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by 1_08iu 372 days ago
If people feel that they need to learn different language patterns in order to communicate effectively in their native language with an LLM then I'm not sure if I agree. I think that if your native language truly was a programming language then there wouldn't be any need for prompt engineering.

Regardless, I think that programmers are quite well-suited to the methods described in the article, but only in the same way that programmers are generally better at Googling things than the average person; they can imagine what the system needs to see in order to produce the result they want even if that isn't necessarily a natural description of their problem.

1 comments

As an engineer, if you’ve had a skilled Project Manager you’ve receive detailed, thoughtful “prompts” on how to complete a project that leads to a shared understanding. But with unskilled Project Managers you might receive a vague “prompt” that leads to ambiguity and misalignment. And Project Managers can go through training or read books on how to effectively “prompt” (aka communicate) more effectively.

When I say that your native language is now a programming language, I mean that you are now the Project Manager, and the code is generated automatically. But because the code is auto-generated, the focus shifts towards the “prompt” as the first and potentially only step in generating code.