I spend 90% of the tokens on understanding and clarifying the problem and let the last 10% generate an answer
jmward01 on Hacker News
90% of the tokens on understanding and clarifying the problem
In the thread “LLMs can be exhausting”
Helped: Caging problems into small, obvious pieces for syntax generation.
Got in the way: Generating prototype code with hidden bugs and defensive patterns.
… By the time I am actually ready to touch the real code I have often written and re-written the problem statement/plan and expanded it to several files and some test code. I tell the other devs at my company that I spend 90% of the tokens on understanding and clarifying the problem and let the last 10% generate an answer. If I don't do that then I get prototype code that won't survive a single feature change and likely has intentionally hidden bugs, or 'defensive' code as some like to call them (try, except, ignore is a common claude pattern). …