Comment by NL807
3 hours ago
Not sure if something like this is already on the table, but I would like to see Claude responses more in line with Simplified Technical English [1] by default. I find those writing styles a lot easier to read. This has been standardised as ASD-STE100 [2]. I've seen few people making SKILL.md files with that in mind, which works great, but having this by default without invoking the skill command would be better.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Technical_English
"All people agree on this rule. A single man with high wealth must find a wife." -- Jane Austbot
I don't get your comment. Care to explain?
That's the opening line to Pride and Prejudice, where Jane Austen (I guess the "bot" part of the name is intentional) states something that many people of the time would superficially agree on, but which is intended to be highly ironic.
I guess the point of GP (and of Jane Austen) is that people never actually universally agree on anything. And when they superficially do, there is actually a large undercurrent of disagreement.
Another fun quote apropos here would be "I love standards, there are so many to choose from"
If I have to guess, GP tried to translate following quote from Jane Austin into ASD-STE100:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
I am guessing "simple English will help your dating life"? (If, any. Or, code).-
I must have missed something but can't you just prompt it to answer in your desired style? What am I missing here.
Commenting because I am struggling with this too, claude code seems to be so verbose no matter how I prompt it.
Training is far more important than user prompts
No, training tends to override system prompts at lot of the time.
You miss that it is not just your prompt but also the various system prompts, plus how the model was trained. But you can reduce the verbosity (also with a setting in /config).
And memory and code comment styles - i think that’s a big one people forget about. You can prompt it all you want, when it sees elaborate comments in memory and code it will follow the style
You can prompt it, and it almost immediately forgets. Or context compaxtion purges ut. Or it somewhat communicates with you in it, but writes all comments and docs in its original bloated style.
Training supersedes random markdown files and prompts
IMO that would be a mistake because Simplified Technical English cannot properly represent business domains specifically when talking about using specific concepts from those domains. It can explain those concepts but I think it will fail short or naming them.
So I think making that default as it is will create bugs. I ran an experiment here https://allaboutcoding.ghinda.com/explain-to-me-in-simple-te... (of course it is fit to my usage) see section "What about understanding and facts" and ASD-STE100 fails, in my experiment, to return facts as I have defined them in those cases compared with no instruction or just saying "use Simple Technical English".
Well that is why it is technical English. I wouldn't use it to explain business concepts, but it is perfect for explaining logical flows and how something works.
If someone has a way to tame GLM into doing this then please…
As a workhorse, GLM is so good, but goodness, its prose, wherever needed, makes me feel like going to a park and kicking all the benches there endlessly. And it doesn't change!
I have instructions to combine style of Brooks, Steven King and Economist Style Guide, while avoiding anything that may put wrong emphasis („genuinely“, „load-bearing“) does not contribute anything meaningful („X rather than Y“). The output is quite good* so far even on Opus 4.7-5, when it concerns product requirements. The key is to identify the pattern and focus on the meaning of the undesirable language.
* chemistry + regulations + infosec domains
Why not include this in your initial prompt when starting the session or into the global base prompt?
Because skill adherence is awful, especially after a few turns.
By default? I doubt it would be useful or desirable for 95% of users. I'm guessing most people find natural language easiest to read, STE seems to be like a project almost akin to Esperanto or Lojban.
STE is a much more natural language than whatever Anthropic's models produce: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49528326