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by nfRfqX5n 462 days ago
there is this weird addictive thing with AI coding. found myself just sending prompts over and over and hoping the next one would finally get it right. sending a prompt and going and doing something else, but mostly end up with a huge mess
2 comments

it's the slot machine effect, plain and simple.

it's even worse if you're paying for tokens because there's a sunk cost! it feels like if you just tweak the prompt a little and put in another quarter and pull the lever again, this time it'll put out a totally correct result

Your prompts aren't good enough. Imagine you're writing to another person, you need to give them good context or else you wouldn't expect much from them either.

edit: sometimes I also find myself in this state. Lately, instead of grinding on some obscure piece of code (or engineering problem in general) in between my dreams, I'll be... churning on it in English, and even dreaming up the response.. this goes on in cycles.