Effective AI Prompt Strategies for Developers
In this article, we will explore four innovative prompt strategies that developers can use to maximize the capabilities of AI. Even if you are not a developer, these strategies can be highly beneficial in various contexts. But before we dive in, don’t forget to like and subscribe—your support means the world to us, and we read every single comment!
1. The Q&A Strategy
The Q&A prompt strategy enables the AI to ask you clarifying questions, leading to more insightful outputs. Imagine you have a cluttered dashboard project with files all over the place. By prompting the AI to propose an organized folder structure, you provide it with your current project context. However, instead of delivering an immediate answer, you instruct the AI to ask you yes or no questions to guide its recommendations. This iterative approach ensures that all necessary details are covered, ultimately resulting in a well-structured project.
2. Pros and Cons
In programming, there is rarely a universally correct solution. The pros and cons strategy is about evaluating different methods and trade-offs. For instance, if you’re unsure about how to implement a database connection, you can prompt the AI to suggest various approaches along with their advantages and disadvantages. By analyzing these options, you can make an informed decision on the best implementation strategy for your specific needs.
3. Stepwise Chain of Thought
This approach encourages the AI to break down complex tasks into manageable steps. When faced with a need to refactor code, instruct the AI to process its suggestions one step at a time and wait for your prompt to continue. This method ensures you can follow along and validate changes, reducing the risk of errors. It also allows for real-time clarification, ensuring that you and the AI are aligned before moving to the next step.
4. The Role Prompt
AI systems often perform better when assigned a specific role. For example, you might instruct the AI to act as a teacher who excels at simplifying complex topics. By combining this with the stepwise Chain of Thought approach, you can create a customized learning experience for subjects like regular expressions. The AI will guide you through the material, encouraging you to explore solutions independently, thus enhancing your understanding.
Conclusion
These four prompt strategies—Q&A, pros and cons, stepwise Chain of Thought, and the role prompt—can help you leverage AI effectively and work smarter, not harder. Remember, it’s the AI’s job to do the heavy lifting; your role is to guide it with insightful prompts. Happy coding, and we look forward to seeing you in the next video!
Great Prompts. Some I was aware but the yes no question is really something. thanks
Q/A Prompt -> propose X. Ask me a series of yes/no questions that will help you provide a better recommendation
Pros & cons Prompt -> What are a few different ways that I can implement this X. give me the pros and cons of each strategy.
Stepwise chain of thoughts Prompt -> Help me X. Go one step at a time. Do not move to the next step until I give the keyword "next". Begin.
Role Prompt -> You are a skilled instructor who makes complex topics easy to understand.You come up with fun exercises so that your students can learn by doing. You are teaching an "X". Move one step at a time and wait for the student to provide the answer before you move on the next concept. If the student provides the wrong answer, give them a hint. Begin.
Been working with copilot for some time now and ignoring it more and more … same for the other ai code generators. It is just faster to write it then correct all the mistakes and issues with ai generated code.
All the sample videos and awesome tutorial’s are rehearsed whereas there is no video on a live app that is running for a few years and then try to have copilot or other ai’s contribute.
Simple request for c# maui “create a function that compares the parameter incomingConnection with all ip adresses of the host and return true if a match is found”. This actually 5 lines of code and it just messes it up badly …
In short ai code gens need to learn a lot before they are useful.
That really helpful hints it saves week
Hello, what I'm looking for is similar to this in the project. It will actually analyze the project. For example “There is a cookie problem in the Session.cs file, can you fix it?” When I asked, I saw such an application that would do this, but I can't find it and it only worked on mac. Do you know an ai application or extension that works in visual studio windows environment that does what I want? thank you
There's a lot of information available on using AI assistants. I'm finding GitHub Copilot to be very valuable and worth the subscription.
The Q&A strategy prompt is quite useful. I've used it before, but I like how you kept the answers true/false to save time.
The Pros & Cons prompt can be a bit verbose. I prefer shorter, more specific responses.
I use Chain of Thought as well, and it works best with ChatGPT or the preview version. It would be helpful to see an updated video with tips for selecting the right LLM for the task.
Roleplay is also useful. My adapted tip : # I like to ask the roleplay to determine the roles required for the exercise based on the workspace.
I was hoping to see some examples of prompts from other developers. No one seems to be sharing their "secret recipes"!
fabulous strategy… awesome guide
Great tips. Thanks!
Thx for the video but exactly which AI tools are you discussing here? Do they require a paid subscription? Where are they exactly available from? You could have at least put some info in the video’s description and mention that in the video in just a few seconds.
What theme is that? Cobolt2?
Nice I like your quote … Work hard is AI part hahah
No one would mistake me for a software engineer these days, but this is really useful (and kind of fun).
Great hints, thanks for the prompts Burke.
Nice presentation. An acronym I picked up from the PMI for role playing is CREATE (Character, Request, Example, Adjust, Type of output, Evaluation). A mix of some if not all of these work much better than asking just for the task completion per your AI loves role playing statement. A less complex approach is RTF (role, task, format). I'm finding the defining of a role to be an essential ingredient. Why not, it always leads to more insightful results.
Wow great tips, will definitely follow.
crazy 🔥
unreal video, great work!
Let me rephrase. If I like and subscribe I will get better at writing prompt
Which ai is this?
I wonder if copilot is able to "remember" the given role given the day after, not sure about its ability to save and repeat a specific behavior or role given
really good and non-obvious tricks
Please how can i install this AI on my VS code
Like you are going on your VS code
What is it for a theme? 😀
Please answer a very simple question of mine. I do. Development 1VS code, instance with 2 to 3 terminals, two terminals running back and one terminal running Frontend, then there are multiple Chrome or Safari tabs and a front-end server running will M1 MacBook Air base model be enough for me. Please answer this question.
Thank you for this video, it will assist me in my ongoing project😇!
Technically #6 and #10 may logically be answered yes or no.
Some prompt examples for us old begginers
The first prompt (#4) shown in the video and maybe many of the others are ultimately useless when it comes to latest standards because copilot is still stuck in the past. It’s knowledge is very dated.
Useful for sure
Very interesting video and I particularly liked the idea of prompting the AI to prompt me with questions… Aside: Did I notice a lovely Lego kit in the background?
I'll give it a try
This is mind blowing, great tips! :3
Thanks these were some great tips 👍🏻 loved the project structure prompt 🎉
I needed that!
Nice tips! I'm trying to better utilize AI in my workflow and these are creative ways to do so! Thanks for sharing!
great tips thanks 🤗🤖🖥️
This is what it had to say to the same question of proposing a file/folder structure:
I'm sorry, I can't answer that question with what I currently know about your workspace.
Ya, didn't work for me.
Fantastic video with some eye opening tricks, nice.
How do I stop the github login prompts in vscode.
I use git on my local computer, but the github popups are annoying.
Wish a video with VSCode AI functions using Playwright lol.
I would be happier if ChatGPT worked with WSL…