted Oct 16, 2025 7:03 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: Define “prompt” by SLi
Parent article: The FSF considers large language models

> According to lore, some programmers talk to rubber ducks to solve their problems.

I have a stuffed Tux on my desk for exactly that reason (although I rarely use it).

But how often has explaining the problem to a colleague resulted in you solving it, often without a word from said colleague? That's why a rubber duck / stuffed Tux / whatever is such a useful debugging aid. It might feel weird holding a conversation with an inanimate object, but don't knock it. It works ...

Cheers,
Wol

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Define “prompt”

Posted Oct 16, 2025 11:48 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] (1 responses)

I've been finding that typing the explanation like I was talking to coworkers in a group chat works just as well as saying it out loud, and putting it in a version-controlled file that I clear out before making a pull request often results in having some great phrasing to use in the documentation or commit message, even though the original form would be useless in organization outside of an unfinished topic branch. This also results in some great information when I come back to a preempted project a few months later and want to know what I said to the duck when I was working on it.

Of course, it means I have a file in version control which says that it's a list of explanations of the issues I'm facing with features in progress, and then doesn't have anything else in any mainline commit.

Define “prompt”

Posted Oct 16, 2025 16:04 UTC (Thu) by SLi (subscriber, #53131) [Link]

I agree. Often even better when you put some time into it.

But I think writing clearly in a non-dialog setting is a skill that perhaps even most engineers lack. I think all engineers should be taught technical writing (I know my university didn't for me). Many don't even seem to realize it's a rather different skill set.