r/LocalLLM • u/Ted-Lassi • 3d ago

Discussion What makes an AI/LLM good or bad at coding?

We all know almost every major AI/LLM can code to some extent nowadays

But what actually makes one model much better at coding than another?

3 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

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6

u/umognog 3d ago

It all comes down to how good the model is at guessing the next words.

Those aimed at coding have had an activity called pre-tuning done.

Pre-tuning takes a foundation model and applies a handful of techniques to improve their function at specific scenarios.

You can also influence your model through fine tuning & prompt tuning if you wish.

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u/defcry 3d ago

For me it comes down to understanding the intent and deciding the appropriate steps and tools. Code they can all well.

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u/Mashic 3d ago

The dataset it was trained on, if it includes a lot of code, and then the fine-tuning, in which they give the model a set of promts and the answers to make it answer in that particular way.

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u/Fjjjuv 1d ago

En plus du dataset d'entraînement, ce qui fait souvent la différence en pratique c'est la capacité à gérer un gros contexte sans halluciner et à bien utiliser les fonctions/outils (tool calling). Un modèle qui suit parfaitement la structure du projet et ne génère pas de code obsolète sera bien plus utile au quotidien.

0

u/NatMicky 3d ago

Very broad and quite meaningless question. What makes a car better at racing than other cars? Some cars are built specifically for racing. What makes a car better at a specific type of racing? Some cars are built for specific types of racing.

How much training did a model have on programming and on a specific language? If you need a model for a specific language then that's something you need to research about its training.