zlacker

"But I can assure you that "pandas count unique values column 'Foo'" is just as effective an LLM prompt as "Using pandas, how do I get the count of unique values in the column named 'Foo'?""

How can you be so sure? Did you compare in a systematic way or read papers by people who did it?

Now I surely get results giving the llm only snippets and keywords, but anything complex, I do notice differences the way I articulate. Not claiming there is a significant difference, but it seems to me this way.

>>lukan+(OP)
> How can you be so sure? Did you compare in a systematic way or read papers by people who did it?

No, but I didn't need to read scientific papers to figure how to use Google effectively, either. I'm just using a results-based analysis after a lot of LLM usage.

>>mjr00+C1
Well, I did needed some tutorials to use google efficently in the old days when + meant something specific.

>>mjr00+C1
Other people don't have benefit of your experience, though, so there's a communications gap here: this boils down to "trust me, bro."

How do we get beyond that?

>>skybri+56
This is the gap between capability (what can this tool do?) versus workflow (what is the best way to use this tool to accomplish a goal?). Capabilities can be strictly evaluated, but workflow is subjective. Saying "Google has the site: and before: operators" is capability, saying "you should use site:reddit.com before:2020 in Google queries" is workflow.

LLMs have made the distinction ambiguous because their capabilities are so poorly understood. When I say "you should talk to an LLM like it's a computer", that's a workflow statement; it's a more efficient way to accomplish the same goal. You can try it for yourself and see if you agree. I personally liken people who talk to LLMs in full, proper English, capitalization and all, to boomers who still type in full sentences when running a Google query. Is there anything strictly wrong with it? Not really. Do I believe it's a more efficient workflow to just type the keywords that will give you the same result? Yes.

Workflow efficiencies can't really be scientifically evaluated. Some people still prefer to have desktop icons for programs on Windows; my workflow is pressing winkey -> typing the first few characters of the program -> enter. Is one of these methods scientifically more correct? Not really.

So, yeah -- eventually you'll either find your own workflow or copy the workflow of someone you see who is using LLMs effectively. It really is "just trust me, bro."

>>mjr00+Ba
Maybe it would help if more people wrote tutorials? It doesn't seem reasonable for people who don't have a buddy to learn from to have to figure it out on their own.