Comment by embedding-shape
13 hours ago
I don't know exactly, but I guess in a more declarative manner rather than anything. Maybe we set goals/milestones/concrete objectives, or similar, rather than imperatively steer it, give it space to experiment yet make it very easy to understand exactly what important tradeoffs everything is doing.
It's all very fluffy and theoretical of course.
I think the problem is that models are just not that good yet. At least for my usage at work, the CLI tools are the fastest way to get something useful, but if you can't describe basically exactly what you want, you get garbage.
They are good enough, but people aren't exploring other UIs enough. The TUI tools (which I think you're referring to, Codex, Claude Code et al) are a good start, but they feel like a prototype compared to a completely different UI. You'd still describe what you want, but not imperative in a chat window, but some other manner.
I find a good compromise on that front is not to use the chat primarily, but to create files like 'ARCHITECTURE.md', 'REQUIREMENTS.md' and put information in there describing how the application works. Then you add those to the chat as context docs.From the chat interface then you are just referring to those not just describing features willy nilly. So the nice thing is you are building documentation for the application in a formal sense as part of instructing the LLM.
But that is the typical agentic LLM coder style program I was initially referring to, saying we maybe should explore other alternatives to. It's too basic and primitive, with some imagination.
The typical "best practice" for these tools tend to be to ask it something like
"I want you to do feature X. Analyse the code for me and make suggestions how to implement this feature."
Then it will go off and work for a while and typically come back after a bit with some suggestions. Then iterate on those if needed and end with.
"Ok. Now take these decided upon ideas and create a plan for how to implement. And create new tests where appropriate."
Then it will go off and come back with a plan for what to do. And then you send it off with.
"Ok, start implementing."
So sure. You probably can work on this to make it easier to use than with a CLI chat. It would likely be less like an IDE and more like a planning tool you'd use with human colleagues though.