Thread

1. anthuswilliams · 1790353553 · focus · HN ↗

   One interesting quirk of the AI-written READMEs these days is how they can include every detail on how it works, thoroughly document every optional flag, known limitation, experimental result, and still not communicate the essence of the project and the problem it solves.

   I have read through the project and I still don't understand what this thing is for and why it is to be preferred over the harness's native memory management tools.

   1. simonw · 1790353678 · focus · HN ↗

      Yeah, I've started dialing back my use of AI for READMEs because of this.

      My previous rule was that I never use AI for writing that expresses my own opinions or tries to be convincing (anything on my blog for example) but I'll let it do technical documentation.

      The top of a README is about convincing and explaining why I built something though, which means it should fit my no-AI policy after all.

      1. Marha01 · 1790356093 · focus · HN ↗

         Just prompt the AI to keep README concise and to the point, and to remove any implementation details that don't belong in README-style documents. I regularly run such debloating/decluttering prompts on my docs.

         1. genxy · 1790357095 · focus · HN ↗

            I don't understand people leveling criticisms at the output of AI, when that is exactly how you program them. Have people all forgotten the "prompt engineer" phase of our roles?

            Give them 2 positive examples. A list of things to do, a list of things not to do and you have them giving you the exact output you want.

            "Write a readme make no misteaks" is not deft usage.

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