I need a script to build a graph of some Wikipedia pages. Instead of coding it myself, I experimented with using an LLM to generate it for me. After spending two hours in front of my computer, here is the prompt I have written:
It is a short prompt if you remove the JSON sample. You might think it shouldn't take two hours to write—but think again.
Programming is the process of instructing a computer on exactly what to do. So, when I was writing the prompt, I was designing how the script would work. At the same time, I had to figure out how to gather the right data by studying the best way to retrieve it.
The resulting prompt is a pseudocode-level specification. The time invested was worth it because it worked right away. There were minor bugs, but they were very easy to fix.
Here is what Grok 3 commented:
In short, the prompt’s apparent simplicity hides a dense web of interlocking steps, each requiring careful thought, validation, and articulation. Two hours is reasonable for distilling such a process into a coherent set of instructions, especially if you were simultaneously designing the workflow and documenting it. It’s a bit like writing code and its documentation at the same time—except you’re doing it in natural language, which adds an extra layer of effort to keep it intuitive yet precise.
Yes, you can do Vibe Coding—blindly accepting AI suggestions, copying error messages, and hoping for the best for hobby projects. If you are working on real projects with deadlines, it is better to learn software engineering properly.
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