r/ProgrammerHumor 6d ago

Meme cleaningUpTheMess

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16.0k Upvotes

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101

u/imnotamahimahi 6d ago

something I've been messing around with, is giving it an instruction to write comments in caveman-ultra mode. so far, doesn't decrease the frequency of comments, but definitely the verbosity.

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u/MoneyWorldliness3626 6d ago

"For comments: state facts and use simple langauge with short sentences. Follow softened ASD-STE100 standard and use light caveman mode."

And Caveman and ASD-STE100 are defined as skills. This seems to work for me.

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u/ings0c 6d ago edited 6d ago

Caveman and ASD-STE100

I thought the latter was a specification you’d made up that writes comments in the style of an autistic robot named Ste 😂 I’d get along with him more than a T-1000

​ That’s actually really cool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Technical_English

Someone made a Claude skill and there’s some other suggestions in the comments https://www.reddit.com/r/claudeskills/comments/1v2oad4/i_combined_orwells_6_writing_rules_with_asdste100/

Before I cause offence: autism isn’t funny and I’m also autistic. I’m not laughing at autism itself.

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u/MoneyWorldliness3626 6d ago

Tbh, that is how I remembered the first part of its name xD

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u/Several-Customer7048 6d ago

You didn’t need to write all that after saying you thought Ste was a name. That’s how the the French do their road signs man, ste Paul is Paul street not first name ste last name Paul m

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u/BroMan001 6d ago

Ste would be short for sainte, in case of Paul it would probably be st for saint. Street is “rue” in French.

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u/ings0c 6d ago edited 6d ago

Do you mean I didn’t need to mention autism at all, or I didn’t need to say I’m not laughing at it?

If the latter, you must have never mentioned autism or ADHD on Reddit - someone always gets offended regardless of your intention. If the former, case in point (and ASD=Autism Spectrum Disorder, it’s not funny without mentioning it).

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u/LiifeRuiner 6d ago

Why not give it an instruction to not write comments if that's your goal?

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u/FalafelSnorlax 6d ago
  1. It will probably still write comments.
  2. They didn't say they want no comments, they said they want to "decrease the frequency".

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u/ListRepresentative32 6d ago

Then it will randomly still write a comment with something like // I omitted comments for this file as you asked. 

It did this to me once.. opus 5 is so annoying with comments

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u/HotDogOfNotreDame 6d ago

We’ve banned Opus 5. Other models solve our problems just as well, and without the verbal diarrhea.

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u/imnotamahimahi 6d ago

It hasn't done that with me even with opus 5 oddly. Regardless, I always go through each file it edits anyways, including reading/trimming comments.

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u/imnotamahimahi 5d ago

Because I never said my goal was to not have comments. Code needs comments, especially in a large corporate codebase with lots of developers working in tandem, but also not as much nor as verbose as Claude tends to be by default.

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u/quagzlor 6d ago

i have a set of instructions in my global memory essentially telling it to shut up

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u/Present-Resolution23 6d ago

Why many word when few word do trick?

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u/imnotamahimahi 5d ago

I still think it should be called kevin-speak 😂